Morning peeps,I do hope that you have set your clocks to the correct time.
Having been out of the driving game as an OD for some twenty years I was reflecting on the rates for haulage.
Since the early 1990’s have rates kept pace with the cost of running a truck.
I am not really worried about the big boys and their mega fleets, more the one man bands.
I really struggled towards the close 0f the 1980’s and was the the major influence to jump ship.And boy was I lucky,by mid 1990 if you mentioned trucks in the local
Dover bank branches,you were shown politely to the door.
Going back to around 1983/84 it was a totally different story .
Even before putting the key in the ignition,somebody was waving a bundle of money at you.
I had a rule of thumb which meant the truck had to earn in a week what your monthly HP repayments were for the truck.
In 1983 I was paying £400.00 a month to Lombard yet the little old F7 was returning some weeks £1500.00.Not always the case but I had a mustard job going to Case diggers at Hook,just off the A3 from Dover twice a day and once on a Saturday. £150.00 a trip.
Ooops…just noticed Trucknet are still on old time…
14 TOO:
Ooops…just noticed Trucknet are still on old time…
Hiya …no TN never changed there clock did they things should be OK now.
John
3300John:
14 TOO:
Ooops…just noticed Trucknet are still on old time…
Hiya …no TN never changed there clock did they things should be OK now.
John
What sort of a slice does Fuel take out of operating costs now? ( percentage wise)Bewick.
For me fuel makes up 31% of my costs. I work for a mixed bag of customers as it means that a customer’s quite spell wont hit me too hard. New trucks are out for me as i try to keep down the HP payments, big payments mean you have to take crap rates when things are quite. My grandfather used to say " theres no such thing as a bad haulage job , just bad rates for doing them ".
1644FAN:
For me fuel makes up 31% of my costs. I work for a mixed bag of customers as it means that a customer’s quite spell wont hit me too hard. New trucks are out for me as i try to keep down the HP payments, big payments mean you have to take crap rates when things are quite. My grandfather used to say " theres no such thing as a bad haulage job , just bad rates for doing them ".
Dependant on what your gross T/O is you appear to be doing OK as I can remember a time when our wages and fuel added together came to about 45% of operating costs but I shudder to think what they add up to now !We had some crap rates within the operation but as long as the job was one way right into where our prime traffic was located the job was an earner! But how the hauliers that did the same traffic as their main work fared I do not know !!Here’s a shot youv’e been asking about 1644 A rocking and rolling Bag of S**t if ever ther was one !! Bewick.
Well a lad around here with an eight legger carting stone reckons that nowadays for every £100 he earns over £50 goes in diesel, certainly very little chance of earning enough to replace the truck with a fresh one. I used to occasionaly do similar work to him, but with a 6 wheeler, and looking in my book the rate (in 2002 when I finished) for a load from near Cromford to Chesterfield (14 hard miles) was £1.98 per ton, and there is a heck of a lot of climbing and braking on that journey!
Pete.
Most of the lads I know on quarry work are tied to whatever quarry they work for . Some get their derv there, some have to paint their trucks in the quarry’s colours and some have to update their trucks as and when the quarry says so. If you re in that tight with a customer then theres very little chance of taking on anything extra unless it suits your customer. If your customer runs your bussiness then why be self employed ? why not just stay as a driver ? A lad down the road from me last week told me what his monthly repayments are on his 08 8 wheeler , he then told me his turnover . By my calculations once he pays his derv and his finance he d take home more pay if he were serving burgers at Mcdonalds !