THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

Maybe LTL?

 

Just got to Carlisle OC.

Started at around 1100 in Sanford, headed to my pickup, got there and got sent to another building a mile down the road to get loaded. By hand. Not me doing the loading at least, but it took FOREVER. For like 1/3 of the trailer, lol. After that headed north to Winchester for the delivery. Stupid Home Depot wouldn't let me break the seal to remove my THREE load straps I had in there to keep the 412414 boxes from falling all over everywhere. Hopefully I can sweet talk the night shift fuel desk lady at Carlisle into getting me some more. God I despise Home Depot... one of the worst customers IMO.

Anyway, I headed up to Carlisle because I know I can get a load out of here but I don't have anything planned yet. Tomorrow I'm gonna take care of stuff that needs to be taken care of like my quarterly inspection, power to trailer wiring, get the truck washed (again)...

Thanks to gentlerogers help I got in touch with some people who got in touch with some more people that got my pay settlements fixed on crossroads... so business numbers coming soon, I promise.

I'll be around Carlisle probably all day tomorrow unless something really good shows up here. Not exactly in a hurry to get moving yet so I'll probably spend most of the day looking at numbers and seeing how I'm doing.

They need to turn this stupid TV by the paper racks down, its always turned way up and now its a bunch of people screaming about why the new logo is awesome. Why do they even have this **** on.

 

Well, here is the post many of you have been wanting to see (no, not the "I failed and am turning the truck in and declaring bankruptcy post), but numbers numbers and more numbers.

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So now that I've my settlements working again, I thought I'd run some numbers here for my own sake and share them on here.

When I first picked up my truck in Green Bay it had 319,101 miles on it. I now have 344,638 miles on the truck. This means since I started I have put 25,537 miles on the truck.

The total revenue that this truck has made since I started with it is $32,910.

So for each odometer mile I have made $1.29.

Now, lets look at some more recent numbers. November and December were very much "learning" months for me - I did a lot of running in the southeast where freight was very busy at the time, and often took me "close" to home a lot - which I took advantage of. However, this resulted in me bobtailing excessively to and from customers for pickups, since I almost never have freight that goes "through" my house, just near it. Usually I was bobtailing 100+ miles to get home. I also spent a fair amount of bobtail miles running the truck to and from Greensboro, NC when I removed the DPF to have it cleaned to have them pull codes and reset a parameter in the ECM after installing the cleaned DPF.

I started in 2014 on January 6th. Over Christmas I had a PM performed on the truck, the sticker on the dashboard reads the PM was performed at 334,982 miles. From there I drove the truck 50 miles back to my house, so I technically started my 2014 loads from home at 335,032 miles.

Since January 6th of 2014, I have put 9,606 miles on the truck. I have been home once (which meant bobtailing from Garysburg, NC to Chapel Hill, NC and then back out on a trailer search when leaving), the rest of the time has been spent on the road, including taking restarts.

I have grossed $13,184 to date.

So, for each odometer mile of 2014 I have made $1.37.

This year I have been running up and down from NC, GA, SC, and VA to PA. I haven't had the temptation to go by the house as much. I still aim for loads that pay $1.50ish+ per mile according to the load board which is obviously optimistic with its mileage calculations (and doesn't account for trailer searches, etc.). I'm very happy seeing an 8 CPM increase simply by changing the way I run. My goal is to see an actual $1.50 per odometer mile.

So there are some gross revenue numbers for you guys. Again, keep in mind the way I run - I'm extremely picky about loads and anything over 15,000lbs. is a "heavy" load for me. I deadhead a fair bit for these loads. I will sometimes do some heavier loads such as pallets, but usually those are loads that are paying extremely high CPM rates and just run because it pays so well and its close by to where my previous load was at. This year I have not hauled anything at or above 40,000lbs, nor do I plan to. Heavy loads cost you dearly due to the increased fuel usage and wear and tear on the truck, make sure its worth it before you book it!
Now lets look at some costs. The first one is going to be fuel mileage. Lets see what I have averaged overall and what I have averaged for 2014. Keep in mind that the level in the tank was very low when I first fueled the truck in Green Bay, and I fueled today and am sitting at about 3/4 of a tank.

Since I started, I have purchased 3984 gallons of fuel.

This means I have averaged 6.4 MPG since I first got the truck in November.

Calculating my MPG for 2014 is tricky, since I "started out" the year by fueling from a low tank, and just today fueled to a full tank and after finishing my day am down to about 3/4 full.

