CR England mileage?

Maybe with other people, but the lease program wasnt necissarily pushed on us... We just decided it cant be all that bad since our previous DM sad the wait for a new truck was gonna be around two weeks. Who knows, maybe all the "expert" England haters would probly say that was all part of England's scheme... Whether it is, whether it isnt, since we're still green in the trucking industry with only a year's worth of experience, England's treated us fairly well.

 

Im am a owner operator with England. And you can bring a truck and lease on with them. The numbers on those trucks start with 95xxx . Main difference between O/O and lease is O/O's dont pay the .14 cent variable mileage.

 

How is it you dont have to pay the varible mileage? I thought that was all part of payin england for their services to find and take care of loads for you regardless if you lease/buy a truck from them or bring one of your own in.

 

Variable mileage is supposed to offset the cost of depreciation on the truck. They say that in exchange for a lower lease payment we pay a variable mileage. In order to bring an outside truck into England you now have to complete at least one horizon lease. I called the IC dept today and that is what they told me. Tomorrow may be different

 

Ive heard a few times now that the varible mileage might be a thing of the past....

 

If it doesn't they will start losing drivers ... I've been researching other companies and CRE is the only one with a variable mileage payment that goes into the the company's pocket.

As for weekly mileage ... if our DM stays on his toes, we average about 6100. Our worst week this quarter was 3700 our best was 7900.

 

Do any of those other companies have a similar fuel rebate as England's Fuel Cap program? Thats one of the reasons I dont whine too much about the varible mileage. If we follow their fuel optimizer to the minimum requirements, we only pay a buck 25 per gallon of fuel regardless of what the pump price or even the price that England buys it at. Besides, with their rewards program, we can get our varible mileage payment reduced.

You average 6100?? Wow, what fleet are you in?

We only average about 4500 to 5000 a week with 6100 being our most in a week but since I drive with my wife, we dont feel the need to run that hard. As far as I'm concerned, on a good week, I make about the same take-home pay as I was workin on compressors in the gas patch makin 15 bucks an hour and my wife makes quite a bit more than when she was workin as an expiditer at Home depot so I really dont have a right to complain about our "fewer" miles.

 

Fuel Cap is money in CRE's pocket. Every carrier charges the shipper a per mile fuel surcharge. CRE sells you on the deal that they fix your fuel cost at $1.25 ... then they pocket the the surcharge. That's why they use to require 5 mpg routed miles to be on the fuel cap ...that's their break point. At the now 5.8 mpg, CRE is a lock for a profit charging the driver $1.25.

Go on the rebate ... if you can average 6.2 mpg routed miles, you'll put another $50 to $100 a week in your pocket. Even on the rebate CRE pays $.02 to $.03 less per mile than other carriers.

This also feeds into how many miles you run ... fuel rebate equals less fuel stops, choosing to fuel at non busy times and at the less busy stops.

Less fuel stops, shorter fuel stops result in more miles driven each day.

Variable mileage charge is probably the single biggest reason that I will leave CRE. It buys me nothing. The difference in the fixed lease payment, between CRE and other carriers for equivalent equipment is only $60 to a $100 a week more at other carriers.

At other carriers variable mileage charges don't exist. The closest that comes to it are over mileage charges that 1) only apply after a set minimum mileage has been met 2) the charges will apply directly to reducing the purchase price at the end of the lease 3) and last are generally $.03 to $.06 less then CRE's variable mileage

Has nothing to do with which fleet. I have friends in other fleets that are getting the same kind of miles. It's how you manage your truck and your loads. We don't run hard, we run smart. IE manage how often and where you stop. Run the loads ahead of schedule and position ourselves to swap or t-call the load ... less time on dock, more miles. We don't take crap loads, that will result in us sitting.

Bottom line is we set an objective of 1000 miles per day/500 miles per driver ... 7000 miles per week.

 

How do you go on the rebate anyways? Maybe its just me, but I figured I was gettin a good deal with the fuel cap because regardless of what the pump price or even the price that England pays for it, a buck 25 is all we pay.

How long have you been leasing with them? Why do they have the varible mileage? I thought it was just the cost for Englands people to find and manage your loads.

So, other than the varible mileage thing, what are the other reasons, if you dont mind me asking, you are considering leaving?

I was just curious what fleet yer in but it doesnt matter. Our DM keeps us pretty busy, we just need to better manage our driving. Since we get by just fine on the miles we run, thats mainly the reason why we dont turn in a lot of miles.

What do you mean by the crap loads? You talkin about the short hauls, or what? We try to take whatever loads we can get because we were told that bad things happen to the "relationship" when you start turnin down loads for unnecessary reasons.

