hi guys does anybody work in this part of the industry and if you do could you give me some info as to what wages are like and what employers like ecm are like to work for
cheers
steve
Hi thomo.
Not done it for a while but had nearly 5 years at it from 2000 to 2004. I was on for Walon who were ok apart from a few prats in the office. (Like most places)
Be prepared to drive a cut down cabbed motor, do 4 nights out a week & worry yourself sick until you get used to it. You should earn some of the best wages out there.
Good luck.
cheers for the response
why would you worry yourself sick doing car transporters is it stressful
You’ll get a couple of weeks training on what is probably the one of the most complicated vechicles on the road. Once trained & you get your first trip they’ll give you a list of up to 12 cars, vans or 4x4s etc to load.
Thats when it gets a little tricky.
Idealy you’ll put them on in drop order but certain cars won’t fit in certain decks or in the place you need to put them. Then once you’ve worked out how to get them on you have to put them on. If you’re reversing a £60,000 pound car onto a tight deck or onto the peak it can get a little scary. However once you get loaded & under 16 feet (not always the easiest thing to do) you’ll get out on the road. As you’re driving along you’ll be worrying if you’ve strapped down all the cars well enough as well as looking at motorway bridges, and then it will be overhanging trees on the A roads that can make a mess of a brand new car. As cars overtake they you’ll notice passengers looking at the load as they go by and it makes you think there migt be something wrong.
It takes a while to get used to but is a very rewarding job once you get used to it.
One word of warning. Don’t accept a car transporter job unless it pays a good deal more than driving an ordinary truck. It ain’t worth it.
once again thanks for your replies i love a challenge and dont mind a bit of hard graft could you enlighten me a little bit as to what wages you wuold expect to achieve doing this line of work cheers
steve
When I left Walon I was on £35000 a year for trunking on nights, Mon to Fri, no more than 10 hours a night.
When the trunking came to an end some of the drivers went roaming & it was normal to earn £1000 a week before stoppages.
It all depends where abouts in the country you are based & if the company pays a bonus. I was paid an hourly rate plus £4 per car & £6 per van moved. If you carried 11 cars in each direction you already had a £88 bonus on top of your hourly pay. Do this every shift & you can earn some serious dosh every week
It worked both ways for us though. For example if your motor was in for MOT it could be off the road for a week & all you were paid was £45 a day, but you stayed at home. That was the time to phone the agency and get yourself a night on the supermarkets.
Life’s a Gas:
You’ll get a couple of weeks training on what is probably the one of the most complicated vechicles on the road. Once trained & you get your first trip they’ll give you a list of up to 12 cars, vans or 4x4s etc to load.Thats when it gets a little tricky.
Idealy you’ll put them on in drop order but certain cars won’t fit in certain decks or in the place you need to put them. Then once you’ve worked out how to get them on you have to put them on. If you’re reversing a £60,000 pound car onto a tight deck or onto the peak it can get a little scary. However once you get loaded & under 16 feet (not always the easiest thing to do) you’ll get out on the road. As you’re driving along you’ll be worrying if you’ve strapped down all the cars well enough as well as looking at motorway bridges, and then it will be overhanging trees on the A roads that can make a mess of a brand new car. As cars overtake they you’ll notice passengers looking at the load as they go by and it makes you think there migt be something wrong.
It takes a while to get used to but is a very rewarding job once you get used to it.
One word of warning. Don’t accept a car transporter job unless it pays a good deal more than driving an ordinary truck. It ain’t worth it.
Absolutely spot-on info!
Hi all first post so be gentle.
I’ve been on the transporter game for some 18 years now, and the above posts are good.
I have a couple of reservations though.
Training wise, you’ll ONLY get 2 weeks proper training if you are lucky enough to get in with the likes of ECM or Walon, they to be fair do the training properly, as it should be, this is not a simple job, and you have to keep your wits about you at all times, you’ll be doing very well to get on either without experience though.
I have met drivers scratching their heads before now, and still do, that have been sent out on their own with ONE days training on an artic (getting rarer now, the artics that is), and only 3 or 4 days on one of the newer range of trucks ie. 11 or 12 plus or eurolohr.
Let me tell you honestly that when you first get one of these newer transporters they are terrifying even when youve had years driving older more simple stuff.
IMO, its better to try and learn the job on one of the older more simple trucks to begin with.
