The Changing Economics of Expediting

**Turtle** · 06-01-2008, 01:42 PM

Yer killin' me, Marvin. Just killin' me.

**CharlesD** · 06-01-2008, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by fastrod

I deadhead home after every run now and will continue to do so. Since I write my own fsc the cost of fuel will not change this, as the cost of fuel goes up I just increase the fsc. Pinching pennies to be able to work is backwards but that is just part of the price you pay for leasing to a carrier.

I deadhead home quite a bit more than the average person, but it depends on how close I am to the house and how much I made on the last run. I add the deadhead miles onto the miles I just did on the last run and if the revenue I got on the last run is enough to cover the deadhead miles, then I'll do it. But right now I'm sitting in Dallas and I live in Cincinnati. Deadheading home would just be too expensive. If I really need to desperately get home, I'll find an LTL heading in the general direction to cover some of the costs.

**davekc** · 06-01-2008, 07:32 PM

If I was paying only 40 percent to the driver, I would have a lot left over to pay 100 dollars and hotel a day while a USED truck is in the shop.
I can't figure out how the guy (fleet owner) does all the maintenance? Hard to believe he is right there at everyones house when they are on hometime to take their truck and get it serviced?
Maybe all the drivers are his kids?

Ummm....I think Marvin's post just might be a fairy tale?

**x06col** · 06-01-2008, 08:14 PM

Don't know about THAT fairy tale or not, but, here is one for you.

Sold my Company, and tomorrow i'm going to take a run that we have completed many times over the years. A while back when we were going thru revenue performance for the biz I ran onto a run I made when fuel wuz $1.25. Fuel cost for this run then wuz fourty four dollah. Revenue for the run then wuz three hunnert eighty four dollah. A difference of.... three hunnert an fourty dollah. Tomorrow, fuel will cost me bout $4.80. Fuel cost for this run will be bout a hunnert seventy dollah, revenue is seven hunnert fitteen dollah. A difference of five hunnert an fourty five dollah. An times are bad eh? As has been posted, fsc SHOULD NOT, WAS NOT, devised to pay for your fuel. If it don't pay, don't take it. If you can't make a living, I suggest you tighten your belt a bit, and look at costs other than fuel for your problems. You just can't support a champaign taste on beer revenue. There are no roast goose.

**arrbsthw** · 06-01-2008, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by davekc

If I was paying only 40 percent to the driver, I would have a lot left over to pay 100 dollars and hotel a day while a USED truck is in the shop.
I can't figure out how the guy (fleet owner) does all the maintenance? Hard to believe he is right there at everyones house when they are on hometime to take their truck and get it serviced?
Maybe all the drivers are his kids?

Ummm....I think Marvin's post just might be a fairy tale?

Just maybe all the drivers are from his area. And just maybe
they don't all come in at the same time. My husband maintained our trucks at one time (when we had 4)
He ran local and when trucks were there on weekend he did
the upkeep that was required.. Drivers went home.

**x06col** · 06-01-2008, 09:06 PM

"When" you had four? That musta been fun, four trucks with drivers in em. Ouch.

**arrbsthw** · 06-01-2008, 09:25 PM

Yes we did and my husband wanted 10 of them. I, on the
other hand had already decided what I was going to take
with me when I left him with his 10 trucks...

We shortly sold all of them off but 1 that he drove until I
got my license and started driving.

**Zoli** · 06-01-2008, 09:26 PM

The problem is that we make same money on the loded miles , but our expenses went up .We can't say anything to our carriers because it's to many trucks, cargo vans on the market.What can we do? Now nothing ,but after a lot of owners will go bankrupt the remaining owners can ask for a raise....Unfortunately this is the only way....TriState ,FedEx ,Panther ii, does not car if we go bankrupt they have enough straight trucks or cargo vans to cover the market....For example I have a cargo van leased to Try Hours the driver not refuse any load, drive 600-1000 miles per week and they still looking for cargo van owners.... It is sad....

**x06col** · 06-01-2008, 09:33 PM

Zoli, is that Ukraine Transylvania? Wuz there last year. Loved it.

