Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

It seems reasonable -- why make it harder on yourself by helping your competition learn what you've struggled to apprehend on your own over the years? The poker community has made this argument as well -- the games are getting tougher, why make it any harder?

For me, the answer here is the same as there: those that strive to be the best exchange knowledge with others and, from these exchanges, additional knowledge is created. This is what made America an economic powerhouse: settlers from all over the globe living nearby, sharing their tips from their respective 'old countries' spurring further development that outpaced what the old countries could do on their own.

Moreover, people are lazy. Only a tiny fraction of carriers will ever work to improve their business, they just want to show up, do the minimum, and clock out. I think Kevin Rutherford mentioned in his audiobook that when he was doing accounting, fewer than 1 in 10 owner operators were consistently tracking their fuel mileage... If you're too lazy to jot a few lines in a notebook, you probably aren't going to go searching the internet on how to find the best rates and lanes & how to best position yourself to negotiate with shippers and brokers. Even among those that do, more than a few will find my writing verbose and give up before getting to the meat of the material.

But the fraction of carriers that will work to improve their businesses? They'll do so whether I'm here or not. They'll get better anyway -- so why wouldn't I want to get better too? And why shouldn't we share information that makes us even better than we could be alone?

Make no mistake, poker games did get tougher. Many of the old guard proclaimed the widespread new breed of TAG players (tight aggressive) killed the games completely. But those who continued to improve their game, exchanging ideas and practicing new strategies, developed the skills needed to feed off what became known as tag-fish. They added depth to their own games to exploit the weaknesses of those who "played by the book." Besides, poker is a zero sum game; the transportation industry is not. By teaching carriers what they are truly worth, it is possible to raise rates for everyone.

In the long run, I don't believe any high dollar super secret squirrel lane will last. Businesses come and go, freight lanes change, the ratio of loads to trucks will fluctuate. And if someone comes along and is able to offer the same service at a lower cost, then I'll need to up my game. And I will...

 

I'm still focusing on rates (big thanks to Rollin Coal), but that doesn't mean I can't bump up the fuel mileage when the opportunity presents... After getting an alignment with Chad Hohn @ Kansas City's Alignment Solutions, I converted my tractor to wide singles. I'd been chasing craigslist deals for the last six months and finally connected.

Anyway, it was a decent deal on some dealership take-offs. What happens is a used truck dealership will get a batch of fleet trucks that were already equipped with singles, but they often have trouble selling the trucks to buyers skeptical of new technology. So off come the singles and on go a set of duals -- with the singles hitting the used market...

Long story shorter, despite my best Herb Cohen impersonation, the best I could do was $3200 for 4 virgin Michelin Xone Energy D's with even wear and 18-19/32 remaining (new is 23/32 so ~79% if you consider 2/32 the end of life) mounted on 2" offset Alcoa Dura Brite wheels. The other option I'd been weighing was new Energy D's on new wheels through Michelin's advantage program; that would have been $5600 after sales and excise taxes, so I paid 57% for 79%. The downside is that I did not get 0 offset wheels and I do not have any sort of warranty. So not a fantastic deal, but decent. By the way, once you have the wheels, replacement Energy D's are $890 with OOIDA pricing.

Here are a couple pictures to illustrate why 0 offset is preferable. This first is with 2" offset, which is what you'll likely find on the used market. You can see that the center of the wide single, the 4th tread groove, sits 2" to the outside of the center of the gap between the dual assembly:

This is good for stability, but the extra outboard length exerts more leverage on the axle housing, which in turn puts extra stress on the bearings. Plenty of people report running 2" offset with no issues, but if you start to notice inside tire wear -- this is the likely culprit. Chad Hohn mentioned that in severe cases, the axle tube becomes ovalized & must be replaced.


This is the recommended solution for 2" offset wheels -- flipping them around so instead of a +2" offset they are a -2" offset:


As you can see, it really sucks the wheel assemblies right up against the frame. This isn't great for stability & I'm not a fan of the appearance, but this orientation puts less stress on the bearings.


The other upside is that it gives me lots of room to fabricate an aerodynamic side skirt/fairing that will fold up for inspection & tire replacement, but otherwise remain down for a more streamlined side (a modification for the distant future). Think of fender skirts like these on the 66mpg Honda Insight:




Anyway, if you have a choice -- get 0" offset wheels...


The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

-- Robert Burns

So my plan was to install Kumho KLT02e tires on the aluminum dual drive wheels & move the assemblies to my trailer, replacing the rusting steel wheels & saving ~250 lb. The best wide single trailer tire (Michelin's ~$800 XTA, rolling resistance: 75) has only a marginal improvement in rolling resistance over the ~$270 -- x 2 -- Kumho (78 rolling resistance), though singles would save an additional 450-500 lb. But duals on the trailer offer a bit more peace of mind when confronted with super tight turns where rolling over a curb is the only option.

Unfortunately, I did not think to check stud length and it turns out that 2 aluminum wheels are about 1" thicker than 2 steel wheels:

There just wasn't enough thread on my trailer axles to run 2 aluminum wheels without replacing 40 perfectly good studs. So we tried just aluminum outers (would still save 125 lb), but after including the necessary spacer to separate steel & aluminum, there still wasn't enough room. Que Robert Burns. So the craigslist search for wide singles will continue...

And just because I've never seen it posted before, before/after scale tickets:


Before: 8 Aluminum rims with LP22.5
After: 4 Aluminum rims with 445/50/22.5 (~5 fewer gallons of diesel)
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Difference: 500 lb