Trukkertone:
SO, if an artic uses 400 litres of fuel over a 24 hour period, and not taking fuel duty and vat into account … before the price came down it would cost about £532 to fill up… at the moment it is costing about £388… that’s a saving of £144 per day per vehicle… and they cant afford to give drivers a pay rise ■■? seems to me there’s a bit of wool pulling going on…
Most hauliers have a diesel surcharge rate, it means if diesel goes up, rates go up, but if diesel goes down, rates go down with it as well.
The issue isn’t one of tracking fuel costs with rate ‘increases’.It’s that the customer ( rightly ) isn’t prepared to pay the costs of road fuel leaving anything like a decent profit margin at the ‘base’ rate of the rate ‘escalator’.IE an escalator which starts from an unviable level will remain unviable.
simon1958:
Massive decline in fuel prices. Are the savings being passed on to haulage companies and drivers?.. Don’t think so.
And fuel prices are set to go lower. Make the most of it.
More like massive increase with a slight decline.Predictably not enough of a decline to make any major difference regards profitability within the industry.Bearing in mind the taxation side of the equation.
simon1958:
Massive decline in fuel prices. Are the savings being passed on to haulage companies and drivers?.. Don’t think so.
And fuel prices are set to go lower. Make the most of it.
More like massive increase with a slight decline.Predictably not enough of a decline to make any major difference regards profitability within the industry.Bearing in mind the taxation side of the equation.
The fuel price isn’t the reason for unprofitable rates, its the fact that there is always somebody who’ll move it for less, which keeps driving rates down. So the cheaper the fuel the more the haulage industry will try and cut each other throats on the rates.
Evil8Beezle:
When overheads drop, the first thing any business/accountant thinks about is increased profit. Yippee!!!
I’d definitely not, lets increase our overhead and reduce our profits by paying the drivers more!
The firm won’t be making “extra profits” if driver turnover increases to the point of losing all quality staff to rival firms though - will it?
I quite agree, but accountants know the price of everything and the value of nothing!
I wish the world did work as you say, it just doesn’t…
It isn’t accountants who decide who stays on cushy numbers and who gets lied to - and goes…
I reckon the best firms to work for are the easiest ones to be sacked from.
We should be suspicious of firms that seem to sack no one, but have an even higher turnover of staff than the firms that will sack someone at the drop of a hat.
simon1958:
Massive decline in fuel prices. Are the savings being passed on to haulage companies and drivers?.. Don’t think so.
And fuel prices are set to go lower. Make the most of it.
More like massive increase with a slight decline.Predictably not enough of a decline to make any major difference regards profitability within the industry.Bearing in mind the taxation side of the equation.
The fuel price isn’t the reason for unprofitable rates, its the fact that there is always somebody who’ll move it for less, which keeps driving rates down. So the cheaper the fuel the more the haulage industry will try and cut each other throats on the rates.
When the fuel price is high - it’s the reason we get poor rates.
When a woman fancies you - three inches is enough, after all.
When she doesn’t fancy you - nine inches is too small.
simon1958:
Massive decline in fuel prices. Are the savings being passed on to haulage companies and drivers?.. Don’t think so.
And fuel prices are set to go lower. Make the most of it.
More like massive increase with a slight decline.Predictably not enough of a decline to make any major difference regards profitability within the industry.Bearing in mind the taxation side of the equation.
And cometh the next budget. The Government always wins, based on their ‘‘no loose’’ principles anyway… Pence / litre taxed. If they don’t do it at the pump, they’ll stitch it somewhere.
simon1958:
Massive decline in fuel prices. Are the savings being passed on to haulage companies and drivers?.. Don’t think so.
And fuel prices are set to go lower. Make the most of it.
More like massive increase with a slight decline.Predictably not enough of a decline to make any major difference regards profitability within the industry.Bearing in mind the taxation side of the equation.
The fuel price isn’t the reason for unprofitable rates, its the fact that there is always somebody who’ll move it for less, which keeps driving rates down. So the cheaper the fuel the more the haulage industry will try and cut each other throats on the rates.
In an ideal world we wouldn’t have a free labour market at least.Thereby removing wages from that competitive process.Which ironically is what unions are for.
The difference is that Hoffa would have had a much bigger problem in that regard in a fuel price regime which views $30 + per barrel as ‘cheap’ in real terms.Let alone one which imposes uk road fuel taxation levels to the result.
The fact is under present fuel costs it isn’t a case of the employers won’t pay it’s can’t pay.
simon1958:
Massive decline in fuel prices. Are the savings being passed on to haulage companies and drivers?.. Don’t think so.
And fuel prices are set to go lower. Make the most of it.
More like massive increase with a slight decline.Predictably not enough of a decline to make any major difference regards profitability within the industry.Bearing in mind the taxation side of the equation.
