Local fuel hauling jobs. Give it a try!!

To me it sounds like a decent company to work for. The pay may be lower but they can make it up in other areas. You did say in your last post the magic words that tell me a company is alright, Retirement!!! If a company has drivers that retire then they are doing something right. Good luck at your job.

 

They don't have that high of turnover around here with their company drivers at least. That's usually a good way to guage things. Their O/Os keep leaving though as they're starting to take even cheaper contracts.

 

KAG is "the Borg" of the tanker industry.

I had the pleasure of working for Advantage before KAG, and the misfortune to still be working there post-takeover. I also endured a short stint with one of the KAG family of companies.

Their (KAG) m.o. is to buy up a tank outfit, cut wages and benefits, and squeeze more work out of whoever decided to stay. Yes, that creates a LOT of hurt feelings....

I'm glad to hear it works for you. But gas hauling used to be a lot more fun and rewarding.

 

So I have an update for some of you that may be looking to getting into local fuel hauling. I've been doing gas tanker for about a year now and I am still loving it everyday. I am so glad I made the decision to get into this tanker work. It is as safe as you make it, besides a few darrelicks that walk around with lit cigarettes at gas stations. In my opinion there are so many MORE advantages to it than there were when I was doing OTR work. The money seems WAY better, yes WAY better, the home time is great (every night) and the job is super easy. Don't worry about how hard it is to set up hoses and fuel drops, it literally only takes a little less than 2 minutes to set it all up and get dropping and about the same to clean everything up. It only takes me about 26 minutes to drop my entire 8600 gallon tanker with the 4" hoses. The only thing I slightly dislike about the job is starting my days in the summer months around 1-2 AM to beat the morning rush at the pipe and sometimes waiting at gas stations for people to move their cars, you will see a lot of stupid stuff go on at a gas station let me tell ya! But other than that I feel that I am finally getting paid what I'm worth now. With this job I get to eat supper every night with my wife and sleep in my own bed. Need I say more.

A few things (tricks) that I have learned in my first year I will share with you. When I cap my tanker I use the handles (ears) of the caps to label my compartments I have a system that works great for me and I havent cross dropped yet.

Using the image below this is a detail of how I cap off my compartments every time I load my tanker. Especially if I have a grocery cart fuel load. This method worked well for me especially when I had my tanker without any sight glasses on the compartments. I still load like this today.

Ears 1/4 turn left is (XR Red diesel) or (XC #2 Diesel)
Ears straight up and down (make a plus sign+) I use this for NL+ regular 87 10% ethanol
Ears 1/4 turn right is (Premium No Lead PNL) or (Premium No Lead Plus PNL+)
Easr horizontal is (Regular 87 NL)

Get into a routine when loading and unloading and stick to it.

I uses two sticks, one for gas and one for diesel

I've found that using the shadow from your leg to block the sunlight helps when reading your sticks on a bright sunny day.

Oh and always carry a clean dry rag to wipe your stick, especially if you are going to stick diesel before gas using the same stick, you can barely read the gas on the stick if you can't wipe off the excess diesel fuel oil.

I have timed my gravity drops and pump offs by compartments on my assigned trailer which helps me out too.

In our area most of the guys (other drivers) at the pipe along with this site are a wealth of knowledge and are most usually glad to give you some advice.

Just take your time when dropping to do it right.

And if your thinking about getting into fuel hauling, Give it a try like the title of this post says! I think you will be glad that you did!

 

Cool idea about turning the caps.
We use colored velcro straps, to wrap around the head, ours are marked with the product name. Typically I only use the red one to denote premium, as we don't haul many mixed loads.

I'm still glad I got into it. I gross almost $1600 a week working about 62 hours, and we're getting raises the first of the year. I work 3pm to 3am. Truck had 40k when I partnered with the day driver, has 93k now. Trailer is 25+ years old, but well maintained, and we're on the list for a new one, hopefully this spring.

 

It's easy when you're a driver for a major oil company (no more oil company). Each compartment has a tag for your product. We don't have to worry about diesel because we hire a carrier. In Las Vegas you're right in the middle of the city. So you know the heart beat of the city any given time. Then the mix of Las Vegas itself can get exciting at times. No place in the world is like Vegas on the strip during the weekend.

 

Nice, I hear that! when one of our guys told me $1500-1700 per week I thought he was full of it until I seen it last summer!!!! Yeah Buddy!

 

I could only imagine Gas Hauler, Down town las vegas OMG! And on a weekend at that! Oh Boy!!!!

 

I missed Tupac being shot by 30 minutes or so. Another driver on nights stopped to have his lunch. If he didn't stop there's a good chance he would have been murdered. The station he was loaded for, at around 3am a guy walk in off the street and pulled a pistol and killed the night manager and his asst. We had stations that were daylight only and then it was kind of touchy. But that's why we got paid the big bucks.

 

Yup fuel hauling rocks the top pay went to 30.50 hour where I work and most off the local fuel company’s pay that now out here in the Pacific nw