i would just buy a 3.5t beavertail and advertise vehicle transporting and scrap cars
peewee:
i would just buy a 3.5t beavertail and advertise vehicle transporting and scrap cars
And what would you do when someone wants a Mondeo or BMW moving? Run over-weight? Or turn the job down?
You’d make more money driving a truck for someone 
Scrap cars, There is a specific clause in the insurance for moving scrap. If it’s not down on your insurance, the old bill will do you for invalid insurance. And yes, the premium will be much higher for having this clause.
Plus of course, your waste transfer license.
What with the rise of metal thefts, coppers everywhere are cracking down on the scrap lads big time.
I know this because my company gets the honour 
of recovering these scrap vehicles for the police.
Forget about being a recovery contractor, get yourself trained up in Health and Safety, then get a job in that line, it seems to be the way forward, you will never be out of work.
This may sound a bit harsh but has the OP ever worked in recovery ■■
If not then forget it as its gonna cost you more in claims than you make when you load something incorrectly or scratch those alloys
dont bother…did it myself before doing the job I am doing now(even though that soon to finish) Had my own spec lift doing local jobs for green flag and a few private jobs but the H&S is a bit mad especially on police work,and most places now specify a newish vehicle…you may get a few private jobs but even then they will want it as cheap as possible which then the ones who have a spec lift/tilt and slide who dont abide by any regs or rules will do the job cheaper than you…
best thing is work for a company with there own vehicle they will train you to standard and give you all the kit you will ever need.
I like the bike one. Very clever design that. Did you say it has been stolen? 
jayeastanglia:
best thing is work for a company with there own vehicle they will train you to standard and give you all the kit you will ever need.
Aye righto!
Professional recovery companies maybe, bodyshops and salvage lads not very often.
How come operators working for Green Flag, which is owned by the RBS, have to have all the kit, training, properly inspected vehicles etc. Yet UK Assist bodyshops, owned by the RBS, have no training and are not properly equipped?
They regulary send a 3.5 ton beavertail (their own) to get a 4x4 with the front wheels ripped out, I feel sorry for the drivers as it’s clear they have no idea how to load them, if I offer assistance they never have the right kit for the job they’re doing. And we often see their vehicles on the roads, breaking most of the rules (just 1 or 2 wheels strapped, usually overloaded, doors swinging in the wind, debris dropping off etc).
You wouldn’t believe the amount of salvage lads that ask “have you got a forklift I can borrow” because they’re struggling to load a car. 9 times out of 10 the car could be loaded by someone with just a days training.
Why not get into the ‘clamping’ business??
Yeah, I know You all be shouting now…
But a mate does it, and let’s say… he doing very well. 
He works as/for a private clamper, but is tendered out to councils and private car parks etc.
£140 per clamp and he gets £70/80 of that!
All he’s got got a now very new crewcab pick-up. No need for O licences, tachos, and what ever else.
Yeah, you might get shouted at, spat on, threatned etc, but that can happen in any job.
You may even be doing some truckers a favour and keeping the roads clear for them delivering into city centres. (depending on your attitude, and doing us too! 
)
Errrr… because it’s being outlawed? 
Very soon it will be illegal to put a clamp on someones car.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10993473
The Police, councils and DVLA will still be able to clamp. The reality is, only the DVLA will continue to use clamps as the council or police will just remove a car causing an obstruction.
There are few Police forces that use clamps, but already there are ACPO guidelines that clamps are not to be used.
Councils that do continue to clamp are to do so themselves, and not farm the job out to a contractor.
And yes, everyone (myself included) will call you a ■■■■■
Goldfinger:
You may even be doing some truckers a favour
You could tell yourself that to make you feel better, but the reality is clampers are the scum of the earth.
Even their own mothers hate them.
Just throwing other ‘possible’ ideas about for him that’s all.
cieranc:
police, councils and DVLA will still be able to clamp.
Subbed out to private clampers??
No mate, from what I understand (we contract police, council and DVLA), the police guidelines are not to use clamps.
If the councils do use clamps they must be fitted by the council, not private clampers subbing to the council.
But both have the power to remove obstructions, so it’s far more likely that if a car is causing an obstruction, they’ll just have it moved by the local recovery contractor. Problem solved.
