Industry Outlook
Get the Latest Episode: Outfitting your van for function, safety, convenience, and comfort
Sprinter vans in the expedite industry are all the rage. But do you have all the right info you need to get started?
Today's episode covers outfitting your van for function, safety, convenience, and comfort.
Follow along 👇👇 with Rob Podeszwa of Jung Express, and host Brandon Baxter, as they discuss the ins and outs of Sprinter van ownership within the world of Expedite.
It's ExpediteNOW!
Transcript:
Brandon Baxter: Welcome to the Expedite Now podcast presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express.
I'm your host, Brandon Baxter.
My guest is Rob Podeszwa.
Rob's a recruiter with Jung Express and he's here to discuss the ups and downs of running a sprinter van in the expedite industry.
So, Rob, thank you once again for joining me.
Rob Podeszwa: You're welcome, Brandon.
Always a pleasure to be here.
Brandon: Always a pleasure to have you along for the ride.
And, and speaking of that ride, and, and before we get started, let's go ahead and catch our audience up on our previous 4 episodes, just so that we can build up to what we're going to do today.
in our first recording, you know, we really set the tone for what the series has been about this entire time, which is how someone can enter the expedited industry as a sprinter van owner operator.
Episodes 2 and 3, they highlighted the importance of building a business plan and also how to put all those numbers together to help form such a plan.
And then in episode 4, the most recent one, we discussed how to address those numbers and how to make them work for you.
So, with that being said, Rob, what are we discussing today?
Rob: Today we're going to start getting into a little bit more of the fun part of it.
We're going to talk, start talking about the van.
So, you put all those numbers together, you decided, hey, I, I can be an expediter.
I'm business is going to work.
Everything's great.
So now the next step is buying that van.
So, when you're looking at the van, again, which I said before, but I want to emphasize again, I always say buy as large a van as possible as what you're going to make sure to be able to have paid off within three years.
Again, very important to get it paid off and to make sure that when you're buying that van, you are staying in that budget. Again we, we did the business plan, you came up with the amount of money that you can afford to take out a loan on or to pay for that van. Make sure you stay within that.
Don't overextend yourself.
Again, look at this business long term.
Look at it for your business to be successful, not just go short term and buy the, you know, the best van out there and everything and then overextend yourself.
So, look at this long term.
Rob: The most common pallet size is 48 by 48 by 48.
Brandon: hmm.
Rob: Technically, it's 48 by 45, but we just say 48 by 48 cause it's easier.
Brandon: Sure.
Rob: So, you always have to have at least 48 inches between your wheel wells.
That means you cannot go with a dually, cause a dually does not give you that much room there.
So, you, you have to have at least 48 inches between your wheel wells, and then, your cargo length.
If you have 8 ft of cargo length, that means you can carry two pallets.
If you have 12 ft, you can carry 3 pallets.
those are the things to keep in mind with that.
Brandon: Right.
Rob: Now, when you're looking at the different manufacturers. You have Sprinter, which is actually a brand name.
It is distributed by Mercedes Benz or by Freightliner.
Then you have Ram makes the Promaster, Ford makes the Transit.
Nissan makes the NV.
And then Chevy and GM make the Express, which is, kind of your standard style cargo van.
The first question I tell people is when you're looking at them, is decide what you want for an engine.
Do you want diesel, or do you want gas?
Because that's going to help start narrowing it down.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: Because the Mercedes Benz and the freightliner is only made in a diesel.
So, if you, you want gas, you can eliminate those.
if you, want for sure a diesel, well, then that's going to eliminate the Ram, the Nissan, and the Chevy and GM because where they used to make diesel versions of those, to my knowledge, currently, they only make gas versions of those.
So, again, that'll help eliminate some of them.
Everybody always asks me which is the best one.
Brandon: Oh, weird, I was about to ask you that.
Rob: Every van manufacturer out there, I have a driver who has loved it and had great success with it, and I've had a driver who has not liked it.
