I’m going to start out by hiring a trailer from the company I’m going to sub-contract to, but if it works out I would think about buying a trailer later in the year, mainly because I would then be publicising my company and not theirs.
Could some kind soul give me a rough idea of the annual running costs of a 4m Euroliner trailer or similar, doing about 2,500km a week on supermarket distribution work, running at 44 tonnes most of the time in terms of tyres, brakes, average MOT costs etc?
tyres, well, you can never really account for them, as you never know if they will last the lifetime or have a blowout
brakes, i have got a 2005 Dennison Sliding Skelly, had its first brake reline for the MoT in december 2010, also got a 2007 Dennison Sliding Skelly that will be due its first reline this year, they are both BPW axles on drum brakes
the actual cost of the MoT for a tri axle trailer is shown on this PDF, i have linked to this as it all depends on where you get your truck/trailer tested
dft.gov.uk/vosa/repository/H … 202012.pdf
obviously, that is just the cost of the test itself, not any work done to get it up to standard, that cost itself varies depending upon who does the prep work for you and what parts/labour are required for the pass
hope this helps
Mr monk,. dont take this the wrong way and i arnt having a pop either !!, But you have seemed to have travel"d half way round the world back again more times than you can shake a stick at, But in all honesty havent you learnt any thing in all your driving history on costs,trucks etc,etc what have you been doing all those years,
As with every post you have put up in the past few months regarding this o/d business covering every cost for this and that, what truck to have, what to paint it in do you dont you .only you can decide no one else and you can only work your own costs out and figures out what it will cost each week/month you may blow 6 tyres out in the first week, you may blow a gearbox. costs are a total waste of you time as they never work out only in our heads half of the time
Dont be to carefull matey or you will never get there. either grab the bull by the horns and get out and do it and pay the price takes your chance, its just getting a little long in the tooth now, I wish you all the best if you do do it, , just get on with it it will either work or it wont work, simples, Onwards and upwards
Daz, although i agree with what you have put, especially about the tyres, it always helps if you know a rough idea of how much things will be IF they do go wrong
you are also correct in the sense that there are certain things that you can’t account for, such as an air valve failing, and the unit cost of those can range from £20 to £600 for a valve
shuttlespanker:
you are also correct in the sense that there are certain things that you can’t account for, such as an air valve failing, and the unit cost of those can range from £20 to £600 for a valve
One thing I learnt fairly quickly too was that even a 20quid part that takes half an hour to fit can still end up costing you the best part of 500quid if it fails first thing in the morning and nobody can get you a replacement in until the next morning as you’ve lost a day and a bit of earnings and upset your customers too unless you can quickly get the work covered.
Paul
My advice would be to give the trailer a good inspection before you buy. A euroliner will probably be running on discs which will cost a fortune if you have to replace calipers and discs straight away so make sure the brakes are all in good order. My own trailer developed an ABS fault in the first few months and it eventually cost almost £1000 to sort out. Over the last 3 years I have replaced all the discs, 3 Calipers and had a full reline. As for tyres I have one with 12mm of tread but the inside wall is now cut but thankfully not to the cords yet. My last trailer blowout cost over £1000 with the damage it did and a french motorway callout, £300 euro just to put my spare on. To be honest I think my trailer has cost more than the tractor over the last 3 years. The plus side is Im not pulling a heap of rubbish,( although it does look like it) The running gear is 100%, curtains oiled so Im not pulling my guts out opening them and I will always prefer to have my own trailer as I know it’s looked after.
Graham
Depends on what you buy Harry, I personally wouldn’t buy a trailer on disc brakes. Where I park my truck I just watched the yard owners mechanics blow over a grand on 2 new calipers and an ABS module yesterday 
. I bought my first trailer and went through it, as Spanky said his trailer was coming up to 5 years old before the brakes needed replacing. I replaced the shoes, drums, bushes and slack adjusters all in one go and apart from routine maintainence it cost me virtually nothing apart from tyres as and when and the odd brake test and an MOT fee annually. To be fair I did the work myself as I came from a mechanic background so no labour . I would say ABS problems are are the costly part of running a trailer, you may never have a problem or you could be shelling out 600 plus on a new ABS module or a few quid for a new wheel sensor etc.
I have to agree with Daz to a certain extent, you can’t account for every eventuality and sometimes you just need to crack on. I have read your questions and posts regarding starting up, the trouble with it I find is if it was me I would be suffering from too much information from too many opinions which would in my case cloud my judgement even more. But that’s just me, good luck with your venture .
How i cost a trailer…A tyre will last a year on average, full brake reline, once a year £1500, misc repairs 500 quid, that should do it, what i recommend is… rent a trailer to find what work is for you, then buy a good seconhand example, when renting a trailer, without fail it will have ■■■■ remoulds on, some times recut, point these out at time of collecting, as they wont last and will blow out, tyre wear is down to rental co, tyre damage is down to the operator, a blow out is down to you so try and get them to put good tyres on , or at least get some note of it, bearing in mind a blow out will cost ya 500 quid, normally, 800 if abroad…Double check the trl when collecting, even counting the internal starps and holes in curtains and mudguards, we have been billed for all of these… cos you cant prove it wanst you.rent short term, buy on long term.I have 23 trls.Never put remoulds on a trailer or any tyre, indian or chinese either.
Thanks, some very helpful answers. At the moment I’ve costed the work for doing traction only and will start off hiring a trailer from the company I’m going to be pulling for. I’ll need to do probably the rest of this year before I decide whether things are working out as planned, if they are then I may look at buying a trailer then. Nothing is written in stone though.
Harry as some others have put on here you would be better off speaking to the garage that will be going to do your maintenance as they will be able to give you a good idea as prices can vary especially down your way.Renault @grays £80 an hour, my fitter £35. On the plus side if your costings work out ok on hire then you should save money buying. You will be paying for the trl and their profit so you may aswell buy… 
i’m getting 10.5mpg out of my trailer. 
ok, i’m off.
harry write down your costs work them out to the nearest penny then after 6 months burn the paper they were written on you cant calculate its all guess work and luck guarantee though every good week you have something will break
ps, if you have done your costings on traction only then why would you be hiring a trl off them?
Harry Monk:
Thanks, some very helpful answers. At the moment I’ve costed the work for doing traction only and will start off hiring a trailer from the company I’m going to be pulling for. I’ll need to do probably the rest of this year before I decide whether things are working out as planned, if they are then I may look at buying a trailer then. Nothing is written in stone though.
robbo863:
ps, if you have done your costings on traction only then why would you be hiring a trl off them?
Well, that’s just how it works. If you do traction work for someone, they charge you for hire of the trailer. If you sub for Solstor, they charge you £250 (iirc) for the hire of the fridge for example.
Harry Monk:
Well, that’s just how it works. If you do traction work for someone, they charge you for hire of the trailer. If you sub for Solstor, they charge you £250 (iirc) for the hire of the fridge for example.
Not in every case, I’ve done bits of traction work for 4 different firms so far and none of them have charged for trailer hire.
Paul
Yes, that is true, some do, some don’t although the difference is generally reflected in the rate.
I think Harry asking that question is being fairly sensible. I can hire a trailer from TIP and pay a fixed amount, but by knowing the average running costs of three or four different posters gives him an idea how to decide, short term hire or buy, borrow or lease?
I leased a tank trailer over 3 years but if I needed a skelly or a flat for a couple of days I just nipped into Rentco and saw my old drinking pal.