City Driver vs Tanker

R.B. Stewart - Careers
R.B. Stewart is the carrier for Buc-ee's.

@Zoltan1a I don't think Buc-ee's is in Vegas, but Pro Petroleum is part of Pilot Flying J and they have several facilities in LV.
Locations - Pro Petroleum

 

After just making the switch myself I can say this. So far I enjoy running tanks (fuel haul) better than dry van and reefer.

Now the difference for me than others is - A) I prefer to drive at night. Less traffic, easier access to customer drops and where I work the pay is a bit better due to the unpopularity of nights, same for weekends. I leave days and holidays for the married and young to fight over. I'll take the pay perks. B) The dispatching is rarely a zero sum scheduling experience. Meaning as stated above you aren't going to be out 69.9 hours risking doing a 34 somewhere you don't want to be because some idiot decided to pin ball their car off a guard rail because swiping right was more important to them. C) home every day/night . This got to be important to me as I can actually reset my patience levels. Sure you can do a 34 OTR but actually getting out of the truck, touching grass and seeing familiar scenery and faces lets you forget about Super Trucker guy that decided to speed up as you get beside him trying to pass after sitting behind him for 30 mins and having to speed up and slow down because baby momma is on his turtle beach headset fussing at him......me giving them the benefit of the doubt. D) the other un realized perk is you get to see a lot more of your area than you realized was there. I always say if you want to know the best spots, don't ask a local. Most of us get comfortable in our ruts and rarely find reason to seek out other places. Going to different customer locations will take you to places you may have heard about or not heard about but get to discover on the way through which in turn gives you options for things to experience when off.

As far as fuel haul. I was concerned about surge the same, Lual helped me understand this before I made the leap, but the tanks are divided into compartments and minimizes surge forward and back. It can still be there especially in partial loads but not as bad an un baffled tank would be. As far as manual vs Auto. No difference. The surge is effected by driver input. You don't drag out the clutch slow enough and gear grab - bad surge. Auto, you lay into the throttle like you would your personal vehicle- bad surge. Braking is same for both. So the auto vs manual thing is a myth driven by bad habits and gauged by butt dynos.

 

Not 3rd party, they're owned by Pilot Flying J and distribute their own products.

 

As rockinchair said, it’s owned by the same company . And I think love’s is genesis, but owned by love’s.

So that’s another thing to watch for, most of the private fleets have a different name on the door than the main company. Sometimes the name is almost the same. Sometimes it’s completely different.

But there are a lot of them out there, from smaller furniture companies, to medium size grocery chains to large companies like Walmart or Univar

 

A footnote to the above discussion: the following Forum thread highlights how "there's really no such thing as being TOO careful"....and why considering night-shift duty when hauling fuel is probably a good idea:

Gasoline tanker crash in Phoenix causes major fuel leak | TruckersReport.com Trucking Forum | #1 CDL Truck Driver Message Board (thetruckersreport.com)

Night-shift duty is tough on the rest of your life (your family and friends are asleep when you're awake--and vice-versa)....but past that--I can HIGHLY recommend it, with fuel.

--Lual

 

A classic…..

https://youtube.com/shorts/pw9Ags9upJI?feature=share

 

Nice info in thread, I'm exploring the swap to fuel to find consistency in daily routine. Currently haul chemical local and regional lanes, OTR days are gone for good. My company is going through pay structure disruptions and once the pay cuts are implemented, I forecast drivers won't take the gut punch. Its a key turning in reason when your a safety driven salary paid professional to a CPM slave to the truck cheating the ELD. Fortunately, companies exist with competitive hourly and OT after 40 pay structures.

I'm looking at fuel companies that run 4 on 3 off schedules, though 5/2 is quite acceptable. I'm relieved to see that many fuel hauling companies offer padded benefits packages compared to anemic offerings on the chemical side. Though I have to admit it is a bit discouraging to see Class B tanker jobs paying better than Class A, maybe Class B is more hands on. From my collection of Class A chemical options, local ranges from $24 to 33/hr. On the fuel side, $30 to $38/hr range with OT after 40hrs, some do it after 45 or 50hrs.

On the chemical side the biggest cons compared to fuel are longer unload times, products needing to maintain a specific temperature for smooth unloads in winter, waiting lines at moody customers, complacent driver inspections for malfunctioning trailer equipment, full chemical PPE in summer.

 

Holiday and Kwik Trip have their own fleets as well if you're upper midwest

 

I’m doing it right now. 24 years of freight and I had enough. Time to finish off my career with my shoulders intact.