Be "On Time"

@HaulinCars If you are oversized requiring a pilot even empty that would make sense.

Like the haul I am on right now. I have only required a pilot car one time. That car was only needed for the last 50 miles of an 800 mile trip.

 

All of this is why I stoppd doing this type of haul.
it just got so bad that is more problem than the money was worth.

 

Bear in mind I've never driven heavy haul but it looks easy too. Just drive from A to B.

Being a chef can't take much skill, its just chopping up vegetables and throwing them in a pan.

Being a lumberjack is easy, its just cutting down trees with a chainsaw.

Can't take much skill to be a doctor, they just prescribe drugs, right?

Carpenter? They just hammer boards together. Any clown can do it.


Its easy to over-simplify any job.

 

When I had my 13 we thought about it. But then getting my wife a drivers license first. No she doesn't know how to drive a car.. she can tell how to setup for a turn with a truck..
Then buying a vehicle. I would have almost set it up as a work truck also. Then that opens another can of worms
Plus too much dead heading for the unit
Alot of the wind guys did it with their wives or girlfriend. Problem was they were buying diesel pickups and fueling them with their fuel card when they fueled. That's ok when you own the trk
But it doesn't give you a reciept for that vehicle come tax time.
My one old buddy had 2 pickups. It worked out ok, but he even admited later it was a money liser for him. He went large right off the bat. His one hand later bought his own truck and worked with us for almost a year straight. He was a good pilot car and good friend at the time. He got thrown under the bus with me on my bridge hit. He did everything right, but the company banned him from working with them after that... long story
But he did his job, A game all the way
Never late, kept his vehicle up and clean

 

So well put, needs to be said again!

 

Evidently not if you are unable to find good pilot cars for that price. I would have guessed that an hourly or daily rate would be more equitable.

 

First impressions are key to me when I meet a pilot car for the first time. If you pull up in a run down vehicle and jump out looking like you haven't had a bath in a week and stick your cheap strobe light on top with duck tape.....YOU AIN'T MY PILOT CAR!!!

 

Pretty much, I am in what I do.

 

I should explain myself a bit:

I am an excavation contractor that hauls equipment in order to support our operation. I rarely haul something that someone else owns. We rarely need a pilot car, and when we do we use our own people and vehicles, so I am not familiar with the topic from the perspective of you fellows that do this for a living.

You folks have stipulated numerous times on this forum that your work has much less to do with the miles that you run, than the cost of the entire project. You bid this work based upon the time and cost of many things other than the cost per mile to run your truck, and because of this I would expect pilot cars to bid their work in a similar fashion.

If you need a pilot car for four hours, that is most likely going to consume their entire day as the likelihood of realizing income from another job that day is probably very small. Therefore, I would expect that they would bid their work using a formula that would include a minimum charge plus a mileage charge, and then a per diem and lodging charge for overnight visits, and a return mileage charge to get back to their home base. I think it was Carl that stated in one of the threads "I don't pay deadhead". But in reality you do pay deadhead, as a responsible businessman would have to calculate the deadhead miles into their cost structure, just as someone bidding on a heavy haul load must do. I assume that Carl means that the price that a pilot car quotes to him for a particular load will be based upon the mileage for that load, and the pilot car company must include the cost of any deadhead into their "loaded" mileage price.

We all complain about competition that works too cheap, drags the market prices down, and then ultimately fails. It should be not different in the pilot car business, and I suspect that you all prefer to pay a bit more than the standard to get a really good pilot. Quality has a cost and price associated with it!

Ok, now that I have explained myself you can all legitimately call me an idiot, because I know not what I speak of!