HINTS FOR HAULIERS.
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A Table of Running Costs Devised in Formula Form, and Its Applicability to the Costs Ascertained by the Haulier in Connection with His Own Fleet.
ISTARTED this new series of articles on recording running costs in the issue of The Cornmerei,a1 Motor for March 27th. Those who have been following me in deed as well as in word should by now have sufficient information to enable them to make a start in compiling their awn special and individual tables of running costs. At least, they will be able to do so if, in addition to keeping records of money spent on various things, they have also been noting the mileage covered by the Vehicle. They will be able to tabulate the information which they have collected if they will work in accordance, with the form shown in Table 1, which is a dummy only The. table embodies information collected during a month's running, and in this case, of course, it will be for the month of April, 1923. It will be observed that I have now, in connection with this matter of running costs, done what I promised in the beginning, in that I have arranged such a table .which is applicable to all sizes of lorry, and gives no statistics at .6,11, but which every reader May use as a basis for coin, piling his own table So that, when completed, this will afford him aceurate'data as to the real cost of
running his own lorry. . '. • Table 2 is an. actual table, following the dummy, but using figures taken out in connection with the running of a 3-ton lorry. To explain in detail all the various items would merely be to repeat the articles which have appeared on the pa-ge corresponding to this in the issues of The Corronerei'al Motor for April 3rd, in which fuel, lubricants, and sundries were considered • April 24th, in which I dealt with the cost of tyres; May 8th,. wherein depreciation was ths. subjeet ; and May 15th, when maintenance was dealt with in extenso.
This-table should be continued in the form set out for 12 months, at the end of which neriod the owner will very likely have some more degnite information about the cost of tyres ; he may also know the cost of overhaul of his own particular lorry, but he will not
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be any wiser as to the amount to be set aside for depreciation, as this remains unaltered -throughom the life of the lorry.
If, as is likely, new tyres have been bought during that period, it will be possible to check the cost against the figures which have been taken as stan dard. It must be left to the discretion of the individual owner as to whether he makes any corrections to his table of costs. If he thinks all the tyres which have worn out have done fairly well, all things considered, and that he should expect similar service in the future, then the actual cost per mile shown by these. tyres may safely -be substituted for the hypothetical figures which have been used in the tables. On the other hand, if he thinks the results are either very good or very poor, he should not alter his chart, but should record the figures separately for inclusion in his Cost tables. If, later op, further experience tends to show that what he thought to be very good or very poor is, as a matter of fact, normal experience in the district in which he is working, and on the class of haulage upon which the vehicle is engaged, he should correct his tables according to his actual experience.
The same remarks apply to the question of maintenance, in so far as that refers to overhaul costs, and the same procedure should be followed exactly as in the .case of tyres. All these carefully compiled figures are, of course, valueless if the records of mileage covered by the vehicle are not kept just as precisely. A mechanical recorder of some kind is absolutely necessary, as no owner in this world can possibly realize the extent of waste mileage without measuring it. The bet type of mileometer is that which is fastened direct to the hub of one of the wheels. Such recorders can be obtained for so little as 22, and the price appears, according to the advertisement columns of this paper, to fall between 22 and 25. Each mileometer should be read in the evening of every working day, and the fires noted before closing the garage for the night. Mileage records are best kept in a separate notebook ; any little cheap scribbling tablet will suffice, and it should be hung in the office in the garage. Each page should be ruled in three columns, as shown in Table 3, in which figure some hypothetical mileages arc included so as to complete the tables. Two pages are included in the figure, shown side by side, so as to bring in the figures carried and brought forward from one page to the next. THE SHOTCIL