But, so far this year I have purchased 1555 gallons of fuel. My recent hand calculations on the past couple tanks have been around 6.8 MPG. So, in order to get down to the "same" fuel level as I started the year with, I'd have to drive roughly 700 more miles, brining the 2014 milege total to 10,306 miles. So a rough estimate for the YTD MPG is 6.6 MPG which is pretty close to what my hand calculations have been.

Using the original figure of 6.4 MPG, assuming a cost of $4.00/gallon, each mile I drive costs me $0.625.

If I could improve the mileage to 7.5MPG, still assuming the cost the $4.00/gallon, that drops the per mile cost of fuel down to $0.533 - that's almost 10 cents per mile STRAIGHT into my wallet!

This is an improvement but obviously still poor, especially considering the very lightweight loads that I am pulling.

I know several things that I could improve on here:

*Driving 60 MPH... all the time - this year I have been driving more at night and when traffic dies down at 8PM and continues to dwindle down, I oftentimes find myself wanting to increase my cruising speed because I am no longer "catching up" to traffic and having to fiddle with the cruise control (one of the biggest reasons I drive at 60 during the day). Today was a perfect example, as soon as I got out of Winchester I had the cruise on 67MPH all the way up until the 55MPH speed limit in Carlisle (and the 60MPH zone through Maryland). I had no reason to, as I had plenty of hours left, but I just did it because I guess I felt like it. I know this costs me money.

*Finishing up my cleaning of the EGR system on the truck - I still have a fair bit of work to do here. There is one sensor which I am almost positive is receiving false readings due to a clogged tube, which in turn affects the geometry of the blades in the turbocharger as well as other ECM functions. Long story short, things are just not running as efficient as they should be. Even without EGR and DPF deletes I am confident I can get 7.5 to 8 MPG pulling the loads that I do... definitely a goal to work towards

*My 5th wheel is still moved VERY far back due to a few very heavy loads that I pulled when I first started out. My engine is extremely heavy and puts a lot of weight on the front axle, so I had to get weight off of it as I was over. Now that I am pulling lots of lightweight loads, there is no reason I can't close up the gap and that should reduce resistance significantly. However, I lose maneuverability, which I oftentimes need unfortunately due to tight spots at customers where I have to jackknife to get turned around.

*These MPG calculations are also affected by my APU and bunk heater usage. I am not sure what the actual fuel consumption of the APU and bunk heater are, but they are significant, but as to how significant, I don't exactly know. I do know that I keep my truck toasty and the heater and APU will run a lot when I am shut down in order to keep me happy, lol. I did notice a fairly large drop in hand calculated fuel mileage when I took my 34 hour restart at a truck stop and used the APU almost all day running my laptop and heater. Remember this when looking at my MPG figures.

Last but not least I want to take a look at maintenance costs. I contribute about $220 a week towards my mandatory managed maintenance account (MMA) with SFI. So far, I have only deducted money from this account to have my PM performed. All other repairs and parts purchased have been done by me and paid for out of pocket.

I guess for the sake of this, I will consider the weekly maintenance account funds part of my per mile costs, plus the costs of parts I have paid out of pocket. Remember, I have not used my maintenance account funds for any labor other than a PM service since I like to work on my truck myself, so this may seem pretty low. But remember, I work slower than a shop because I don't have the ideal space to work on the truck or all the shop tools that can make the job oh-so-much-easier, so increased downtime costs me money. But its still cheaper overall in my opinion to do it myself.

This will be a VERY rough per mile estimate that is just simply what the truck has cost me to date... but remember, I haven't been doing this for very long, so this number will very likely change as I continue my o/o career, the truck gets more miles, more parts wear, etc. Ideally the funds in the MMA would cover all repairs, but that is yet to be seen. I still keep money set aside should a major repair be needed and I don't have enough funds in the MMA to cover it.

My maintenance account currently has a balance of $1,729.

The cost of the PM i had performed was $470.

Out of pocket I had the DPF filters cleaned, purchased several sensors for the EGR system, as well as replaced all four batteries with new ones.

Out of pocket costs total $2021.

This brings the total that I have spent on maintaining my truck (and contributing towards an account that will (probably) be used on maintaining my truck to $4220.
Therefore, maintenance costs per mile come to $0.165 per mile to date.

Well, its now 4am so I'm going to get some sleep. Remember all of this math was done not with the help of any of ATBS's calculations, but from me looking at my individual settlements, adding stuff up with Windows 7 super sophisticated calculator and then typing it out here. There are probably gonna be some mistakes but I did my best to double check everything, kinda.

 

Are you trying to say that those of us that gave you your training are lack luster or inferior to the folks in GB? I do not think that just because they work at the corprate office means that they are the brightest and shiniest that SNI has to offer. LMAO.... just giving you a hard time...thanks for putting together some numbers. Was hoping to see a better mpg after the work on the truck (understanding it is not finished) is it throwing and thing besides the ghost codes? Any further issues with the regen?

