I recently inherited my father’s 2016 Peterbilt 579 truck and 53’ GD reefer. Its been sitting idle for about a year while I’ve been waiting for probate to get sorted out and I’m about to actually get the title to it. I’m weighing a few options and am hoping for some advice:
1) **Sell it**. Obviously this would be the quickest and easiest option, but I’m having a hard time figuring out the best way is to sell a truck this size/price without losing most of the upside to a dealer. I’m also having a hard time estimating the price I’d get for it. I don’t know much about trucks, but do know that my father raved about his truck being custom and having a bunch of upgrades. Its also stored in a different state than I live in, so would be challenging to deal with the sale.
2) **Start a trucking company**. This is somewhat of a crazy idea, but I like the idea of having the asset continue to generate income for me rather than selling it. I don’t know much about the trucking business, but I have started and run other businesses successfully and my wife is savvy and currently not working, so she could handle a lot of the back office stuff. Is there a way to ballpark what the P/L would look like after hiring a driver and paying expenses just to see if its worth running rather than selling?
3) **Lease it**. Would it be an option to lease the truck to someone else to operate? Would still let me generate a return on the truck but without having to run the day to day.
Thanks in advance – having a hard time figuring out the best way to deal with this.
