Make an Additional $50,000.00 a Year From Your Rig!
Everyone wants to make more money at their job, but very few
people have the opportunity to give themselves a $50,000.00 raise per year.
You, as an owner/operator of a tractor trailer, have that opportunity. You’ve
probably heard any number of these recommendations before, but we’ve put them
all together - and done the math. If you want results, some bad habits need to
be broken and some equipment needs to be installed. Let’s start with 5 realistic
ways you can make much more money with your rig.
Stop Idling!
You and I both know drivers that have bad habits. First,
there’s idling. Of the 24 hours available, 11 are over the
road and the other 13 are consumed idling – usually just for convenience. While
there are any number of reasons to reduce idling as much as possible, including
laws in some states, consider this:
·
Idling reduces the useful lifetime of your oil. You
have a standard lifetime of around 600 hours of operation for over-the-road
driving with each oil change. Continuous idling can reduce that to a mere 150
hours! How much are you paying for a standard oil change? How often do you want
to be paying for one? Idling at around 625
RPMs allows for buildup of unburned fuel on the cylinder liners, which is drawn
in by the oil sump. This contaminates the oil and shortens the life of the
fluid as a lubricant. You’re now paying for more oil changes, more fuel and
more engine maintenance; this is your money lost. Even if you choose a higher
idling rate to combat some of the oil contamination, you’re now using even more
fuel to idle, and you’re still paying more for maintenance, so your costs are
still piling up.
·
You’re not making money from your fuel if you’re
idling. Drivers want to drive. That’s
how money is made, but there are mandatory down times. What your truck is doing
while on that down time is where your money is going; especially since a one-man
driver is on downtime more than driving time every single day. Some drivers think
of it as a necessary evil, and create the most comfortable environment possible
while burning up to a gallon of diesel an hour. That’s almost $50.00 per day in
fuel that’s not making you money. Multiply that by the average truck work year,
and that’s around $14,000.00. Stop
idling unless absolutely necessary and you start making more money.
·
So, what do you do about it? Install a small generator
that runs from your fuel tank, or a separate tank. You can have a very
comfortable cab, as well as run your electrics from a small, very efficient generator.
There are also electric plug-ins available at numerous truck stops and rest
areas, so drivers can be comfortable in any weather, and the heaters can keep
the fluids at start-up temp. It actually takes about 14 hours for an engine and
fluids to cool to ambient temperature once the rig is shut down, depending on the
outside temperature, so worrying about a cold start usually isn’t the problem.
There are a host of other solutions out there as well, from solar, to AC battery
solutions that will reduce your idling time significantly.
Break Bad Habits!
Ride with enough drivers and you’ll know most seem to have one
or two major fuel wasting habits. The first one is almost always their speed. Yes, the load has to be there on
time, and drivers want to get the most miles out of their 11 hours, but what if
you knew for a fact that dropping your speed from 75 mph to 65 mph would make
you $18,000.00 more per year in fuel
savings? That’s right; by dropping an average of 10 mph, drivers can gain as
much as 1 additional mpg. The difference between the maximum fuel economy RPM
and the maximum horsepower RPM range can be as small as 200 RPM. Find out the
range for your truck, and take advantage of it. If your average is 6 mpg, plug
in 7 mpg to your yearly fuel usage, and see how much more you can make with
your truck/fleet just by slowing it down some.
Another bad habit is running
out of the top gear. If you are in
the top gear less than 90% of the time, you’re paying for it. Poor shifting habits
make for huge losses in fuel. Ten percent less time in the top gear translates
into 0.5% mpg losses. And, of course, there’s sudden stopping and fast
acceleration to make matters worse. How bad is it? There’s a 30% loss of fuel
mileage associated with poor driving habits when a driver exhibits all bad
habits at once. Let’s see how that translates into what you could be making. Using
our average mileage for an OTR rig of about 6 MPG, with a 30% loss for poor driving,
that makes it in the neighborhood of 4.8 MPG. How much do you save with good
driving habits? Conservatively, about $30,000.00
per year if you compare fuel usage at each of those values for one year.
You’ll notice we’re well
above the $50,000.00 mark at this point, and there’s still more to come. So
why am I giving you a lower estimate? Not all drivers, or all trucks, exhibit
all of the same problems. Some have good driving habits, but poor idling
behaviors; others, vice versa. Still more problems can be isolated to the
equipment itself. Which brings us to…
Update Your Equipment!
With the exception of poorly maintained equipment, of all the things
that make a truck expensive to operate, the lack of aerodynamics can be one of
the worst. If your truck/fleet is still hauling without improvements in
aerodynamics, you need to do a cost analysis on the return this equipment
provides.
The highest estimate for updating your truck with aerodynamic equipment is that it can
add up to 12% to your MPG. That takes your mileage from 6 MPG to 6.76 MPG, with
a fuel savings of around $14,000.00
per year. Yes, you will spend several thousand dollars for an upgrade, but
that’s a one-time investment that pays you again, and again, over the life cycle
of the rig. Additionally, not every upgrade is available for every type of rig,
so your results are going to vary with the amount of aerodynamics you can, or
do, install. Some equipment you might want to review includes:
A Trailer Gap Reducer and Trailer Side Skirts
A Trailer Boat Tail and Trailer Side Skirts
Advanced Trailer End Fairing
Advanced Trailer Skirts
Tractor Aerodynamics Package
Finally, there are low
rolling resistance tires. These tires are already required in California on
all tractors, and are a coming requirement for all trailers in that state by 2017.
This sounds like bad news, but for the small additional cost of each tire,
there are significant returns. Just as the shape of your truck contributes to greater
resistance, so does the design of your tire. Low rolling resistance tires can
improve your MPG by up to 8%. Again, taking our average rate of 6 MPG, and
adding another 8% to the equation gives you around $9,000.00 per year.
If nothing else, this information should help you determine
where to begin to start making more money. If we’re being realistic, each item
has its own associated expense. If you’re the driver, you’ll have to spend time
relearning good driving habits, determining just how much idling you actually
have to do, and how much time you are going to spend in down time to do the
upgrades on your rig. If you have drivers working for you, you will have
training costs; upgrade costs and management expenses to continue a successful
program. If you’re interested in making more money from your business, it’s
worth it.
East Coast Truck and Trailer
Sales
2906 Elmhurst Lane
Portsmouth, VA 23701
800-849-2178
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