Thats what we try to do and sometimes we exceed that, sometimes we dont but thats mainly because 1, we either show up too early and have to wait till the appnt time or after we drop, our next load causes us to wait a while sometimes. Plus, we dont swap loads as often as we should. Main reason for that is a lot of the times when they ask us to swap, its with a solo driver who ran out of hours and cant get theor load to its destination on time. Usually we have to run like a ragged dog to make it on time.

 

It's easy to get on the rebate ... let your optimizer compliance fall below 75% and CRE will "punish" you by putting you on the rebate.

Here's the good deal CRE is giving you ... this is per 1000 miles driven. At 6.2 MPG you use 161.3 gallons. At the $1.25 CRE charges you pay $201.61.

Let's assume a national average of $2.89, you pay $466.13 - But CRE is reimbursing you $.28 per mile or $280 per 1000 miles. The net you actually pay after rebate is $186.13 ... $15 less than you do on the fuel cap, $15 dollars that is presently going into CRE's pocket instead of yours. Over a 5000 mile week that $75 out of your pocket.

Average 6.7 mpg and the difference becomes $30 per 1000 miles or $150 over 5000 mile.

Look at this way CRE is charging you at least $75 a week to be on the fuel cap.

I run with a relative, who has been leasing for over a year. I went through Mira Loma and been on his truck for 7 months.

Why does CRE have Variable Mileage?? Probably because they can, if you are willing to pay it, why wouldn't they charge it. Besides CRE doesn't "find" you loads, the loads are CRE's loads, they hire you to transport them - as does every other carrier.

Reasons 1) Variable mileage - $.14 per mile. On a 5000 mile week, that's $700 week out of my pocket.

2) The CRE "maintenance" account. The money in that account is CRE's money first, your's second, depending on how much of it they decide to let you keep. Other carriers allow you to control your own account - have it or not have it, how much you want to contribute and how much you want to keep, when and what for you pull it out is at your own discretion.

3) Fuel rebate, CRE pays about $.02 less than others. That's another $100 week at 5000 mile.

4) There are carriers paying $.02 to $.03 per mile more, another $100 to $150 per week.

5) Paper logs vs electronic logs. Without doing anything overtly illegal, you can get an extra 30 to 40 miles in per shift on paper logs. That's the capability to run another 400 to 500 miles per week.

6) Higher governed or non governed trucks. Running an extra 5 mph translate to another 30 to 40 miles per shift. Another 400 to 500 miles in a week.

7) My long term goals. I have over 30 years of management experience, including managing organizations of over 100 personnel. My goal is to build my own fleet.

First, England's program is not conducive to that. Take into account points 1-6 and it is easily a $1000+ a week that you lose leasing for England. Like you said, you're not starving on what you're making with CRE now. Bank that $1000 per week and in 10 months I have nice down payment for my second truck and the start of my fleet. CRE does not allow the purchase of a second truck until you complete your first lease, I don't want to wait.

Second, England, from an organizational standpoint is horribly mismanaged as direct result of their corporate culture - An example, I was at West Vally at the restaurant. CRE's driver of the year was walking through with plaque in hand and came upon Dan England. He went to Dan to say thanks for the honor - Dan handled well, but didn't appear to know who the guy was. This tells me few things, the DOY award wasn't even important enough for Dan to be at whatever ceremony that was held to give the award or if he was he didn't pay attention, Dan doesn't care enough to know who the DOY is. If the CEO of a trucking company doesn't care to know who his best driver is, why should anyone at corporate care about any driver.

Crap loads are any load that is too short for the amount time to deliver. Give me a 500 mile load and 12 hours to deliver, I'll take it. Give me a 3000 mile load and 5 days to deliver, you better give me the t-call for the yard I'm dropping in after 3 days at or near the delivery city or I'm turning down the load.

Basically a crap load is a solo load that is assigned to a team truck because the LP didn't want pay dead head to the nearest solo truck. We don't turn it down out of hand, but negotiate how far, how soon and what drop yard we can drop it. If the DM can't commit we turn down the load.

Turning down a load because you're not making any or very little money is not an unnecessary reason. Besides bad things go both ways. Contrary to what they say on these boards, CRE does not want you turn in your truck, DMs get fired for too many drivers quitting their fleet.

Threaten to turn in your truck and loads will improve, your DM will work with you on setting up the t-calls. But for this to work you better be on time very time, occasionally eat a dog to do the DM/after hours a favor, don't screw up your logs or get any tickets. And last but not least don't make it habit.

Depends on when and where you show up early, if it's 12 hours or more early we shoot for the drop yard in the area and let the local driver deliver.

Your definition and my definition of running like ragged dog may be different. After we pick up swap, there's almost always 8 to 12 hours of slack for a team truck for on time delivery.

The only loads we have to run hard on, are loads for the express carriers. By design those are tight.