yes some sense in what he says
but the real problem is that drivers don’t influence the business advisors that most companies relay on
1, the vehicle suppliers both manufacturers and leasors convince operators that leasing is the way to operate in haulage so operators profit takes a hit
2 fuel consumption needs new trucks wrong it needs professional drivers properly paid and motivated ,but when you margin is less than 4 percent operators push push drivers to the limit
3 if the operator owns the truck and matches it correctly to his work and pays the driver properly he could save say £100 pounds of fuel a week £40 a week on maintenance
But if the advisors don’t point it out most operators wont think of it every survey that says buy this was written to get the answer the questioner wanted
I and my son drive 12 and 14 year old vehicles a full gross a 3.5 tonnes up to 3000 miles a week pay a good mechanic treat them with respect drive within the power curve we consistently beat new trucks on fuel consumption and have 775000 miles on these vehicles
to replace I have had quotes of 32000 to 37000 with potentially a 2 mpg increase. but ignoring my accountant yes I have to pay a little more tax on rfl fuel duty etc but I can park up or run empty rather than have my rates cut buy the marketplace
its time we lost the credit mentality its not how shiny the counts you may have noticed the companies that get most stick on hear all
follow the buy new run hard driver is a fixed cost if you push him hard enough to provide consistent return on capital invested
the driver is the key ,
don’t get me started on tyre contracts trailer rental I respect the hgv driver and I see consistent quality daily but I miss the 1980,1990 drivers who gained there firm business weekly with care and professionalism with thirty years in the steel industry moving thousand of tonnes a month I miss the characters
Trukkertone:
SO, if an artic uses 400 litres of fuel over a 24 hour period, and not taking fuel duty and vat into account … before the price came down it would cost about £532 to fill up… at the moment it is costing about £388… that’s a saving of £144 per day per vehicle… and they cant afford to give drivers a pay rise ■■? seems to me there’s a bit of wool pulling going on…
Interesting theory but would you take a pay cut if fuel went up to £2 per litre?
If drivers were brave enough to take a view on the fuel market - it might well be WORTH saying "Link our pay rises and falls directly to the fuel price. Fuel halves? - Wages up 50%. Fuel doubles? - Wages down 50%.
The trick is - you need to negotiate this kind of deal when Fuel is at the top of the market - NOT when it’s already fallen well over 50% in the past year alone.
The same applied to base rate tracker mortgages. They were freely available when rates were high, and didn’t seem to have much chance of falling much.
As soon as rates fell below the previous “long term low” of 3.5% though - and the banks take them all away, and leave people with the crappy old “Pay 2=3% over the base rate fixed for 5 years” scam. - suggesting they already know rates are not going up any time soon, and allowing the lenders to pocket the difference between what one has fixed at and the actual base rate that is still used for tracker mortgages.
Those close to a market will attempt to rip off the chumps that don’t really know what they are doing. This is especially true of markets you don’t even know you are PARTICIPATING in - and the free Labour markets combined with the Fuel markets make for a real jungle of pitfalls, rip-offs, and crappy scenarios for the workforce participating in both.
Most hauliers have a diesel surcharge rate, it means if diesel goes up, rates go up, but if diesel goes down, rates go down with it as well.
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This.
people dont want to come into this game because you stand a chance of being shafted by dvsa, and all the other crap that comes with alot of haulage companies, i for one will never driver for another company again unless its with my own truck, if things go wrong for us then its a rethink on employment
Most hauliers have a diesel surcharge rate, it means if diesel goes up, rates go up, but if diesel goes down, rates go down with it as well.
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This.
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More like a base rate set at the best deal the industry could get.In an environment of fuel taxation deliberately intended to discourage road transport freight journeys.In which a ‘surcharge’ which tracks pre tax fuel cost increases solves nothing in fixing the basic structural problem of the above.
I’m not happy with the current fuel prices, I work for a base rate plus a fuel surcharge, which because my trucks get better mpg than the figure the surcharge is set at means that when fuel is expensive I make more money, my after fuel earnings dropped by 15% in January compared to December and I’m 20% down on last year’s overall figure so far this year.
On the other side I have a few mates that run without a fuel surcharge, spot hire rates are down over what they were when fuel was more expensive, but they’re making more money with the cheaper fuel.
newmercman:
I’m not happy with the current fuel prices, I work for a base rate plus a fuel surcharge, which because my trucks get better mpg than the figure the surcharge is set at means that when fuel is expensive I make more money, my after fuel earnings dropped by 15% in January compared to December and I’m 20% down on last year’s overall figure so far this year.
On the other side I have a few mates that run without a fuel surcharge, spot hire rates are down over what they were when fuel was more expensive, but they’re making more money with the cheaper fuel.
Slightly different to us. Beginning of the year we set the base price, which I essentially what we are paying the supplier. So say it’s £1.00 a litre on first Jan, if it goes up or down by 6p a litre, then we adjust our prices up or down by a certain per cent.
newmercman:
I’m not happy with the current fuel prices, I work for a base rate plus a fuel surcharge, which because my trucks get better mpg than the figure the surcharge is set at means that when fuel is expensive I make more money, my after fuel earnings dropped by 15% in January compared to December and I’m 20% down on last year’s overall figure so far this year.
On the other side I have a few mates that run without a fuel surcharge, spot hire rates are down over what they were when fuel was more expensive, but they’re making more money with the cheaper fuel.
Or to look at it another way fuel costs there have just never reached a level that the customer isn’t prepared to pay even at the lowest fuel consumption possible.IE telling the customer that the fuel surcharge rate is based on a figure that’s higher than the truck’s actual fuel consumption is in reality just a more profitable rate that the customer is prepared to pay.I’d doubt if that will work in an environment of £1 + per litre fuel prices.
Oh there are still companies that go cheap on the surcharge. The standard has always been 1.50 a gallon at 6mpg, that’s a US gallon remember, so only 3.77 litres. Over the course of a year with idling in ridiculously cold or hot temperature and the insane winds in the middle of the country, the mountains in the west and the high traffic density on the east coast it isn’t a forgone conclusion that you will beat that 6mpg figure. So it is a nice safety cushion.