The loading combinations of the new trucks are almost unlimited and the potential for damage is the same.
Earnings wise, yes you can earn up to say 45K IF you get on the right company (and get the right work) and you wont for a long time, its one of those jobs where the best jobs are usually word of mouth, and dead mens shoes.
In reality some of the pay schemes of the smaller outfits are terrible, and please treat most of the bragging with a pinch of salt, typical example, some of the pay schemes guarantee you say 10 or 15 quid bonus for driving over 8 hours or going over a certain mileage or something, but that is not payable if you have a night out, so if youve done a hard day you are actually having a NO for 6 or 7 quid.
I used to train ■■■■■■!!? drivers on a previous firm and IMO out of say 20 truck drivers only 1 will still be driving trannies!!? in a years time.
This is not knocking anyone, its a job like no other and it doesn’t suit everyone, some of the fellers were long time served general haulage guys, but the driving part of this job is only probably 10% of what the job entails.
The trucks can be very unstable on the road, if you look very carefully at the configuration, you will see the newer vehicles are basically a 2 or 3 axle tractor towing a trailer, but its not a semi trailer as the towing hitch is behind the drive axle, and the trailer axles are not at the absolute rear, so compare the vehicle with a swb land rover towing a bleedin great 30 foot caravan (you understand what i’m getting at), they can be a handfull.
The artics even though youve got the peak to worry about, and thats a whole new world of problems, are very stable, as are the older lorry and drag designs where the prime mover truck is big and heavy enough to control the trailer.
In summary, yes it can be a good game to be on, but it can take a long time, and good fortune to get the right job, but if youve got a good logistics job paying over 32K, with pension etc, i’d think very carefully about making the move unless your convinced its for you.
I do agree with the other poster, dont do this job unless there’s at least 5K extra in it.
remember this was my first post so dont rip me to shreds you old uns.
Spot on Juddian.
I’ve never had the pleasure of one of the new style transporters with the small unit & huge drag.
I cut my teeth on a 9 car artic (Hoyner) & that peak takes some getting used to. Next I had a Lohr wagon & drag but the trailer was only double deck & was the quickest & easiest to load. Then I ended up on a traditional 5 on the unit 6 on the drag outfit but can’t remember what make it was.
I’d recomend the job to anyone but try & get in with the big boys & make sure you’re rewarded well for the tough job that it is.
Hi Life’s a Gas, yep i first got a new plus 11 on a 55 plate after trying all ways including pleading not to have the blasted thing.
I’d mainly had until recently the 10 car lohr mk4 cake stand lorry and drag, and i still believe they are one of the best transporters ever made, until our firm decided to sell them off . I reckon your last truck could have been a ‘charles roberts’ if they were screw decks or a good old hoyner if they were hydraulics with air locks, mind you there were all sorts on the firm then.
Dont know why all the carriers have been so quick to try and ditch the older simpler designs, far fewer moving parts, and much easier for loading.
I know cars have got higher and longer, but with a little modifying some of the older trucks had years left in them (and they were mostly paid for), ah well such is the way of progress.
When i got the eleven plus it took me 12 months before i could even look at a load on the ground and know instinctively where and how to put it (sure there’s a mucky joke there somewhere).
Had a fm at first and that could be terrifying in the wet with a dodgy load on it, got a scan now with twin steer, and that is a lot better, but with that bleedin useless automated manual gearbox thing (you can probably tell how much i like it).
I dread to think how new lads to the job are supposed to learn the ropes with these new designs, talk about throwing the poor buggas in at the deep end.
Dare say you were based at Portbury, dont get down there too often, but the canteens good.
Regards
Dare say you’re right mate, but not on the mainsite. We were based in the Toyota yard the other side of the Asda RDC.
I started on a Scotch trunk, Charnock Richard services & back, on nights using the artic. When that finished I went on the Burnaston trunk. A good job until it finished. I left to move to Ibiza before the most of the other drivers were offered redundancy.
That last truck I had was a Charles Roberts with a FL10 under it. S reg I think & not even in Walon livery! It was yellow & dark green. It was old but reliable.
Happy days.
Im trying my hardest to get onto the big frims, applied a few times now, only heard back from one saying no. This is a job i really wanna have a go at and earn the money with it to. It just seems so hard for someone with no experience in this industry to get a job, Ive had my class 1 for 2 years now and hoping that a transporter company will let me try and prove that i can work hard and do the job, im not old so will have plenty of years with the right firm. I will keep trying untill i succeed.
