Company Driver to IC

I haven't done an Avon OH yet, I think those pioneer runs are once a week. They are dedicated out-n-back, but I'm usually running system. Local work has slowed down a lot thanks to the mill closings, but if you are willing to sleep in the truck you will do fine. It does slow down usually first quarter. Winter can be extremely busy.

 

If the weather is bad we tend to pick up a lot of recovery loads. And when its cold we run a lot of 6 oil and glycol. This winter wasn't bad at all, slow and steady and the weather was fine. Last year not so much lol.

 

Yea, Cincinnati has a run into the Bronx coming out of Louisville. Out of Auburn we did have dedicated to the five boroughs, not sure if that is still going. But yes, you can and probably will be sent into the boroughs.

Truck has been running good, no major mechanical difficulties. There are a few things I do need to do and get looked into. Theres a bunch of these rubber backed metal clamps that are rusted out that I need to replace when I get home. I found the clamps on Amazon in a pack of 25 for $11.
My air purges every 2 minutes which is annoying as can be, so whatever the cause of that is going to be replaced. And I want to replace my fifth wheel, I do not like the mechanics of it and the cost to rebuild is only a little less than outright replacement. And at some point I'm going to add a webasto block and cab heater.

Oh and do some performance mods to make more power
The truck has a split rating of 435/500, I'm not sure how that works but I feel like 500 hp should pull better than what I'm getting. And as counter-intuitive as it may seem, I'm hoping a little bump in power will improve fuel economy because the engine will need to do less work to maintain speed. I've been pretty good about keeping the cruise at 64, but I do have a heavy foot at times.

 

For the first two settlements I'm seeing $1.64 - $1.97 with FSC. It's busy right now but I'm currently down until late next week.
My first run out had some set backs that will cost me some money and time but overall it's been good. Up until yesterday when I needed to get home I was running about 92% loaded miles, so very little deadhead. The invoicing week is a bit different for the IC's than company drivers and I can understand why some guys time their fuel purchases differently. My second week I had $1000 in fuel charges but only two loads totaling 1000 miles billed for the week, even though I only had one day of layover.

As a company driver I would have grossed around $1700 per week running over 2000 loaded miles weekly, so far as an IC I've netted $3500 for two settlements. But because the settlement period is different and I've only received two settlements its not an equal comparison. My second settlement the net was $800 because it only included two loads. Those two loads were billed for a full week, even though it was a Friday to Saturday, and Saturday to (what ended up being) Tuesday. I also picked up my next load that Tuesday but it will be on the next settlement.

From 05/09 to 05/26 I ran a total of 7200 miles, paid $447.45 in tolls, $3077.57 in fuel (before discounts), and $17 for parking. That works out to $0.49/mi running costs before any discounts are applied. Going off my settlements, the fuel discount looks to bring the price down to $2.39. The most expensive tolls were NY but I now have my ezpass with them so that will discount the thruway and the bridges.