Clydebank to realistically, now that’s some leap. My phone wouldn’t write Clydebank, it kept swapping it for Clydesdale!
I bought my phone on east lane must of spilt a glass of sassparella on it mate
I wouldn’t buy anything off that mob down the lane, proper dodgy geezers round that manner mate.
newmercman:
Carryfast, I’m not suggesting that they would stitch you up, but they would make things sound a lot rosier than they really are. To put that into perspective for the kind of Euro work you would’ve been looking at, they would promise a trip a week to Barcelona or Milan for example, but then you’d get to Barcelona and end up doing three or four drops and you would have to go down to Valencia for a load of onions that were tipping in all three London markets, then your next export would be a load out of Leicester, or you’d get to Milan and do a couple of drops and be ready for a reload on Wednesday, only they haven’t got enough freight to fill your trailer, so you end up leaving on Friday. This would happen at least once a month and no matter how much you turned and burned, you would never make up the lost trips in a year, you would always be four or five down on what you could’ve achieved if the transport gods were looking after you. Four or five list trips is a whole month’s revenue and if you’re only pulling a wage out of the job then you will not make money out the venture, you may survive, but surviving is a miserable way to go about living, whereas having a nice few quid in the bank is rather nice.There were methods to combat the decreased revenue from these inevitable lost trips, red diesel and disregarding driving hour’s laws being popular, however I couldn’t possibly comment on those matters as I wouldn’t dream of bending the rules myself…
Blimey.Let’s just say that I would have regarded being told it’s full load distance/international work then in reality it turns out to be what you’ve described,as being ‘stitched up’. 
That was the nature of the beast CF, you could get full loads down but they were always heavy, things like lead ingots, waste paper, scrap metal and the worst, skins that stank out the trailer and ruined the floor.
Coming back full loads were onions, marble, tiles, steel etc, all heavy and cheap, shoes and tyres were lighter but the rates reflected that.
Groupage was the way to go, yes you’d lose a trip here and there, but you never had plain sailing with full loads either and in both cases you had customs, dockers, seamen, farmers and lorry driver strikes to deal with, it wasn’t all three course meals and bottles of wine you know.
newmercman:
That was the nature of the beast CF, you could get full loads down but they were always heavy, things like lead ingots, waste paper, scrap metal and the worst, skins that stank out the trailer and ruined the floor.Coming back full loads were onions, marble, tiles, steel etc, all heavy and cheap, shoes and tyres were lighter but the rates reflected that.
Groupage was the way to go, yes you’d lose a trip here and there, but you never had plain sailing with full loads either and in both cases you had customs, dockers, seamen, farmers and lorry driver strikes to deal with, it wasn’t all three course meals and bottles of wine you know.
There was a job I always liked the look of running the unaccompanied Maltese trailer link to/from Reggio docks which I think was still going at least up to around the mid 2000’s the last time I went to Enna.It was actually advertised regularly long before that in the usual places and the rates seemed decent enough.There was another interesting job I always remembered with I think it was Mondial running to/from Cyprus although that might have been all their own wagons not sure.
Express trailers was a Maltese only job, there was also Attrans, much smaller and Maltese exclusively. RH out of Nottingham did a switch in Reggio Calabria, can’t remember the name of who they went to, but they were yellow trailers.
Mondial was another closed shop, no way would you get on there without a recommendation from a trusted source.
Mondial seem to be still going… mondialtransport.co.uk/
NMM, you may remember, in the 1980`s,what was the UK / Greek company just north of the Blackwall tunnel? Was it Mondial or Anglo-Greek? One was there and the other was in Enfield I think.
CF, I don’t think anyone goes direct to Cyprus nowadays, its all transhipped in Athens, or put on a container or goes via Turkey for the North of the Island. Salamis Lines run a round trip service to Limassol from Lavrio going onto Haifa and back to Lavrio.
Talking of Express Trailers, I saw one of theirs a few weeks ago, Maltese plates.
Anyway, back to dreaming of owning your own truck… 
Mondial were in Brimsdown and Intersped were in Belvedere, no idea where Anglo Greek were based.
Cheers, must be Anglo-Greek then. Can definitely remember a UK-Greece company just by the tunnel.
bullitt:
Mondial seem to be still going… mondialtransport.co.uk/NMM, you may remember, in the 1980`s,what was the UK / Greek company just north of the Blackwall tunnel? Was it Mondial or Anglo-Greek? One was there and the other was in Enfield I think.
CF, I don’t think anyone goes direct to Cyprus nowadays, its all transhipped in Athens,
Blimey they still seem to be going strong I wasn’t sure in the day if they were forwarders or a haulage firm with their own units.Trying to do whatever it takes to get on there has to be better than the dregs of uk container work.But according to the ad they still seem to be doing direct Cyprus runs.
There was a Greek outfit there they was along the bit at gillender st. Cooper will know there name he used to work for them.
We passed by there when he was over here last and he pointed it out and said what a ball ache it was to reverse in to the yard.
bullitt:
Mondial seem to be still going… mondialtransport.co.uk/NMM, you may remember, in the 1980`s,what was the UK / Greek company just north of the Blackwall tunnel? Was it Mondial or Anglo-Greek? One was there and the other was in Enfield I think.
CF, I don’t think anyone goes direct to Cyprus nowadays, its all transhipped in Athens, or put on a container or goes via Turkey for the North of the Island. Salamis Lines run a round trip service to Limassol from Lavrio going onto Haifa and back to Lavrio.
