MAINTENANCE
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A Continuous Problem
Individual Operators' Records of Maintenance Costs are Seldom Complete and Vary Widely. Costs, particularly of Washing and Polishing, are Frequently Underrated, and C-licensees Err, as Much as Hauliers
: THE question of the cost of maintenance is a matter on which "I can never reach agreement amongst my . friends or my correspondents. My average figures, as published in ." The Commercial Motor" Tables of Operating Costs, are always being challenged. Most often I an told that maintenance -does not cost half, as much as I say it does. On the other hand, I get letters which imply that I am too conservative in my figures, ing,gesting that they should be increased by not less than'50 per cent.
1 muStagree that ,the minority which considers my figures too low is usually more knowledgeable.. I am correspondingly the more keen to justify my own data. although I v,ould not go so. far as to:accept the figures which are put forward by this section as being " average." One member. indeed, Went a little too far when he informed me, apparently in all seriousness, that the cost of maintenance for a well-known low-priced vehicle Was 3d, per mile:. , -Do you suggest to me." I asked, "that I should advise a small haulier, operating vehicles of .that type and using diem for, say, 120,000 miles or four years. that he will have to spend £1,500 on maintenance in respect of a vehicle for which he pays only £600?" His response was a grin— and that is something which I cannot weave into a Table of
operating costs.-... . .
'Incomplete Figures
......
I have always, found it .difficult, to obtain acceptable figures for this item. '1 have examined the books of hundreds of op.eratots and, in' no single instance were the figures such as 'I would accept as being complete. They did not, in my.view; cover expenditure on maintenance as that item should be understood. • •,. . . . . .
Part of the: trouble is that there are se many differences of opinion as to what should be included under that heading. Then there is the difference in:the way in which vehicles are used and the fact that so many -operators-omit to enter the smaller items of expenditure. which. as I have so frequently stressed, are really:a large proportion of the total.'
I still think that my 'own originaldescription of maintenance costs is the best. I am alluding to the one which I used to describe before the war, when,I was. lecturing. On those occasions I drew attention to the fact that there are, in all, 10 principal items of operating cost. • I dealt with nine of them, tax, wages, insurance, garage rent, loss of interest on first cost, fuel, oil, tyres. and depreciation.
The tenth item is maintenance, and I used to state that every sum which is spent on keeping the vehicle on the road and which cannot be set down as belonging to any of the .nine items just enumerated must be debited against maintenance. I shall now describe the items that comprise
maintenance. .
First comes washing and polishing the vehicle. This is necessary so that it shall uphold the reputation of its owner and convey to his customer S the impression that he is the sort of man who will do work that is entrusted to him well. This applies to ancillary users as well as hauliers. It is just as important to the ,wholesale PrOvisiOn merchant, for instance, that his retail .customers should be impressed with the smartness of his vehicles, as it is that the customers of the haulage contractor should gather a' similar impression.
Secondly. the supplementary operation to the foregoing. varnishing and repainting. Thirdly come those routine maintenance operations which are essential in order to keep the vehicle in a reasonable state of -efficiency. .1t is these. operations which delay the time when repiacernent of the vehicle becothes necessary. Under this heading I refer to greasing and oiling, sundry adjustments, cleaning of sparking 'plugs, fuel-Supply adjustments, that is to the carburetter and petrol filterin petrol-engined vehicles and the cleaning of corresponding filters, including the pump and injectors, in oil-engined machines. I include also the renewal of the oil in the crankcase, gearbox and rear axle, periodic tightening of sundry nuts and bolts on viiicel hubs, springs, bodywork and So on, the care of electrical equipment; including checking battery cells, and a number of other similar operations almost too numerous to mention.'
Fourthly come more important routine maintenance operations. The cost of the materials begins to enter into account here but fortunately such attention is called for at less frequent intervals. I have in mind Such work as decarbonizing, valve grinding, tappet adjustments and refacing of brakes.
Fifthly there are the major operations such as engine overhauls. including perhaps, re-boring or fitting new liners, 'grinding of the crankshaft and 1-metalling of bearings, and lastly a•thorough overhaul of the chassis and bodywork.
The summary, so far, is formidable and it is not to be wondered at that the total expense, when it comes to be summarized, is found to be much more than anticipated by the average operator who is apt to under-estimate what his maintenance is likely to cost. At the moment, however. I am not so Much concerned with actual costs as with the , wide divergence in expenditure between the experiences of one Operatbr and another. This difference 'may easily be as much as 100•per cent.
Vehicle Washing Expensive
Dealing. with them in the sequence in which they are named, the 'expense of washing and polishing differs more widely as between one user and another than anything else in the whole gamut of maintenance operations. Moreover. ..when reduced -to the essential figure of cost per mile run, . it can be shown that it is a very important item indeed, not-the ins.ighifiearit one it is generally believed and which is so often omitted entirely from any statement of cost of maintenance.
Coital and .public service vehicle operators especially find it a disproportionately large item in their maintenance account. The large operator finds it necessary to provide separately for the item cleaning in his list of maintenance expenses.
Laundrymen, as a class of operator, must pay particular attention to this item. It is a bad policy, to say the least, to deliver clean linen in a dirty van. There are many C-licensees whose vans are also susceptible to criticism and are equally at a disadvantage in respect of operating costs on that account. As an example, take the case of a 1-ton laundry van. It may well be washed and polished daily, that is six times per week. Suppose I assume that the cost of operation is 4s., then the total expenditure is 24s. per week. It is calculated that the vehicle will cover no more than 240 miles per week. • In that case the cost per mite of this' single item is nearly lid.
