On my way...Forward.

How's the money? I do understand that some people need humane treatment and all, but how's the money? I get the feeling you're doin alright money wise. Good on you if you were making what you wanted to make, you didn't get out of bed today to be average. I salute you.

Ever have a 'Bad Friend'? Your good friends you invite to your son's birthday party, and you send them Christmas cards. Your bad friend you call to give your daughter's boyfriend and his dad a new whole new religion for blacking her eye. Now, if I am your bad friend, I will not complain about not getting a Christmas card. Good friends are for good times, Bad Friends are for those bad times.

"Ummm, I'm lost...what does this have to do with trucking, Six?"

There are some drivers here who are good friends. They're run like machines. In fact, I call them the Machines. Completely solid, completely dependable. They run all 48, but for the most part, their logs always look the same way. Start their day, every day at the same time. Gotta love the Machines! Every single day, hammer out consistent miles. There's only 1 problem with Machines...sometime, they get into this funk where they want to feel human. They make money, but they need more. They want to a pat on the back, a THANK YOU. And they will leave a good paying job to find a "home".

And then there's those drivers with no soul. They only "live" for those 'bad times.' Critical load that's gotta be 750 miles down the road overnight. On elogs. Shipper calls around and brokers scramble. "Ain't no load worth a human life!"And they realize that they have to call their bad friend because he isn't 'human'. They hate when they have to call a bad friend. Hate that guy, but he's supernatural behind the wheel.

You're wanting to buy a truck and run like a machine. Nothing wrong with that. The thing that I would caution you against is buying a truck and expecting the money to roll in just because you have one. I'm not saying that you are doing this, but SO MANY DO. There is a big learning curve between being a company driver to owner op. You have to be smarter, more cautious, more of what you already were. Slackers buy trucks because they want to slack more, and they're out of business.
If you are a Machine, do the machine schedule. So many days at work. So many days at home. Like clockwork. When it's time to go to work, you go...regardless of what's going on at home. But when you time to go home hits, go home regardless of what's going on at work. Slackers can't keep the schedule. They can't run and work consistently. The Machines can and do. For decades.

I would recommend that you either lease on to a company (preferably with one that you are already familiar with), and work under their system before striking out on your own. OR if you are a Machine, find a Machine Mentor. The most important tool to an owner op is intelligence. What I do is find the guys like me, and create a network, and find out where they're at Monday morning. Money flows in different parts at different times of the week. If you know where the money's at and where it's moving, you can 'ride the waves.'

 

Apu's dot not burn a gallon of fuel per hour. Not even close more like in ten hours. They sip fuel not guzzle.

 

I had the original tripac and it said in the manual the bunk heater burned like you said 0.2 per hour. But turn on the a/c and the the three fans you need to run that part. The manual said like 0.9 or 1.0 gallons per hour when the system was running for a/c. I don't think the put those number out anymore. Maybe you can find them, I tried to look before but can't find it online. It was in the manual in the spec section.

 

I think your memory of what you read in a manual is incorrect. I believe what you read was .9 to .10
Mohawk truck.Inc. ( thermo king)
Ran a test in 06 showing tripac using .28 gallons in 6.5hrs .043gal/hr