Talking of Express Trailers, I saw one of theirs a few weeks ago, Maltese plates.Anyway, back to dreaming of owning your own truck…
There was a Salamis trailer on Strensham n/b yesterday afternoon
hi all sorry to ask i ve been watching this part of the forum for a while now just getting all the info i can not posted but just read all of this post from start to finish some great views and opinions. i ve been a business owner for the past 5 years recently sold up (not in transport may i add) why is it most owner drivers are buying second hand kit out right and not taking advantage of lease hire with all the servicing, maintenance and road fund in with the price also great for tax purposes. Before anyone thinks i m having ago this is just a genuine question i m really interested as there must be a good reason for it as with the two guys on here wanting to buy 4 year old Reno Premium surely the repair bills and the hassle will out way the cost of a new lease?
Stanny_1985:
hi all sorry to ask i ve been watching this part of the forum for a while now just getting all the info i can not posted but just read all of this post from start to finish some great views and opinions. i ve been a business owner for the past 5 years recently sold up (not in transport may i add) why is it most owner drivers are buying second hand kit out right and not taking advantage of lease hire with all the servicing, maintenance and road fund in with the price also great for tax purposes. Before anyone thinks i m having ago this is just a genuine question i m really interested as there must be a good reason for it as with the two guys on here wanting to buy 4 year old Reno Premium surely the repair bills and the hassle will out way the cost of a new lease?
My thoughts were that if I owned the wagon outright I could park it if I couldn’t find good work for it rather than having to do crap work to keep the money flowing. I am leaning more towards the lease route though for the benefit of fixed costs and better fuel economy.
Has anyone bought a truck off an operating lease? I could see that as a way to still expand while running newer kit. Go 3x35 for the first three years then buy the unit rather than hand it back. Then potentially lease another unit for another driver.
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nsmith1180:
Stanny_1985:
hi all sorry to ask i ve been watching this part of the forum for a while now just getting all the info i can not posted but just read all of this post from start to finish some great views and opinions. i ve been a business owner for the past 5 years recently sold up (not in transport may i add) why is it most owner drivers are buying second hand kit out right and not taking advantage of lease hire with all the servicing, maintenance and road fund in with the price also great for tax purposes. Before anyone thinks i m having ago this is just a genuine question i m really interested as there must be a good reason for it as with the two guys on here wanting to buy 4 year old Reno Premium surely the repair bills and the hassle will out way the cost of a new lease?My thoughts were that if I owned the wagon outright I could park it if I couldn’t find good work for it rather than having to do crap work to keep the money flowing. I am leaning more towards the lease route though for the benefit of fixed costs and better fuel economy.
Has anyone bought a truck off an operating lease? I could see that as a way to still expand while running newer kit. Go 3x35 for the first three years then buy the unit rather than hand it back. Then potentially lease another unit for another driver.
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You can buy and sometimes its better as the business then has assets but in the same respect what i would be asking myself is will and 8 year old Renault Premium be an asset by then or a liability? For me over the years in the industry i ran in there was no such thing as crap work you never went under break even and every job you do may hold the key to much bigger door keep your eyes open chat to people and you never know what you may get out of a crap run at worst your costs covered at best a new contract direct with a customer
Stanny the crap work I refer to is things like scrap metal containers and that sort of thing. Always running heavy so big juice use, normally 20ft boxes so more drag and still more juice burnt plus increased risk of tyre and unit damage because you are in and out of poxy little scrap yards all the time. Or doing the Yodel night trunk from Newcastle to Birmingham every night just to pay the lease.
Both are dead end jobs with increased risk for little reward over break even.
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The thing with a lease is that you pay a similar amount as financing and you never own anything at the end of it. However it’s not that simple, whichever way you do it, somebody is making money out of you, be it the leasing company or the finance house.
So you need to work out which is going to cost less over 3/5yrs, depending on how new the lorry is and how much you want your monthly payments to be. Take into account residual values and the tax payable if you sell the asset at the end of the HP term and crunch the numbers, if it works out cheaper than leasing then that’s the way to go, if the lease is cheaper over the term, then that’s the way to go.
It’s all about the money, which is why the 10k Premium is often the way to go, 3/5yrs of payments can buy a lot of repairs and unless you buy a complete dog, you will make more money.
Never crunched the numbers, I just like owning stuff. I know there is supposed to be a business plan, whatever one of those is, but I honestly believe that you have to factor in what your gut tells you to do as well.
newmercman:
The thing with a lease is that you pay a similar amount as financing and you never own anything at the end of it. However it’s not that simple, whichever way you do it, somebody is making money out of you, be it the leasing company or the finance house.So you need to work out which is going to cost less over 3/5yrs, depending on how new the lorry is and how much you want your monthly payments to be. Take into account residual values and the tax payable if you sell the asset at the end of the HP term and crunch the numbers, if it works out cheaper than leasing then that’s the way to go, if the lease is cheaper over the term, then that’s the way to go.
It’s all about the money, which is why the 10k Premium is often the way to go, 3/5yrs of payments can buy a lot of repairs and unless you buy a complete dog, you will make more money.
I see where your coming from and it’s one of the things I am and will be looking deeper into. I ve always been a fan of leasing as new kit better image easier maintenance better fuel economy
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