Neil b, to be honest its going to be hells own job getting a start with no experience on one of the big firms, possibly a mate could put a word in if you know someone.
If you really want to get on the cars, and i will probably get shot down for saying this, but its probably the last part of our industry that the foreigners haven’t ruined…YET.
You will have to get a start on one of the smaller operators (and some of the fast growing firms are a con for the drivers), you’ll find out which ones if you get a start.
It will be horrible working for many of the smaller firms, but if you stick with it, and learn the ropes you will be much more desirable to a proper company.
I think a lot of very good long term haulage drivers have transfered onto the transporter game in the last few years, and i think my first sentence may be a lot of the reason, its been good for the transporter operators as they’ve picked up some skilled drivers.
In a way you can understand why the bigger firms only want experienced transporter people (and there are a few women doing the job who are very competent), it takes IMO about 5 years of using various equipment before you can really become totally confident in the job, and the damage new drivers cause can be considerable, thats not to say that us old hands dont ■■■■ it up every now and again.
All i can suggest to anyone who wants to get on the cars is to note the names of transporter company’s trucks as they see them and look up their numbers and pester them.
Funny thing though, have you noticed how old most of us transporter people are , the industry really could do with some younger blood, trouble is can the younger drivers do a days work, day in day out and still turn up on monday without having to get over the weekends hangover.
EDIT, sorry just reread this as it could be misconstrued that i was saying that you couldn’t do the work needed, it wasn’t meant like that, and no offence meant.
Good luck with the search though. (sorry i tend to waffle)
i will do that same thing take note of the companies as i see them on the road, an keep on at them,
Being young doesn’t mean your unreliable, the end of 2007 i had to work all of xmas and new year being the fact that i work a 4 on 4 off shift pattern and doesn’t matter if its xmas day or a normal day of the week im always there on time and havn’t been off sick for over 5 years.
At some stage transporter companies will have to start recruiting younger drivers as the more experienced older drivers leave for retirment no disrepect to the older drivers on our roads i have great respect for them as im new on the road, but this is going to happen at some point. But i can see where the companies come from when looking for new staff, the insurance and trainng issues they have to deal with.
Hope that all makes some sense ive started to waffle now.
Neil
Juddian:
I have met drivers scratching their heads before now, and still do, that have been sent out on their own with ONE days training on an artic (getting rarer now, the artics that is), and only 3 or 4 days on one of the newer range of trucks ie. 11 or 12 plus or eurolohr.
That’s all I got, then thrown in the deep end. T’was only on a 9-car but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just cover for hols with them but the first day is always a head scratcher.
As for working with the big boys I don’t think I could do the job 52 weeks a year, even for the money. My arse is sore from the twitching after a week never mind a year.
Stan
Do you know Stan, i have no sympathy whatsoever for a company that chucks a driver out on their own after 1 or 2 days training on a car carrier.
Inevitably the poor bugga is going to do some serious damage, and then gets it in the neck from the company, i shall never get my head round it.
I reckon your doing well to be able to pick the job up so quickly as your sort of doing holiday relief, personally i think thats worse than doing it all the time, and i reckon you should try for one of the better jobs, unless of course youre happy where you are.
I’ve got a few days off, and i know it takes some getting used to just the size of the motor when i get back in, let alone loading the thing.
Neil B, i wish you good luck in your search. I used to do 4 on 4 off in the 80’s on nights, bit strange going to work at 6 pm Christmas night.
fancying a go at this to does any1 have any numbers of contact i.e. walton ecm and so if they up north east of the country cheers…
Juddian:
I reckon your doing well to be able to pick the job up so quickly as your sort of doing holiday relief, personally i think thats worse than doing it all the time, and i reckon you should try for one of the better jobs, unless of course youre happy where you are.
I wouldn’t mind doing holiday relief for the likes of Walon/ ECM (who both have yards near me) but the PL/ GiT insurance would be a killer. Depends.
Stan
Ecm are always advertising for drivers in one of the truck magazines either t&d or trucking
had a go at this for a week NOOOOOO not for me!!! I have to take my hat off to you transporter drivers never been so nervous in my life 
Have to agree though it was with a small company where time was money only got 2 days training which I can tell you is noware near enough!!!