Car Insurance

A good friend of mine owned a 1968 C10 Long Bed pickup truck back in the late 70’s and I could always call on him to borrow it to move furniture, haul firewood, or anything else I had a mind to. Of course I would have to rake all of the beer cans out of the truck bed first. But the best thing I loved about that old truck is it didn’t matter what you did to it; scratch the bed, ding the fender, scrape the tailgate, it all had been done a long time ago by other good buddies like me. In those days, as I recall, trucks where for working men driven by guys with names like Buck, Dwayne, or Cooter, who liked to play in the mud and dings, scratches and dents where part of the fun. Well those days have long pasted and the custom truck craze has spawned over 70,000 accessories for trucks and SUVs enabling you to create the truck of your dreams.

We have long seen the “low look” custom trucks, but today many truck owners have decided to lift their rides for a high profile intimidating stance and ground clearing performance. Suspension Lift Kits can be found all over the internet to lift your truck from a mild 2 inches to a sky scraping 8.5 inches. Truck lift kit manufactures like Pro Comp, SkyJacker®, Trail Master®, FabTech and Suspension Lift Kits make custom components to lift most Chevrolet, GMC, Dodge, Ford, Jeep and Toyota vehicles without cutting, grinding or welding. These kits can usually be installed in a day or two by the average Joe with a bit of mechanical ability and the proper set of tools. Suspension lift kits vary greatly in components and performance depending on the manufacture. Cost for truck lift kits encompass a wide range in price from a mere $300.00 to well over $5,000.00

=Duramax vs. Cummins seems to be the question on everybody’s mind. Let’s be honest Duramax vs. Cummins, has never been the real question, neither has Duramax vs. Powerstroke or Cummins vs. Powerstroke in any of these debates. For the most reasonable answer to these questions that I have found I look back to the teachings of a wise professor. A Philosophy teacher I once had was discussing what he had found to be the main causes of homosexuality after years of being a counselor for school districts and at the local prison, he said that they were genetics, environmental and hormonal. Might I be so bold as to say that it really doesn’t matter who makes the truck or how durable the components are in the truck are but the real answer to the question Duramax vs. Cummins or Powerstroke vs. Cummins or Duramax vs. Powerstroke is what did your father drive (genetic) where did you grow up, what did the people around you growing up drive, what do your current friends drive (environmental), and what body style really “does it” for you (hormonal).

Another factor into this question that my professor went over was the fact that men are attracted to form rather intellect, so just as some men are attracted to women that chew (Powerstroke Owners) men will be attracted to different trucks based on how they look to them. Another factor that I think can fall in line with this is how does the truck make the man look to the ladies? Have you ever noticed how when you are in a parking lot and you see a huge Power Stroke pull into the parking lot with a 12 inch lift and 35 inch Super Swamper Boggers on it and then it will park and out pops the 4’5” driver in his wranglers and a belt buckle that is almost as tall as him. Then you catch a glimpse inside the cab of the truck just before he closed the door and you can see the seat up as far as it can go and sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes I swear I see a stack of phone books. I don’t know what it is but it is the strangest phenomenon, I think that factors into the whole form thing as well, the fact that the men need to feel secure about themselves, maybe they missed the memo that the new Jeep Liberty’s have a nice little diesel in them as well, and they wouldn’t need a ladder to pull themselves up into it.

Now I hope you don’t think that this is it and that I am going to leave you hanging. You know I would never do that my friends. I will be back soon enough with some factual base and research that has been done over the past several years I will include dyno results for max horsepower, shop transcripts for history of what make had which problems etc.. But for now stick with my theory of the three degrees of Trucksuality

With fuel prices at $3.00 per gallon for over the road truck diesel and the potential eventuality of a Showdown with Iran and a hard hitting 2006 Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Season does it really make sense to start a Truck Wash in 2006? Is this a good time to invest in the truck wash business and what is the Independent Truck Wash Business Outlook for 2006?

Well one could say that diesel prices are a key factor in the consideration of whether or not this is the best year to start a truck wash business. It would in fact depend on your marketing strategy. With costs so high in the trucking sector, especially for Independent Truck Drivers and Smaller Trucking Companies who are generally the highest paying customers for services, one could say it is not the best year at all.

However with larger trucking companies and record-breaking quarters in profits due to being able to better pass these costs onto their customers one could say this is the best year to be in the truck washing business. After all the economy is at a peak and water is still cheap too and there are more trucks on the road than ever before as well of course.

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Choosing a truck wash location is not too difficult, however there are certain things that must be considered; for instance the amount of competition in the area and the number of trucks along that route. With the higher costs in fuel these days one would be pleased to know that most trucking company dispatchers will not allow their trucks to go out of the way very far for a truck wash due to the additional costs.

Consider that a truck gets 4-5 miles per gallon and fuel is $3.00 per gallon, so if one drives 20 miles out of the way to get a truck wash, they just paid over $24.00 round trip additional for that truck wash and that is without considering the potential eventuality of the driver being paid by the hour or possibly running over his allotted time on the job with the new hour rules. In the case of an independent truck driver you can understand that it is his or her own money and they also will not be willing to drive too much out of their way these days for a truck wash either.

More and more dispatchers are choosing truck washes which have no wait times and can wash the trucks in 30 minutes or less and some larger trucking companies are wishing to make sure that the drivers only wash the cab 2-times per month and the trailers get washed at their terminals which happen to have mechanical drive thrus. And the truck wash industry is a competitive endeavor these days as well.

But once you pick a good location you can beat the competition with speed and quality. Many truck drivers call the number one truck wash chain “Streakin Beacin” due to the poor wash quality that they perceive they have gotten. So you see truck routing, truck traffic counts and competition are all factors to consider in choosing the right truck wash location

If you were going to go into the truck wash business in the Great State of Texas, where would you go? Well you would want to be along a major freeway and understand the truck routing, short cuts and 2-lane highways most often used. Texas is a big state indeed, but the truck and transportation flows are somewhat predictable and thus once this is taken into consideration, finding a good location is not so difficult really.

One potential future truck wash owner asks; “The closest truck wash is about 30 miles away on I-10 in Texas, which would be a major detour for the trucks heading through the region that our highway goes. So there isn’t much direct competition for our immediate area, which is why we are researching this.”

Indeed and this is good thinking on your part. However the most important thing is truck traffic counts and is your potential location right on the highway? For instance the Truck Wash in the Center of Houston is a dive and the new one they built along I-10 is a good location, but they lose the traffic from the 59 to Cleveland, Livingston and Lufkin coming from Mexico over the border and the traffic to and from Dallas to Houston as they are now on the Eastside and during peak traffic not only is that a number of miles it is a lot of time out of the saddle you see?

Additionally let’s take the 4 truck washes in San Antonio. All are within 3.5 miles of each other and they cannibal each others sales, although there is a huge number of trucks on I-10 through San Antone indeed. But what if a Truck Driver is routed to take a short cut before Seguin, TX on his way to Austin or lets back up to a West Bound truck who opts for the 71 Bypass cutting off even more miles you see. In this case a truck wash which is not along his route will not get the business being that far out of the way considering the $3.00 per gallon diesel prices.