Hill Brothers: The latest info. request

tracking fuel mileage is important because it can be used to let you know if there is a problem with your truck. needs an overhead/injectors/charge air cooler.

this week I had to run hard down to shelbyville, tn to make on-time delivery. 70 in Missouri, 65 the rest of the way. but still got 7.22 on the ecm. coming out of Georgia i got an identical 7.22 running a lot easier. 60 mph. the only difference on the way down was i tried to stay off the cruise and had about 200 miles deadhead. both loads weighed 38,000. i was able to run slower because my logs and load didn't require it.

for the last 12 days my ecm has me at 7.09 for 4669 miles. I have been pretty much sitting today because another owner operator stole my load, without Hill Bros permission, out of a shipper in Calhoun, Ga. He just grabbed and left since his load canceled. No call to Hill or anything. Hill Bros was able to get me a load up to Plano, IL that I could drop anytime. But since they weren't going to have a load til Monday I will drop in the am when they I have a reload for me.

We will have to get together sometime and discuss this stuff. One recommendation that I haven't tried but have heard good things about is Fleet Air Filters. Its a lifetime air filter that can be cleaned then oiled. Cost is $342 with shipping. Mine is in the mail. And also Pittsburgh Power Mufflers. The cost on that is like $200. From what I have been told the mpg gain for both combined is about .5 Not bad considering the cost.

 

I guess what we are both saying is watch your mpg. fuel and your truck payments will be your biggest cost. and since your truck payment is fixed that won't change. your fuel costs can be a huge savings depending on your mpg and how much you pay per gallon. I just paid $2.62 down in Tennessee compared to the pump price of $2.89

 

The reason fixed costs are called "fixed costs" is that the number never changes. fuel costs are always variable in that various factors affect them. mpg, price per gallon, weather. If you 3000 miles a week and burn 500 gallons of fuel 1 week and 450 the next then the cost of fuel per mile goes down. When JR says that he is using $.13 a mile for fuel that is an average for the year. The reason a lot of drivers track their expenses based on a per mile basis is they need to know those numbers so they know how much to charge their customers when they book a load. If the rate on a load is $1.00 mile and their cost to drive the truck is $.50. they then know exactly how much they can make on the load. Since we are on a mileage pay basis i already know how much I maker per mile so all I need to do is figure income and subtract expenses. Its still nice to know how much you make per mile.

 

I believe you are referring to Kevin Rutherford. He has a midnight show on satellite radio and a weekend show from 4pm to 7pm.

As for the gliderkits I believe you are referring to Fitzgerald's in Crossville TN.

Pittsburgh Power is the outfit that offers the special mufflers, power box, crank shaft dampener, etc.

Other recommended products seem to be the OPS1 oil purification system which keeps the oil clean and can extend oil changes practically indefinitely (based upon regular oil sampling that is).

 

Actually, the difference is likely that the numbers you are comparing aren't the actual ones. For example, while my truck does report just under 8 MPG via the computer my actual fuel purchase divided by miles (and adjusted for FSC) shows about 13.1 CPM fuel cost which is something along the lines of 9.5 MPG I think (given that 20 CPM adjusted is 6 MPG assuming no idle or OOR).

There are a bunch of different ways to look at it, and yes you are right that any fixed cost divided by a varying number of miles can be treated as variable.

While the income is linear, it is the expense side that varies and, in my experience, has an up-shaped curve towards the end of the graph representing more miles. Since all drivers are limited by the HOS there comes a point where I run out of hours and my miles stop for a time. Someone looking to increase income drives faster to get more miles which increases total income but also increases expense at a faster rate. Some drivers routinely drive 70-75 or whatever the speed limit allows and take as many miles as they can get, but when you break down the profit and loss it shows them working for not much more than a company driver and receiving none of the benefits.

One example was an (anonymous) driver who in calendar year 2009 grossed more than I did by driving 148,000 dispatched miles vs. my 124,000. He took home $51,000, I took home $71,000. He (or she) elected to drive 24,000 miles more during the year and take $20,000 less income as a result. I pointed out to the person in charge of the o/o and l/o program that this driver made about 34.5 CPM net with no benefits, considerably less than a company driver with the same truck would make.

Hope this helps,

Jim