Makes sense, if it’s in the way, the solution is to remove it, not stick a clamp on it so it’s in the way longer.
Up this way, councils don’t clamp at all anyway.
DVLA will continue to clamp, to secure payment for tax (they’ll release it when you tax the car).
Oh, nearly forgot, the VOSA will still use a lassoo on foreign trucks with prohibitions 
bigvern1:
I like the bike one. Very clever design that. Did you say it has been stolen?
Yes mate 
My mate had just dropped it in his garden rather than in the garage, came home a few hours later and it was gone.
Would’ve been difficult as ■■■■ to get out, but obviously worth the effort.
We now have a much smaller bike trailer (1 bike) with the traditional strap style loading system, nowhere near as good, but does the job we need it to.
When some ■■■■■■■■ nicked my motor, the Police had a contractor recover it, about 3 miles in total, recovered on a Friday, couldn’t collect until Monday as they didn’t open weekends, then charged me £150 plus £6 for using a debit card to get it back, bigger crooks than the ■■■■■■■■ who nicked it.
They’ll have recovered it to fingerprint it.
That £150 is the same price all over the country: legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008 … ion/4/made
Storage is £20 a day, starting from noon the day after they notify you it is released and ready for collection.
Lucky for you the ■■■■■ never crashed it or it’d be £250 to pay 
So no matter who did that job, you’ll have paid the same price.
£6 to use a debit card is taking the ■■■■. Who recovered it, RyanAir? I’d have complained to the Police about that.
waynedl:
Would’ve been difficult as [zb] to get out, but obviously worth the effort.
More likely it went in the back of a ■■■■■■ Tipper and got weighed in
cieranc:
They’ll have recovered it to fingerprint it.
That £150 is the same price all over the country: legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008 … ion/4/made
Storage is £20 a day, starting from noon the day after they notify you it is released and ready for collection.
Lucky for you the [zb] never crashed it or it’d be £250 to paySo no matter who did that job, you’ll have paid the same price.
£6 to use a debit card is taking the ■■■■. Who recovered it, RyanAir? I’d have complained to the Police about that.
They’d already got the ■■■■■■■■ who nicked it, caught on CCTV, so no were prints required. You said earlier no money in the job, nice little earner from what I can see.
Yes, that particular job would be a nice little earner.
But it’s one tiny piece of a much bigger picture, and sadly you don’t get to pick and choose what jobs you do for the police. You accept every job you are given, and you do the job, you cannot refuse it or farm the job out.
The next job might be 2am, burnt out van in a forest, down a bridlepath, been joyrided in.
Can’t send a normal car transporter, gonna need a crane/commercial flatbed.
Can’t get the truck anywhere near the van due to a narrow gateway/rocks whatever (joyriders take great pleasure in dumping the stolen vehicle in the most in-accessable place they can find) so you need a second man to assist winching the vehicle out.
So you’re going to pay 2 men for at least 3 hours work, at time and a half (you need to pay a good rate to get lads to work the unsociable hours), in a 200k truck that does 6mpg. Load the van, scrape/sweep up all the crap, back to the yard to unload. You don’t know what the truck will be doing next so you wash the bed and kit down there and then.
Next day, you need to get the chassis number and engine number to ID the vehicle. People don’t work for free, so you have to pay for this. Then the office staff need to trace the owner, the owner isn’t insured and won’t pay for the recovery, so the van goes to salvage (the police take all the vehicles that go unclaimed), and you get a cut. About £30.
Usual scenario is that van will be in our premesis for 3-4 weeks before it leaves. All that time it’s costing us money. Everytime it’s sunny there’s more dust and ash blowing off it that needs cleaned up. Everytime it rains there’s more crud getting washed into the interceptor tanks, they need to be emptied more often than a general haulage yards/garages tanks. Then there’s all the Environmental business you need to adhere to, waste transfer, haz chem, QA systems, the PPE the lads use needs disposing of on every burnout (risk of hydrofluouic acid) so must be replaced. It’s the hidden costs that folk don’t account for.
So you’ve got a job that pays £150, take off the Police ‘admin’ fee leaves about £115, take off the running costs leaves about £75.