**x06col** · 06-01-2008, 09:37 PM

Hey arby, what ever happened to this "for better or for worse" stuff.. Didn;t you... by chance hear of that?

**pjjjjj** · 06-02-2008, 01:29 AM

Originally Posted by x06col

Sold my Company,

Congrats Col!

**arrbsthw** · 06-03-2008, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by x06col

Hey arby, what ever happened to this "for better or for worse" stuff.. Didn;t you... by chance hear of that?

LoL...it's still better right now.. we were married for 34 years
on May 24. (sold all those trucks but one)

**Broompilot** · 06-07-2008, 10:27 AM

Ice Road Trucker stated that the guy said (nickle and dime you to death) I could not dissagree more. The new truck nickle and dimed me to death going back and forth for service alone cost me a day out of service and most of those WARRANTY things well not covered to worn electrical lines that I should have detected one excuse I recieved.

I purchased this Volvo 770 with over 500K on it. So far over 150K put on it, my repair costs have been right at $3K. I would not consider that Nicle and Dimed and I did not have to take it to the dealer to get it repaired and WAIT until they decided to work on it.

The REPAIRS on my truck has so far worked out to this EQUASION READY .02 cents a mile. Yes that is TWO PENNIES per mile. Not bad for NICKLES AND DIMES.

My advice (Kevin Rutherfords also) Listen to XM 171 at midnights EST, get a Dyno, an ECM report, these two things plus a Mechanic to go over the truck will give you the map to finding a Great low cost repair truck for MILES to come. Trucks are really designed to last up to 1.2 to 1.4 Million miles of good reliability. Once a used truck starts costsing over .12 cents a mile than it is probably time to consider replacement.

The savings of a one or two year old truck with 150K miles on it VS the same model with 3-4 years on it with 500K is gona be about $40,000.00 I can pay for alot of repairs with $40,000. One might argue that he will have a higher trade in value, true but I am not trading until it gona be worth $10K so he will be looking to trade his second truck while I am still keeping my first truck so actually he is out almost two trucks and probably close to 70K or at least 60K.

**sdelliott31** · 06-07-2008, 10:54 AM

You almost have to go into the frame of mind that most equipment will be traded and you'll always have loans or expenses. Just figure about what your payments need to be to make a profit on a low guestimate of income and go from there. We buy our vans used, whether through Ebay or local places that we know and have them looked over by our local mechanic. We don't buy new, we try to stay about 3-4 years old, to keep our costs down. Yeah there are sometimes when repairs backfire our plans, but keeping our overhead low helps offset that. However, at this time we are really struggling, but we've been with Panther for 6 years and for the first 4-5 things have been going well, we ended up in good shape on trades on older equipment to stay under their value, so we have been able to replace vehicles and keep payments the same, plus add a couple. However our profit margin has shrunk alot because most of our drivers, we pay for fuel. Though the fuel surcharge has been fair, the loads and overall fuel expense has really hurt us. Therefore we have had more turnover in drivers than usual, and thus vans sitting, yet accruing Panther fees. Our bank is still working with us, but at some point if they stop, then we pretty much stop. I would say if we were in it a year, then we did some bad managing. However after 6, I'm sure we could always do things different, but we can pinpoint where the profit margin has shrunk, and therefore if we lose it will be disappointed, but will feel some pride that we hung in there for awhile. The positive.......we have a couple rental houses, that our renters said they will never leave, because of the uncertainty of the housing market, and also because with fuel and all, they can't afford to move. Take the good with the bad I guess.

It is interesting as someone noted above, even with family and friends you start thinking about that gas expense before you do something. We take a trip every year camping to Indiana Beach with our extended family and pull a 35' TT. However we all canceled this year and are just going to take a day trip, because of fuel and all.

**OntarioVanMan** · 06-07-2008, 11:11 AM

Steven for what it is worth...ya work hard 51 weeks of the years always on call 24/7....for an extra 100 bucks or so...you shoulda done your camping trip....it's hard to put a $$ value on some quality family time.