Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

I just walked past a 2017 Volvo and noticed that they totally reconfigured the headlight assembly... I hope it's an improvement to the dims they have designed on the prior years and not just a rearrangement of the bulbs.

 

Oh, and we now have Red, White, and Blue Western Stars sitting out front... Not all on one truck but it's very colorful out there. They came in yesterday while I was flirting with nurses.

 

Hmmm..no doubt trying to entice folks into leasing. Bad move IMO. Now, if they wanted to put company drivers in them, I wouldn't say no. Except that they have a weird window configuration, or at least the burgundy ones did. Window in the bunk on passenger side, vent on driver side.

 

Ya, strange Windows like you said, big one on passenger side and just a vent on drivers side.

 

You should know those are reserved for J.B. and his future trainees

 

Spoke with one of the new O/O ...

He bought the reddish one next to the white one on the far right side of the picture above.

$1.01 CPM with a $.02 fuel credit. Same 10 CPM for NE Miles. We, supposedly, get all the same discounts as Abilene does...

I have thought about going that route but just can't see buying a new truck for myself... I would rather buy a used company truck for half the price and see how that worked out first. Then upgrade later or just pay to maintain the older green one.

I would really need to see the numbers but at $1.01/mile lets crunch a few basics...

Fuel: say Abilene is getting fuel at $2/gallon and truck is getting 6 mpg... Equals 33 CPM.

1.01 + .02 - .33 - .38(company driver rate) =
.32 for "the truck" assume 3k/week miles

.32 x 3k x 4 weeks = $3,840/month

$630 x 4 = $2,520/month truck payment
(He didn't tell me his truck payment but said some were paying $630/week)

3,840 - 2,520 = 1,320 x 12 months = 15,840

So you are driving a brand new truck with $16k in your pocket every year to pay for insurance and maintenance and I am sure I don't know all the expenses to running a truck beyond fuel, maintenance and insurance.

And the power train has a five year warranty but the rest is only two years... So you have some exposure to higher repair bills after two years and after five years the truck is paid off.

Still thinking I would drop $50 - $60k down on a good used company truck... Knowing I might have some higher repair bills but the extra cash flow to handle most of them short of engine rebuild or dropped tranny.

I would need to do a lot more number crunching before I signed anything.

But I wish all the new O/O the best of luck in their next five years and hopefully beyond.

 

Don't forget @chralb maybe that's why he got the old beater from the rescue... They don't have the plates in from OK yet for his new WS.

 

Wonder why they didn't go green?

 

You may be into something lol

 

Let the O/O feel special in their shiny red trucks.