So, I tell everybody, it's personal preference.
Drive them all, see which one you're the most comfortable in.
You're gonna, your butt's gonna be in that seat for a long time, a lot of miles.
Brandon: Yeah.
Rob: You want to make sure you're comfortable.
Some of them you sit higher, some you sit lower.
Again, see which one you're the most comfortable with.
The RAM is front wheel drive.
That's the only one that's front wheel drive.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: So, if you want one that's front wheel drive, you need to go RAM.
all the other ones are going to be rear wheel drive or a few of them are made in an all-wheel drive version also.
Some companies will require you to have a high roof van.
Some don't matter.
For us, it doesn't matter to us.
We're OK with it.
You know, it is nice to have that high roof, especially if you're living in it.
But again, not necessary, again, what fits your budget.
Well, you also want to look at the payload of the vans, cause they're going to have different payloads.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: Again, you never hurt yourself going bigger.
The more it can, the, what your payload is how much weight you can put into it.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: The more the better.
What is more important?
Is it having a higher payload or having larger, larger cargo dimensions?
In my experience, I would say if it's an either or, go with the larger cargo dimensions.
you're better off having that three pallet van with a little bit lower payload than a two pallet van with a much higher payload.
Giving yourself that more space is better, to go that way.
Some companies will require you to have a three pallet van.
Again, check with the company you're looking to sign on with.
Brandon: Right.
Rob: Does a 3 pallet van have the potential to make more money than a 2 pallet van?
Yes, but not enough to spend a lot more money on that van.
So, again, it comes down to your budget.
Please, everybody, stay to your budget to help be successful.
But there are some other benefits to having a 3 pallet van other than simply being able to carry, potentially carry that third pallet.
It's your sleeping situation, cause again, depending on what you do, whether you have a cot or your bed or whatever, when I drove, my bed would fold up against the wall.
Brandon: Yeah.
Rob: So, if I carried three pallets, my bed was folded up against the wall.
If I only had two pallets, then, I could have my bed down and I could still fit the two pallets.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: Now the reason why that's important is you're going to get sometimes loads, which are called holdover loads.
You pick it up on a Friday, deliver it on a Monday because the place you're delivering to is not open on the weekends.
Brandon: Yep.
Rob: If you have a two pallet load, now you can have your bed down.
You got a place to sleep and everything, you know, if you have 3 pallets, well then, yeah, you either have to stay in a hotel or make different arrangements, but it gives you that option to be able to keep your bed down.
That's why it's nice to be able to have that extra space, and, and if it's a trade-off of payload versus cargo dimensions.
Brandon: OK.
So then, as far as, you know, the inside of the van, say you're not under a load, right?
You've got that extra space to, to, to exist out of, right?
To live out of, what would that look like?
You know, as an example.
Rob: Sure.
So, you can, how you outfit your van again is entirely up to you in terms of the amount of money you want to spend in it.
Brandon: Right.
Rob: I have some drivers, they just simply put a cot in there with a couple of totes for their clothes.
They do the bare minimum.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: Other people, they'll make it into a small apartment, you know, you, there are outfitters out there, you can spend $10,000 on it.
You can have a movable wall and, and, and, and have some really, really fancy stuff.
Myself, using my, my example is I probably spent maybe $2500 on the inside of mine, but that was over a three year period.
What I did was I actually carried tools with me, and so whenever I was stuck somewhere for a weekend, I'd simply build something in my van.
It gave me something to do.
I'm a horrible carpenter, as you see in the picture, but I had fun.
No judgment, my van.
And it was my van.
So, you'll see what I did is I, the first thing I did is I built shelves up high.
And again, you want to, when you're building anything in your van, you want to keep it between the wheel well and the wall.
Cause again, between the wheel wells, that's for freight.
Yeah, you can have your freight there.
So, I built shelves on the walls there.
As you'll see, also, there was wood up against my wheel wells.