Actually. the mileage may quite frequently be as little 'as 180 miles per Week, in which Case the cost per mile for washing and polishing is more than lid. Even if my figure of 45, be excessive—and I do not admit that it is, except in special circumstances—the cost is still considerable. If. instead of the figure of 4s. 1 accept 2s. then in the case of a vehicle running 240 miles per week the cost is Zd. per mile. In the case of the vehicle covering 180 miles per week the cost is nearly f?d. per mile.
Now, the average figure for the total cost of maintaining a 1-tonner, according to the current edition of "The Commercial Motor" Tables of Operating Costs is Is. 3d.— just insufficient to cover the cost of washing and polishing if the conditions be those indicated in the two examples quoted above.
Variations in Practice That does not in any way vitiate the figures in the Tables; the fact is that taking averages, much less is spent on washing and polishing than in these examples. To take the other extreme-the cost of vehicles engaged in the haulage of sand and ballast, tarmacadam, road stone and sugar-beet—these vehicles need washing, obviously, not every day. The .general practice is to sluice them down once or sometimes twice per week. That work is more often than not done by the driver.
The important point, however, is that the washing is done in the course of the driver's ordinary hours of employment. He receives no extra pay for it and, therefore, there is no necessity for the cost to be entered as an item of maintenance. Strictly speaking, that entry should be made, but in practice it is not. Washing, therefore, in the case of a vehicle carrying anything from 5-7 tons need cost nothing at all.
We have thus, in the above cases, two extremes. In the one case it may he shown that it may be quite reasonable to debit the 1-ton van with the cost of washing and polishing at as much as lid. or lid, per mile, whilst, on the other hand, a 5-7-ton vehicle does not, apparently, .involve • any expenditure at all.
It may be 'asked, with ample justification, " Can the cost of this operation ever be nil?" The truth is that it never can be so but, in practice, when the work is of a kind where there is time for the driver to clean the vehicht, then no additional expense is involved over and above the wages of the driver which is already entered as an item
of cost. •
Off the Road fcir Washing It is, however, only in such conditions that the absence of a debit on account of washing and polishing is justified. If the vehicle' be deliberately taken off the road when it could have run a further revenue-producing journey then the cost is not nil, it may actually be, as I shall show later, a considerable amount, and much more than is --appreciated by those who occasionally adopt that practice.
Whatever 'may be the cost of cleaning, it is a regular weekly item of expense. The amount may be as little as 5s. or 6s. per week in the case of a vehicle which needs this attention only once a week, or it may he as much as 24s. per week in the case of a vehicle which must be washed and polished nightly.
The cost of this maintenance operation cannot, therefore, be set down as a specific amount per milt as is usually the case with other maintenance work. Take an average cost of 10s. per week. The cost per mile may he as much as Id. if the vehicle covers only 120 miles per week, and as little as one-tenth of a penny if the vehicle runs 1,200 miles per week.
It is customary to regard maintenance as proportional to the mileage, as being, in effect, a fixed figure per mile, but here is an exception. Furthermore, readers should appreciate from the above that it can rarely be less than Id. per mile for an average type of vehicle covering 480 miles per week.
There is another maintenance operation of a similar nature, namely, periodic revarnishing and repainting. No commercial vehicles can be kept in a presentable condition if they are not revarnished at the end of a year and repainted in alternate years. What the cost of that operation may be depends upon circumstances, upon the size of the vehicle and the decorative nature of the paintwork.
If 1 take some average figures which have been quoted to me for a moderate-sized vehicle, of £16 for revarnishing and £32 for repainting, then the annual expenditure is £24, which is approximately 12s. 4d. per week, the amount I have already taken as being an average figure for the weekly cost of washing and polishing. Again, it is true to state that the cost is not affected by mileage, so .that if the vehicle covers only 120 miles per week, the cost is Id. per mile. If it covers 480 milesper week the cost is
per mile, and if it covers 1,200 miles per week the cost is 0.1d.
Id. a Mile for Painting In the majority of cases, therefore, id. per mile must be included on account of (hese two items alone among the many which are comprised in the term maintenance. That amount would apply in the case of a 1-tonrier and might not greatly be exceeded for a 4-tonner, but will be more for bigger vehicles. In the case of large vans, and especially furniture vans, which nowadays are liberally lettered and decorated, the cost would be greater still. Just to show those who imagine that when the driver washes and polishes the vehicle the cost is almost negligible, let me cite some figures: Assume the case of a vehicle which can in the ordinary way of business cover 280 miles per week. As the resat of had organizing, or because the owner thinks the driver ought to wash the vehicle, that potential mileage is reduced to 240 per week. The weekly standing charges of the vehicle total £7 10s., establishment costs another £2 10s., and the total of running costs 6d. per mile. Assume that the revenue earned is is. 8d. per mile.
The total cost, when it is running 240 miles per week is £16, made up of the £10 for standing charges and establishment costs and £6 for 240 miles at 6d. per mile. Revenue at Is. 8d. per mile is £20, and the net profit £4 per week. If the owner had cut out this idea of making the driver go home early to wash and polish the vehicle, it would have run 280 miles per week. The cost of operation, calculated as shown above, is £17. The revenue is £23 6s, 8d„ and the net profit fa 6s. 8d., that is to say, this little job of washing and polishing has actually cost of the owner £2 fis. 8d.
I hope I have demonstrated that there is more in this subject of maintenance than is supposed by many C-licensees as well as many hauliers, and I propose to develop the subject further in a Subsequent article, when 1 will deal in detail with some other items. S.TR.