chris140472:
chaversdad:
yeh but you get your breaks on the bay while your tipping…don’t youYou can but that will not increase the number of hours you can drive in the 12 hour shift. If it is not moving your not earning.
The deal is the supermarket pay a set amount for the 12 hour shift, irrespectful of the number of hours driven by the driver or distance covered by the truck.
Herongate:
Things to consider…Its not the Supermarket you would work for, it’s their contractor (ie Wincanton, Nobbies, K&N etc etc)
What RDC work would you be doing? delivery to stores more likely?
Which of the four would do all the paperwork / invoicing? would they therefore have to do less driving? would their share of the take change?
How would you cover 6 week inspections, MOT, servicing?
If Driver A runs 2 hours late, does Driver B take over and only 10hrs to keep Driver C on his shift or do 12hrs and Driver C then starts late and so on… if Driver B does less hours, does he get less pay?
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It doesn’t matter who we work for.
Delivery to stores.
All drivers would do in-cab invoicing during POA.
Replacement hire vehicle.
If driver A is running late, Driver B would relieve him after 12 hours
in our fleet car. Anywayz, flexibilty is our middle name.
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Fleet car ?
You are going to be paying a lot of money for a contract hire with clauses to have a suitable replacement vehicle delivered to a location of your choice to cover six weekly PMIs, to be delivered at the drop of a hat to cover a defective vehicle or accident damage. Otherwise one of your two drivers is going to be delivering vehicles, sitting in workshop reception, or collecting his oppo from the dealer instead of ‘working’. When there simply aren’t any hire vehicles to be had because it’s the run up xmas and an ecu or a sensor has spat its dummy out, you are going to end up not only idle, but upsetting your customer.
There are a lot of yea and nay points made on the operators’ forum under ‘pulling supermarket trailers’.
Legend_Scania:
Fleet car ?
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Definately not. Can’t stand yellow.
Ours would be a blue robin.
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cav551:
You are going to be paying a lot of money for a contract hire with clauses to have a suitable replacement vehicle delivered to a location of your choice to cover six weekly PMIs, to be delivered at the drop of a hat to cover a defective vehicle or accident damage. Otherwise one of your two drivers is going to be delivering vehicles, sitting in workshop reception, or collecting his oppo from the dealer instead of ‘working’. When there simply aren’t any hire vehicles to be had because it’s the run up xmas and an ecu or a sensor has spat its dummy out, you are going to end up not only idle, but upsetting your customer.There are a lot of yea and nay points made on the operators’ forum under ‘pulling supermarket trailers’.
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We are lucky in so much that the hire company, workshop & testing station are
very local.
I don’t bother with other forums on here, they dilute the contributions.
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Dieseldoforme:
Legend_Scania:
Fleet car ?
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Definately not. Can’t stand yellow.Ours would be a blue robin.
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Even on the coldest day the ones in my garden are still red and brown.
Dieseldoforme:
Rentadent:
I’ve seen a group of agency drivers team up and form their own consortium, then go in and try to undercut on the very same contract everybody was working on and earning a very healthy wage from, it didn’t end well for them, lots of in-fighting and back stabbing resulted in some of them losing everything they had..
That’s the problem. They need to be a special breed.
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veterans! civvies cant match their dedication or sense of duty 
Dieseldoforme:
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I wonder if a gang of Four X Class One Drivers could hire a unit and
make it pay by running it 24/7 on a supermarket contract.They would have to work four on - four off,
(two on nights 1800-0600 & two on days 0600-1800)
sharing all costs and sharing all profits.Simple. Who wants to be a millionaire ?
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Easy answer,no
Your business plan in fundamentally flawed, hiring a unit would remove any profit and then having to share it 4 ways,even of you owned the truck outright you would be lucky to net £100 each.
Not withstanding the initial costs you would need a cpc holder an “o” licence and an operating centre and the funds for maintainence run be able to run the vehicle before your first invoice pays out 90-120 days or more.
For 4 of you to make a living you will need more than 1 unit, 1 unit each bought and paid for and running day and night might get you a wage, you need to cost everything and to speak to someone who knows the game inside out or you may as well withdraw all your cash and flush it down the toilet, modern transport will chew you up and spit you out the overheads are massive and the profits tiny.
mike68:
Easy answer,noYour business plan in fundamentally flawed, hiring a unit would
remove any profit and then having to share it 4 ways,even of
you owned the truck outright you would be lucky to net £100 each..
.
OK then . . .
I am going to lend you £100,000 for a transport related business venture.
I am your Dragon and you are in my Den.
What are you going to do with our hundred grand ?
If someone hasn’t said it already, what do you do between January and April? Eddie doesn’t share the pie unless he has to.
Silver_Surfer:
If someone hasn’t said it already,
what do you do between January and April?Eddie doesn’t share the pie unless he has to.
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Easter Eggs. Food. Tinned Animal Food. George Clothing.
Flat Screen TV’s & Electronics, Airport Sandwiches, Pallet
Hub Work, Unaccompanied Ferry Trailer work in and out of
Immingham Docks, Fresh Fish to Humberside Coldstores,
Demolition Explosives & Related Equipment, Coal, Milk,
Sugar, Confectionery etc etc etc.
Eddie seems to be having to share more of his pie alately.
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Diesel to be honest, there’s a part of me that would wish you well and be quite interested in seeing the outcome of this venture.