Then you’ve got a job that’ll pay £30, take off the police 'admin fee leaves £-5, take off the running costs leaves £-135 ish.
Yes, like any trade you do get jobs that are the cream, but you also get jobs that will lose you money. Unlike plumbers or electicians, you don’t get to pick and choose which jobs you do. You do every job or you do none of the jobs.
On the police schemes, heavy work makes more than car work, but you can go a month between heavy jobs.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any recovery company that is purely a police recovery contractors.
cieranc:
Yes, that particular job would be a nice little earner.
But it’s one tiny piece of a much bigger picture, and sadly you don’t get to pick and choose what jobs you do for the police. You accept every job you are given, and you do the job, you cannot refuse it or farm the job out.The next job might be 2am, burnt out van in a forest, down a bridlepath, been joyrided in.
Can’t send a normal car transporter, gonna need a crane/commercial flatbed.
Can’t get the truck anywhere near the van due to a narrow gateway/rocks whatever (joyriders take great pleasure in dumping the stolen vehicle in the most in-accessable place they can find) so you need a second man to assist winching the vehicle out.So you’re going to pay 2 men for at least 3 hours work, at time and a half (you need to pay a good rate to get lads to work the unsociable hours), in a 200k truck that does 6mpg. Load the van, scrape/sweep up all the crap, back to the yard to unload. You don’t know what the truck will be doing next so you wash the bed and kit down there and then.
Next day, you need to get the chassis number and engine number to ID the vehicle. People don’t work for free, so you have to pay for this. Then the office staff need to trace the owner, the owner isn’t insured and won’t pay for the recovery, so the van goes to salvage (the police take all the vehicles that go unclaimed), and you get a cut. About £30.
Usual scenario is that van will be in our premesis for 3-4 weeks before it leaves. All that time it’s costing us money. Everytime it’s sunny there’s more dust and ash blowing off it that needs cleaned up. Everytime it rains there’s more crud getting washed into the interceptor tanks, they need to be emptied more often than a general haulage yards/garages tanks. Then there’s all the Environmental business you need to adhere to, waste transfer, haz chem, QA systems, the PPE the lads use needs disposing of on every burnout (risk of hydrofluouic acid) so must be replaced. It’s the hidden costs that folk don’t account for.So you’ve got a job that pays £150, take off the Police ‘admin’ fee leaves about £115, take off the running costs leaves about £75.
Then you’ve got a job that’ll pay £30, take off the police 'admin fee leaves £-5, take off the running costs leaves £-135 ish.Yes, like any trade you do get jobs that are the cream, but you also get jobs that will lose you money. Unlike plumbers or electicians, you don’t get to pick and choose which jobs you do. You do every job or you do none of the jobs.
On the police schemes, heavy work makes more than car work, but you can go a month between heavy jobs.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any recovery company that is purely a police recovery contractors.
Whenever you write on here, I just get the feeling that your place is a really decent outfit to work for.
When I was on recovery, the rate was the rate, no matter how many hours or what the hours were. We got a touch more for Heavy work than general recovery though.
Agree 100% with everything else you said. Running any firm these days has got to be tough, but I think recovery would be one of the hardest to be a new start in without a significant financial backing.
Thanks, we try to be. It’s in our interests to be, keeps experienced lads retained. Low pay usually means a high turnover of staff, which means lots of inexperienced new starts. Inexperienced lads, no matter how well we train them, tend to cause accidental damage to vehicles. So it’s good for us to keep the experienced lads, and the best way is to pay them a decent rate
And if we know they’re going to stay, its easier for the company to commit to invest in them (pay for training courses+licenses).
I came to this trade from a general/heavy haulage background (John Dickinson Transport), and knowing how both business’s work, I would not even contemplate trying to set up a recovery company myself at this time.
If I had to choose, I would choose O/D before recovery.
What do you class as a decent hourly rate though. I was at a quite big outfit in lincolnshire had been there 10 years. Started when i left school. Was doing everything but mainly heavys. And i was on 9.25 an hour which i didn’t class that good considering i could be towing a fully loaded petrol tanker in. Did got time and half after 8 hours and weekends.