as he wastes bucket loads of money on servicing and inspecting all of our trucks twice as often as is actually required.
That depends on his o licence too and the time specified for inspections.
A friend of mibe who runs tippers has to have safety inspections every 3 weeks and his brother who only runs one truck as a subbie has to inspect them at 6 weeks.
Alfred Hymers used to say that he was happy if his trucks made £1 per day profit. That is fine with 500 trucks, when you have one its a bit more critical
The new breed of hauliers with fan clubs are probably running at 50p profit per truck
hmm, alot of figures being touted about here alot of which don’t seem to add up to me.
i’ve been working as an o/d for six months so i’m no expert but what i have learnt is for my six wheeler which i bought cash second hand at nine grand has to make £1500 a week minimum to actually make anything like a decent wage out of it,thats based on a small amount of finance,i borrowed ten grand to start up which went on operators license, tax and seven grand on my first wagon which i then part ex’d for my current lorry which meant putting in another three grand of my hard earned so actually on paper i’ve not earned any money out of the job so far! most supprissing is the fact that maintainence is by far the biggest cost per week before fuel with my repair bills averaging £90 per week over the six months,that’s with six weekly inpections and no unforessen disasters like the engine going,just routine stuff. £1500 a week is fairly easy to attain if your busy everyday and do a bit on saturday morning but try and average that over a period of say three months and it’s impossible when you take into account the days when your not busy and down time for the wagon,you’ve got to right off a day for the inpections because it’s garaunteed there’ll be something that wants doing and garages that are charging an hourly rate arn’t gona kill em selves to get you back on the road.
i’ve considered going to artic next year simply because of the volume of work available but from what i’ve seen the rates are crap,a for instance is a job i’ve just done,2x load sheffield to bridgend now my rate was £360 a load which is ok but no big earner,the same yard has just been quoted ten artic loads to the same job at £280 a load,now at £280 knowing how much fuel i’ve used with the six wheeler theres nothing in the job so basicaly the firm thats doing it are banking on getting something to come back with to make any money even though on drivers hours it would be impossible to do this drop and then pick up a load to come back with in the same day.
perhaps this is a bad example and theres better paying jobs to go at but when you talk in terms of doing two grands worth of haulage a week to make the job pay i think you’d have to be a very brave man to take on a three year finance deal unless you’ve got some sort of contracted work to go at.
i’d be interested to know what the actual running costs are of a second hand tractor unit which i suppose would have in theory less maintaince costs than a six wheeler assuming your pulling someone elses trailor?
Maintanance costs are pretty much impossible to calculate due to too many unknown unknowns, to quote Donald Rumpsfelt but I would have thought £90 per week is a bit steep as an average, although working it over as little as 6 mths can make one large expense look pretty daunting. Who are you using for your maintanace and inspections etc, I have an ERF and a Merc, if I have to take them to there respective dealers it costs me nearly £55 per hour with inspections being £117, but at the local commercial gerage I use its £25 per hour and £60 for inspections. I’d be happy to give you the full figures for my two, just Email me.
i use the garage where i park,£45 per hour. i suppose that the maintainence figures are going to come out on the high side with both wagons i’ve owned being the best part of ten years old.
i’l email for some more info if thats ok mate.
The new breed of hauliers with fan clubs are probably running at 50p profit per truck
I heard that a while back Malc, that some of these trucks were making very little profit. But, if after everything is paid, i.e. Driver, vehicle payments, maintainence (probably on full R & M anyway). fuel, road tax (No insurance, they’re not insured as such) then £10 a week profit on 1000 trucks will do very nicely thank you!
but I would have thought £90 per week is a bit steep as an average, although working it over as little as 6 mths can make one large expense look pretty daunting. Who are you using for your maintanace and inspections etc, I have an ERF and a Merc, if I have to take them to there respective dealers it costs me nearly £55 per hour with inspections being £117, but at the local commercial gerage I use its £25 per hour and £60 for inspections. I’d be happy to give you the full figures for my two, just Email me.