HINTS FOR HAULIERS.
Page 17
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' The Proper Method of Computing Running Costs of a Vehicle. The Better Mileage which May be Expected from Present-day Tyres. Arriving at Tyre Cost.
THIS IS the third article of a short special series in which I am trying to explain, first-10f all, how absolutely essential it is, if any money is to be made out of motor-haulage contracting, that accurate accounts be kept, so that each owner has a veal knowledge of what his own vehicles are costing him to run. He then has no need to rely either upon • estimates or upon the average figures -which I give from time to time in these articles. Neither estimates nor averages are near enough for!the purpose, for competition is now so keen thatr a very little saving may mean all the difference between 'doing a job at a loss and making a profit out of it: No man may expect to make a saving unknowingly, and he cannot know, unless he keeps track of all his expen diture. Secondly, I am developing a rough-andready, but, still, an accurate method of keeping track of that expenditure, one which is simple enough to understand and equally simple to carry out.'
In the first article I showed how easy it is for, any man, not having accurate and nositive knowledge of these things, to go wrong very considerably, and in the worst possible direction—that of underestimating, which involves him in loss. In the second article I gave a rough-and-ready method of keeping track of the three most obvious items of expenditure —fuel, lubricants, and sundries, the last-named being really a part of what is properly termed the maintenance charge.
How Hauliers Underestimate their Costs.
• Now,. I can easily .point a moral and read a lessen from last week's article, harking back again to what I said in the one the week before about the certainty that most hauliers underestimate their costs. On the three items already considered, without going any farther, ninety-five per cent, of the non-bookkeeping hauliers will discover .that their vehicles, are costing more than they had thought. Their fuel bills (imagined) will be less than their fuel bills (real) by the amount spent on those odd gallons of petrol or cwts. of coal or coke, hitherto forgotten whenever the need for the computation of cost arose. Their expenditure on lubricants will be found to be more than was thought, by similar amounts, disbursed while on the road, for odd quarts of oil or handfuls of grease, acquired just to keep going until the old bus reaches home again. As for the sundries—maintenance—it is no exaggeration to say that in most cases it will jump by -hundreds per cent. • At least I should say, these inaccuracies will be discovered if care is taken that all the little items are accounted for. If the reader forgets to ask for a bill for everything he buys, or, having got the bills, is going to forget to put them on the files, then he will be as badly off as lie was before.
Wages as a Standing Charge.
• . After fuel and oil, the most obvious item of expenditure, in the ease of the man who has more than one lorry, or who does not drive his own, is wages. I do not want to dealwith wages yet, however, • for this reason : It is important, in dealing with the cost of working a motor vehicle, to differentiate between those costs which mount up as the mileage increases, and those which are going on all the time, whether the machine is running or not. Those which increase mile by mile are called running costs ; those which go on whether the vehicle is running or standing are called standing charges. Petrol or coal. for example, is only required, practically speaking, while the vehicle is running : money expended on fuel, therefore, is a running cost. 'Wages, on the other hand, are paid by the week, and reach the same amount, except in the case of bonuses, whether the • weekly mileage is fifty or five hundred. Wages rank as standing charges. In order to emphasize the difference between these two classes of expenditure, I am going to deal -with them separately, and must complete my discourse about the running costs Now, feel,. lubricants, and tyre maintenance are the three most obvious items of running costs, because they are the things for which the owner has to be getting his hand down every day, or nearly every day, that the lorry is on the road. That is why I dealt with them first, as a breaking-in for the others, which ara not so obvious, and therefore not so easy of understanding—at least, on the part of the man who has no experience of keeping accounts.
The -Costly Item of Tyres. • On this basis, the next item is the cost of tyres. Now, the unfortunate thing about tyres. is that they keep up such a splendid appearance of well-being for such a long time. There is, naturally, no one so absolutely insane, and blind, as to imagine that he is going to run for ever on one set of tyres • but there it is, the tyre 4 look so well, and keep on looking so well for weeks and weeks, almost for months, that the owner forgets about ,them. For the first week or so he looks at them every morning, merely to note' with growing. satisfaction each time, that they -hardly show any sign of wear. Solids are particularly deceptive in this regard: they are apparently as good as new long after the lorry has, seemingly, been earning quite a lot of "brass," and even pneumatic g keep up appearances for quite a long while. The non-skid markings wear slowly at first,. and if-by good (or bad) luck no punctures are expenenced, then they, too, have the appearance of being practically everlasting. The . consequence is that, after a time, the owner begins to gain confidence in his wheel equipment, and ceases his daily. inspection. In a very little time the tyres, from being out of sight, become out of mind. They are forgotten altogether either as tyres or as a possible item of expenditure.' Forgotten, at least, untilthe necessity for renewal becomes painfully apparent either in the thump, thump, thump of a rear wheel, from which a lump of solid tyre is missing, or entil a sudden explosion calls attention to a gaping rent, a foot or so long, in a pneumatic. Then comes a bill which irretrievably swallows • up the seeming profit of weeks, converting it to real loss.
In my next contribationI t go fully into the questions of tyre. mileage obtainable in London and in the provinces, and of cost. TEE SKOTCH.