Car Hauler Load Planner: Which Cars to Carry and Where

Which cars should go on the trailer, and on which deck?

Paste the vehicles you are offered along one route, each with its pickup mile and drop mile, and describe your trailer. The tool tries every combination of cars and decks, keeps only the ones that fit at every pickup along the way, and returns the load that nets the most, with the lowest pay worth taking for each car.

Arithmetic on the figures you type. Not dispatch, safety, legal or financial advice. The example board is made-up placeholder data, not any carrier's or broker's.

Your trailer and costs

Lower deck length (ft)

Upper deck length (ft, 0 if none)

Payload for all vehicles (lb)

Legal gross weight minus your truck and trailer weight.

Upper deck weight cap (lb, optional)

Blank means only the payload limits it.

Lower deck only above (lb, optional)

Vehicles heavier than this are never put on the upper deck.

Gap between vehicles (in)

Cost per detour mile ($)

Fuel, driver time and wear on miles off the main route.

Handling cost per vehicle ($)

Securing, inspection photos and paperwork.

Vehicles offered (one per line)

Each line: label, type or length in inches, weight in pounds, pay, pickup mile, drop mile, and optionally detour miles. Types: compact, sedan, suv, pickup, van, hdpickup (weight can then be left blank). Miles are measured along your route from its start. A first line with column names is ignored. Up to 24 lines.

Offers

Questions haulers ask

Which cars should I take off the load board for one trailer?

List the vehicles you are offered on one route with their type or length, weight, pay, pickup mile and drop mile, and describe your trailer: lower deck, upper deck, payload and the weight the upper deck can take. The tool searches every combination of cars and decks, keeps only those that fit at every point along the route, and returns the set that nets the most after detour miles and handling.

What is the lowest pay worth taking for a car?

For each offer the tool re-solves the whole load with that car forced in or banned. For a car in the best plan it shows how far its pay could drop before the plan without it is as good. For a car left behind it shows the pay at which it would just earn its place. Use it as a counter-offer floor for that trailer on that day.

Does it know my trailer's real deck and axle limits?

No. It uses the deck lengths, payload and upper-deck cap you type, plus a vehicle length and weight table you can override per line. Axle weights, ramp angles, height limits and the order cars must be loaded and unloaded in are not modelled, so a plan it likes may still need a driver's check on the ground.

Is the answer exact?

The search is exact for the offers and limits you give, and the page says so; if a very large board exhausts the search budget it says the result is the best found rather than proven. It is arithmetic on figures you type, not dispatch, safety, legal or financial advice.

Not decided

Axle and bridge weights, height and ramp limits, the order cars must come off in, reshuffling cars between decks along the way, inoperable or oversized vehicles, driver hours, deadhead to the first pickup, fuel price changes, broker fees, and whether the listed pay will actually be paid. Each car keeps its deck for the whole trip here. Treat the output as a ranked starting point and check the load against your own trailer.

Related tools: the owner-operator load chain planner (which truckload to run next), the owner-operator cost-per-mile calculator and the truck detention pay calculator.