Okay, so I bought a used truck from Crete Carrier.

Okay, here's the December statement:

That summary is for the period from July 23 to December 31. In those 5 months, I had over 2 weeks of unplanned downtime, some less than stellar weeks of productivity due to load scheduling (like a 1250-mile, 5-day trip over Thanksgiving weekend and a 343-mile, 3-day trip over Christmas), and a couple of days on the road where I placed myself out of service due to illness (see my November post).

Remember my disastrous November? December was much better. I drove 10,076 paid miles and made $4,386 net profit. That's $0.436/mile - not great profit per mile, but not horrible either. Hey, if I average that monthly profit for a whole year, that's over $52,000 a year. Not getting rich, but making a decent living for somebody who lives in northwest Georgia.

I developed a problem in mid to late November with black sludge in my fuel system. I don't know what it was, but I was running through fuel filters every few thousand miles, and getting horrible fuel economy. In response, I ran Howe's Meaner Power Kleaner in my fuel for a couple of months. When I first started using it, I had to change fuel filters about 4 times in 3 weeks. Then it started cleaning out, and my current fuel filter has about 8,000 miles on it. The cost of the Meaner Power Kleaner is included in my expenses. I think it's like $17 plus tax at the truck stops. Each bottle can treat up to 330 gallons but I doubled up on it at first.

I also pulled a lot of heavy loads back and forth across Pennsylvania, and spent some time fighting very strong winds in Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. That might have been part of why my fuel economy dropped so low, but surely not all.

All in all, for December I averaged under 6 miles per gallon. Gotta work on that.

Another thing that cost me money - I had to pay a tow bill. I went to back under an empty trailer at the General Mills plant in Covington, GA. The trailer was partly in a huge mud hole. I locked in my inter-axle differential, but the left front and right rear drives started spinning, and I got stuck almost up to the hubs. The tow bill was only $150, but that could have been another penny and a half of profit per mile for the month. And I had just run the truck through the Blue Beacon ($40) about 15 hours before this happened. Yay.

The range selector switch went out and left me stuck in low range (thankfully, about 5 miles from a Freightliner dealer, so no tow required). That was $272 and a day of lost productivity. Almost 3 cents per mile for the month gone.

Finally, I got a crack in the surge tank (also called the overflow tank) and started leaking coolant as a result. I just kept topping it off until I got home (about $85 in coolant purchased) and could replace it. The part was about $100 and I decided to save some money by doing it myself. The brackets are clearly marked "Max Torque 10 Ft/Lbs" - whoever put the old one on probably used an impact wrench. The bolt heads are 9/16" and sit in a channel that's 9/16" wide on the plastic bracket. You can't get a wrench on those bolt heads as a result. When they're overtightened, and you go to remove the nuts from the other side, the heads of the bolts just turn and chew up the plastic of the bracket. But you still can't get a wrench on them!

So I bought a cheap ($50) impact wrench and a set of deep well impact sockets at Harbor Freight, hoping the impacts would loosen the nuts on the bolts. No such luck - plus I dropped the impact wrench on the PVC air line I was using and split it open (it was cold out!)

So I went back and got a 3" air grinder/cutter and a decent cloth/rubber air hose, cut the bolts, and bought a few bolts with socket heads (so an Allen wrench will fit). I ended up spending about $140 on tools and new nuts and bolts. It would probably have cost about $100 to have the dealer install the tank. But hey, now I have an impact wrench and air grinder should I ever need them again (and I have no doubt I will). Total cost: about $240. There went another couple of pennies per mile for the month.

Despite some minor setbacks, I did okay in December. Not stellar, but okay. I continue to meet my modest financial needs and then some.

My accounting service, Mark Swanson CPA, has been acquired by ATBS. I have been informed that they will keep the same basic setup I've had with Mark Swanson, but with a few more options as far as ways to submit my monthly expense reports. The cost, I've been told, will remain the same. I don't know what format future monthly P/L statements will have, but you'll likely seen a difference in wording and what information is included in the summary (if any). If need be, I'll summarize it myself.

 

Here's something to think about. About a week ago, I delivered to ConAgra in Vonore, TN. I was offered a load from the same place, with 2 drops in the Atlanta area (Decatur and Norcross, GA). Exactly 175 paid miles. The pickup was at 1pm, the final delivery at 11:30 the next day. I could reasonably expect to spend 24 hours total on the load, including unload time at the final.

I almost turned it down. 175 miles in 24 hours? How am I to make any money like that?

Then I did the math.

175 loaded miles is $1.25/mile, or $218.75
Fuel surcharge was $0.36/mile at the time, or $63
Since it was 175 miles and not 176, it paid $25 shag pay (176 would have made it $15).
The extra stop equals $60 drop pay.
Total revenue: $366.75

I called the fuel desk at Crete and found out that with our discount, I was paying $3.185 per gallon where I bought fuel. Assuming 5.8 miles per gallon (it was a heavy load and it's fairly hilly the way I was going) and adding 5% out of route miles, fuel cost me $100.90
Add in 1/30 of my monthly fixed expenses, or $41.66
Add another $0.08/mile for maintenance, or $14
Add another $0.04/mile for "other variable costs", or $7
Total costs: $163.56

$366.75 - $163.56 = $203.19

Over $200 profit in 24 hours, during which I drove about 4 hours (Atlanta traffic was a bear for my 8am first stop in Decatur).

I'll take one of those a day, please!

 

Ah, good old P&G!

I'm at home now, taking care of things like getting the ball rolling on my HazMat background check so I can renew my CDL next month, and getting a weird issue looked at on my APU (I think I mentioned what it's doing last time we talked on the phone). The tech I talked with on the phone over at Thermo-King on 23rd Street said he'd love to have a look at it when I described the symptoms, as he's never seen or heard of these symptoms before and he's a "Thermo-King Engineer", whatever that means. Will put it in their shop at 8am Monday morning, and they've promised me it'll be ready to go by 5pm.

I had to drive 77 miles each way to get fingerprinted today. I think I can deduct the miles I put on my pickup truck today, will ask the guy at ATBS about it.

I talked with Lyle K. in Lincoln (the guy who runs equipment sales) and he informed me I've gotta start pestering High Command as soon as I'm out of the gates on Tuesday. I have to get to Omaha ASAP to get the truck on the dyno for the extended engine warranty, and it's time to get that free brake job that comes with the truck. My drive axle brakes are down to about 1/32" away from "too thin".

Oh, last week the guys in Marietta found my other coolant leak while they were doing my every-6-months DOT inspection. One of the lines coming off my APU appears to be leaking where it goes from metal pipe to rubber hose. Gotta get under there with a socket and ratchet and see if tightening that hose clamp will do the job, or if I need to go buy a couple feet of heater hose.

Have fun out there - I'm having fun at home!

 

That's probably not a bad idea. Heater hose and hose clamps are cheap. Roadside service brought on by a burst hose isn't.

I just crawled under there and discovered that my gut is too big and my arms too short to get to those fittings properly. So, when the truck goes to Thermo-King Monday for the APU issue, I'll have them fix that leak there. Like Bob Villa says, if you're gonna spend almost the same money to do it yourself, you might as well hire a professional