Brandon: Hmm.
Rob: That was to protect my wheel wells.
Some of the forklift drivers out there are really, really good and some of them are not.
They will hit your wheel wells.
They will dent them, so to give them a little bit of protection by putting some wood over it, you'll see that I did that.
Brandon: As far as equipment that maybe a driver, you know, would want to have, you mentioned that you always kept tools in the, in the vehicle with you.
You know, is there anything that's, ratchet straps or anything like that, for example, anything that you would need to secure the freight or, that you might suggest that a driver takes along with him?
Rob: Sure.
So, there's basically two ways to secure the freight.
You can either install E-Track, which is a great system for securing the freight, or you can use ratchet straps.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: Whichever. There's, I, I wouldn't say one is necessarily better than the other.
It's just a matter of what you like.
Once the E-Track is installed, it's a very quick and easy system to work with.
I used ratchet straps for mine.
If you do ratchet straps, I recommend get 1000 pound straps.
Brandon: OK.
Rob: And then you want to get at least 12 footers.
If you can find 16 footers, get 16 footers, and always have at least two straps per pallet you can carry.
So, if you're a 2 pallet van, you want to make sure you have at least 4 straps.
I'll also recommend getting a car towing strap, OK, because what's going to happen is they're going to load you from the back and they're going to push the pallets forward.
Then they're going to pull the pallets out, so they're going to be dragging the pallets.
Brandon: Right.
Rob: I first started using ratchet straps, hook a ratchet strap to the pallet, hook it to the forklift, they'd pull it out, but I was beating up my ratchet straps.
So, then I bought a car towing strap.
Car towing straps are really nice and thick.
They got a big metal hook on each end. Real simple.
Hook it to the pallet, hook it to the forklift, pulls it out very easily.
Brandon: Anything else you might suggest would be, you know, beneficial for a driver to have along with them, you know, I mean, you've mentioned before that they're going to be living out there, you know, on the road for, you know, weeks on end.
You know, something, something like a, like a hot plate or a cooler or something along those lines, like anything that you would suggest or, or maybe that you've used your own experience.
Rob: Sure, well, some, some guys carry generators with them.
I had a small little generator with me.
But again, it's all thinking of heating and cooling the van, when, when you're sitting there.
Some people will insulate the van.
Again, it all depends on how much money you want to put into it.
I said some people will use a generator.
There are some fancy systems that, that you can put in for heating that'll actually draw from your fuel tank, in the van.
So, again, these are different things you can look into.
Some people will use the little LP heaters too.
Brandon: Yep.
Rob: Personal preference for all of those.
There's a lot of different things to look at, but again, the more you can stay in your van, The less you're going to spend on hotel bills and everything.
So, it's, it's getting it to where it's comfortable and that way you're staying out there also.
I also will tell people to always make sure your bed is up off the floor.
that is one thing too.
I get some guys who just buy a mattress and then they throw it right on the floor.
Brandon: Right.
Rob: Having a platform or something where you're not right on that floor, cause that floor can get really cold too.
Brandon: Sure.
Rob: It just, it really helps me up off the floor a little bit.
some people hang it from the roof.
Some people have, you know, pedestals, but, but at least get it up off the floor a little bit.
And also have a little rug. Get a little rug in there, something to put your feet on, because again, that floor will get very cold too.
Rob: So, just a little extra ...
Brandon: …information you're only going to get here.
Rob: That's, I, I love it.
That's fantastic.
OK.
Brandon: Well, Rob, thank you very much for joining me today.
You know, this has been good information.
We're gonna continue this.
We've got one more episode to come, and then we'll wrap everything up with a bow and let everybody out there who wants to get into the industry as a sprinter van owner operator, take their first steps.
So, Rob, once again, thank you so much for joining me today.
This has been Expedite Now presented by Expediters Online and Jung Express.
I've been your host, Brandon Baxter.
Until next time.