mercer transportation

Sounds good, thanks guys

 

So I was talking to my wife tonight, the state of the union, this crappy economy, slow freight and bad rates. And she said something that makes a lot of sense. I really hate when she does that.

Today's trucking market is as bad as its been since 09, so 7 years. But even so, Tomorrow morning I'll be delivering my second load this week, picked up Monday afternoon, delivered Wednesday morning reloaded Wednesday afternoon and delivering early Friday morning a total of just under 4 days. after Mercer deductions and fuel there is enough left over I could easily of made the payment on a high end new truck. Why am I still driving this ugly freightliner?

Ugh. I hate when she makes sense. Now I'm going to be spending every free moment of the next two months going over numbers again and again and again and again.

 

Just for your references and what not spyder.

I currently pay 731 a week for a brand new 2016 Freightliner Cascadia, my LIFETIME mpg average is 8.3 mpg, i am currently leased on to schneider national, last week i made a GROSS revenue of 3200 and still took home 1600 dollars net.

The good fuel economy and what not has helped quite a bit with the higher payment, but i also have a 5 year 500k warranty and all that jazz. Truck had 68 miles on it when I picked it up, now a bit over 80k miles and still runs great, no real problems or issues with it. Only major change ive done so far is I had monroe shocks put in. These new trucks arent THAT HORRIBLE. Though I will say when you start having issues with the emissions garbage, have fun.

 

Only thing that you have to analyze is how much do you wanna work?? It'll be harder to take off consecutive months. I know you already know this but take last year numbers and throw in a truck payment.......

 

No offense dude, but you can't really use your numbers to compare things. our situations and operations are to dissimilar
.
The serious differences:
trying to compare fuel mileage in a van operation to a flat is impossible. A vans aerodynamics never change. With a flat one day I have a nice low profile load that only sits a foot off the deck creating almost no drag(plate steel for example) the next day I'm loading a machine 12 foot wide, 9 foot tall, with a funnel shaped flute on the front creating ask the aerodynamics of a deployed parachute.

731 a week?! Yikes. When I bought this one new my payment was just over 1650 a month. prices have gone up, and I will not be buying another cheap freighliner so I'm figuring if I did this, I'd be looking at about 2250.

And before any one tells me you can't get a new truck for that, don't bother. Yes you can. It's called a real down payment and good interest rate. Figure 2.5 to 4 percent.

 

Yep. That's the main consideration. I might have to work more than six months out of the year. That is truly a frightening prospect.

 

Ah, but It does matter, if it didn't there'd be no need for a board. Your position when you prebook is determined by your "preset" delivery time you see on the load info screen. If some one empties ahead of you that had a later preset then your are behind them.If no one ahead of you wants the loads it is then yours and you are prebooked. If there's 50-60 trucks ahead of you where you're going and no freight , good luck with that, there's nothing to prebook.

 

Wait! Didn't you give me a hard time when I said I was going to buy a new truck? Let me see.... Yep, you did

And 2200-2300 is VERY doable.

So why do I get so many good loads when I'm hi (or low) on the list? Oh I know, if you are not empty you are not getting much of a prebook call. Empty trucks are looking at today, not Monday.

 

$731? That over $2900 a month! Hum I have a warranty too. But I'll be (word I'm sure is censored) if I would pay $2924 a month for a truck at $1.20 a mile or whatever it is. Also our systems our way different. You can't make that payment and run like you did at SNI. Others have tried and returned to SNI. The learning curve is just too much.

Once established here it is easy. But you are use to running. Me (we) throw a fit if we work 50 hours unless we are grossing $6k. $3200 gross is 3-4 days of 8 hrs for many of us. And 8 hrs is a LONG day.

 

lets be fair, i only gave you a little bit of a hard time. I just said I didn't want to work that hard. This semi retired Mercerized gig is a good fit for my lazy streak.


When you heading back over to this side of the country?