On the other hand, I really don’t think it would work in practice and you’ll just end up becoming a glorified agency that started as a group of friends with a common interest but you’ll get to a point in which either a) you can’t find enough work (despite your above post) or b) you can’t satisfy client demand. Failing that, you’ll have internal affairs to contend with because there will always be someone slacking at some point with the rest of you expected to pick it up.
Your rates will be nowhere near competitive enough to turn a profit level worth setting up for in the first place. Agencies are responsible for thousands of employees across hundreds of clients, and the only reason they’re successful is because their profits scale based on volume.
Realistically, I’m not even sure why you’d want to hire your own vehicle? To keep your costs right down, why not present yourselves as an independent collaboration of drivers that will operate as an agency exclusive to that client alone provided a contract can be drawn up to guarantee all four of you a shift pattern of four-on-four-off. Infact if we’re going down that route, why don’t they just employ you full time…?
Hope you can see where I’m going with this. If the client had a genuine demand for a consistently running 4-4 on a 24/7 basis, they would employ 4 people and use their own motor for it. I very much doubt they have an issue with too much demand and haven’t got enough units to cater for it; more likely they have units sitting idle with not enough drivers to fill them, but then agencies provide flexibility.
When demand falls short, the agency usage is cut. When demand is high, they’ll use multiple agencies.
I don’t think you can really provide a sustainable solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.
How do they make money on that? I just finished a 3 day/2 night trip from Spalding to Raf Brize Norton - Devizes - Wincanton - Trowbridge - Willow Green - Falmouth - Willow Green - Evesham - Heathrow - Spalding and I used 453ltrs of diesel, there were 2 x night out fees of £20 a night parking x 2 @ £18.50 a night, then there is my pay of £355 for the 3 days and the wear and tear and cost of the lease on the truck, how the ■■■■ do they make money on that?
FreddieSwan:
Diesel to be honest, there’s a part of me that would wish you well
and be quite interested in seeing the outcome of this venture.I don’t think you can really provide a sustainable solution to a
problem that doesn’t really exist.
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I don’t think it would work and I don’t want a headache.
Years ago I used to buy container haulage for a Shipping Line at 75 pence per mile.
Owner Drivers were queing at my door !
How times have changed.
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NewLad:
How do they make money on that? I just finished a 3 day/2 night trip from Spalding to Raf Brize Norton - Devizes - Wincanton - Trowbridge - Willow Green - Falmouth - Willow Green - Evesham - Heathrow - Spalding and I used 453ltrs of diesel, there were 2 x night out fees of £20 a night parking x 2 @ £18.50 a night, then there is my pay of £355 for the 3 days and the wear and tear and cost of the lease on the truck, how the [zb] do they make money on that?
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Simple - they just have to charge more than it cost.
Otherwise they go bust - like so many have.
Innovate, Target Express, Dodds Group, 21st Century, MRS,
Derek Lynch, South West Deliveries, Bill Chippington, Pawsons
etc spring to mind.
You will struggle to get a rental company to supply you a truck without 12 months books.
You will have a maximum mileage allowed on hire truck.
You won’t get a replacement vehicle for servicing, only at MOT time.
Had this in 2004/5 running a rental truck on two shifts with two drivers and when the work was there you could earn well but slack times soon eat your profits with truck rental on the table. It looks like a good thing to do on paper but will take some sorting out and fine tuning to make it work. You will also only be as good as the guy planning your work for each shift and this is where it bwill fall down,
MrReliable:
You will struggle to get a rental company to supply you a truck without 12 months books.
You will have a maximum mileage allowed on hire truck.
You won’t get a replacement vehicle for servicing, only at MOT time.Had this in 2004/5 running a rental truck on two shifts with two drivers and when the work was there you could earn well but slack times soon eat your profits with truck rental on the table.
It looks like a good thing to do on paper but will take some sorting out and fine tuning to make it work. You will also only be as good as the guy planning your work for each shift and this is where it will fall down.
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We’ll probably have to buy this then, as mentioned above, and get an even bigger headache. trucklocator.co.uk/view-truc … lt-Premium
At least we would only lose 27 grand if it went up in smoke.
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I have the cash to buy a decent truck and become an owner driver. Things that put me off are Parking, maintenance, regular work and the competition. If another 3 drivers approached me and said between us we could definitely eliminate the above problems and they have the cash to put it then I would seriously contemplate it. We would only need 2 units and maybe a few trailers? Also I am new to the business end so at least 1/2 of the team would have to know about the business end. We would have to have a limited company with equal shares, accountant solicitor etc. etc.
Ideas:
1 of the team is a diesel fitter
the team make a deal with an existing operator to run off their O licence (do they still do that?)
Reading the owner/operator threads it is difficult to make it pay but then again I keep passing trucks that are lit up like Christmas trees so I am thinking if they can afford to buy lights and chrome to prettify their trucks…
scanny77:
Dieseldoforme:
Rentadent:
I’ve seen a group of agency drivers team up and form their own consortium, then go in and try to undercut on the very same contract everybody was working on and earning a very healthy wage from, it didn’t end well for them, lots of in-fighting and back stabbing resulted in some of them losing everything they had..
That’s the problem. They need to be a special breed.
.veterans! civvies cant match their dedication or sense of duty
That would mean an extra wage, they would need someone to shout at them and give orders
It is certainly a selling point in busy times but could bite you on the arse if it goes quiet or there is an accident, breakdown or strike.
Companies who run an express delivery service make it work, but that is using one trailer that only stops for changeovers but you have 2 or 3 units to supply. You can get a long way in 30 hours driving 