 

Yes we are that much better. Our lunches are catered by Le Marq - you know it's got to be good because of the Le. That means it's French, and French cooks are the best. You know why GB doesn't have showers? Because we smell like roses no matter what we'he been doing. The orange paint on our tractors is really solid gold.

 

I really do appreciate your feedback and enjoy reading this,and maybe I seem argumentative because I am only trying to figure out why I failed.And I am only running these numbers in my head but it seems to me if you have run 25,537 and have spent/set aside 4220 toward maintenance that is roughly .16 cents/mile.And keep saving that money because you will surely need it.Since 1/6/14 if you get a settlement every friday that means you have paid another 4 payments on your truck which is roughly 4400 divided by 9606 miles is another .45/mile. Now add in .62/mile fuel cost and your around 1.25/mile cost.(maintenance,truck payment,fuel)

 

Showers are across the street at fleet master.

 

Getting high 7s or even 8mpg on a Cummins Cascadia older model isnt really possible. Heck even a 14 evo Cascadia barely cracks 8mpg. Be happy with 7mpg. If u want better mpg run Midwest get away from the mnts and traffic.

 

I knew that was coming LOL. Ssshh guys CW's on to me, I think he knows the Green Bay paid me off to make them sound like their **** doesn't stink.

I'm hoping to see better MPG too but yeah my works not done yet. I have no trouble bringing home a nice paycheck at this MPG however, if I can do better (which I know I can) it's just that much more money into my pocket. Still just this one code it throws from time to time which is the "DPF Face Plug" code. Based on what I have seen, and knowing my doser injector is working correctly, the DPF's face isn't actually plugged, but it "thinks" it is because the exhaust backpressure sensor probably isn't reading correctly due to that little tube being clogged with soot. It also only throws this code when I am pulling heavier loads and really working the engine (i.e. boost pressures are higher) which is another sign that really makes me think that tube is clogged.

I laughed out loud at that.

Hey 6 speed I don't think you're being argumentative at all, just being part of the discussion which is why this thread is here. Good catch on the .16 per mile maintenance cost, I tried and can't seem to figure out how my 4am math lead me to .06 per mile haha, must have just forgot to type in the 1?? Anyway, updated the original post to reflect the actual maintenance cost.

The $1074/week payment includes the $220 maintenance account payment, insurance, plates, truck payment, yadda yadda. So take out the $220/week maintenance account part of that payment (because we've calculated that separately) and that comes to $854/week for all that fixed cost.

Now, lets look at a 1-month period to make things simple. So far since starting the year on the 6th, up until yesterday when I shut down and used that mileage on my dashboard for these calculations, that means I have been running for 26 days. 9606 miles in 26 days = 370 miles per day (total, not just working days). So, lets take a one month period (30 days) and multiply it by this month-to-date per date average of 370 and that means that by the time I have been running for 1 month I will have averaged around 11,100 miles.

$854/week * 4 = $3416/month

$3416/11,100 mi = .307 CPM, so lets round it up to .31 cents per mile.

.31 CPM for fixed truck payment costs + .62 CPM for fuel + .16 CPM for maintenance = $1.09 per mile total cost.

Now remember that the above CPM includes the maintenance account contributions which has a positive balance in it of $1,729. Lets remove that from the equation and look at what the truck has actually cost me SO FAR (not that the money in the maintenance account won't be used in the future, just looking purely at actual costs):

So I've actually spent $2491 on truck maintenance so far. $2491/25537 mi = $0.0975 per mile, so lets round it up to .10 per mile

Again, .31 CPM payment + .62 CPM fuel + .10 CPM "actual" maintenance = $1.03 per mile... which oddly enough is _EXACTLY_ what my ATBS guy estimated my per mile costs would be... guess those guys are pretty darn good at what they do LOL.

Oh it's absolutely possible moosc, I've been talking with a guy who is extremely knowledgeable about these engines and is getting around 9 MPG with this same engine on his truck. Oh and he's pulling 40k+. Mind you, I believe hes driving 55-57, 10spd direct mileage setup, but still, it shows that there is a lot of room for improvement on mine. With these little light loads and considering the APU and bunk heater fuel usage, yeah I probably get around 7 MPG, but I'm not satisfied with that, I KNOW it can do better and will continue to work on it until it does.

 

How much do u put in your general fund every week? Apu burns very little fuel same with bunk heater. Wish u luck on your mpg dreams. Just pick up a good set of big boy boots because there is alot bs out here.