Dear Lawn or Landscape Business Owner: Last week’s article on the subject of Lowering Truck Cost really got under the skin of one landscaper.
The landscaper replied and said “Just tell me how you lower the cost of a truck. Don’t beat around the bush! I don’t believe you can really lower the cost of a truck!”
What’s interesting about this comment was the fact this young landscaper was challenging my authenticity to fulfill our goal to lower the cost of trucks for Professional Lawn and Landscape companies.
I don’t believe he understood that we have been hard at work on this mission for three plus years. Yours truly has been obsessed with the idea that in spite of all of the crazy inflation and rising costs, that we could really lower truck costs with creativity, lean thinking and company wide 5-S strategy. (More on these topics coming soon.)
During the past four years we have dealt with the rapid inflation, inventory shortages and supply chain disruptions that increased the cost of trucks in a big big way.
But those aggravations and setbacks led to a new way of thinking about how we build truck bodies. It’s another example of how a bad thing becomes a good thing.
With over a quarter of a century of experience building commercial work trucks designed for the Lawn and Landscape contractor, we know a thing or two about what it costs to build trucks.
We will share the process we use to lower costs in a future essay. But for today…let’s make sure you understand the big picture of the costs for trucks.
There are three areas of cost when you own and operate trucks for your Lawn and Landscape company:
- Acquisition cost
- Ownership cost
- Operating cost
We will discuss each area of cost and how we are lowering the cost of trucks for landscapers in all three areas.
ACQUISITION COST
Acquisition cost includes the following:
- Purchase price
- Financed amount
- Interest rate
- Years financed
- Salvage value
- Inflation rate
- Years of service
- Total hours of use per year
Vehicle prices went up like crazy – for three big reasons – since 2020. Purchase price increased, finance amounts increased and interest rates increased. It all happened after Fedzilla shut down our economy and supply chains were disrupted. (You know the story.)
It did not matter if you were buying a shiny F-150 or a rugged medium duty dump truck, prices for trucks went up. Since the truck cost more, you had to finance more to put it into operation. And as the economy heated up and every landscaper in America became booked for months and months in advance, Fedzilla raised interest rates again and again and again.
Now, Super Lawn Trucks builds truck bodies that are installed on incomplete vehicles like the Isuzu N series single cab and crew cab trucks seen here.
You have the cost of the chassis and then you have the cost of the specialized Truck Body. As the manufacturer of the specialized Truck Body, we have the option to adjust our manufacturing processes with the intent of lowering acquisition cost for our clients.
With creativity and lean manufacturing skills in our toolkit, we have modernized our materials from heavy steel and wood to lightweight aluminum and composite materials. It’s a process we have been perfecting with the Super Contractor Truck aluminum and composite bodies the past few years. (Watch the sledgehammer test at the 0:22 second mark)
Using strong but lightweight materials in our manufacturing process has allowed us to reduce the amount of labor required to build a truck body. And that’s a good thing for landscapers. Because this allows us to lower the cost of the truck body when compared to our standard practices.
By changing our manufacturing materials to lightweight aluminum and composite components we created the opportunity to build our truck bodies on a smaller, more compact, light duty truck chassis. Smaller, lighter truck chassis cost less than the medium duty truck chassis that we have been using (primarily) for over 25 years.
You might not expect a truck body manufacturing company to do much about Fedzilla and rising interest rates… but we have recently introduced new financing partners for our clients and we have lowered finance costs for well-established buyers.
One more detail worth mentioning… Since we have upgraded to corrosion resistant aluminum and composite materials, we expect the landscape truck bodies to have a rust-free future extending the useful life of the truck body. Longer life equals lower acquisition cost.
Here’s a sneak peek of what this low-cost Super-Lite truck looks like.
OWNERSHIP COST
Ownership cost for a vehicle includes the following:
- Cost of insurance
- Annual registration
- Washing
- Parking or storage
- Toll passes
The idea of purchasing a small truck with a lower capital cost creates lower annual insurance premiums. This small foot-print truck takes up a fraction of the space a truck and trailer combination requires. This means you can operate more trucks from a small yard or reduce your need for large storage buildings.
The small truck and enclosed truck body combo provides secure storage for your hand and power tools. And the smooth aluminum sides (with only a fraction of the number of rivets used in legacy body designs) makes your marketing message pop. Smooth sides are super-easy to wash…once again lowering the cost of ownership.
OPERATING COST
This brings us to lowering operating cost.
Every Lawn and Landscape Company purchases fuel, oil, tires and repairs the equipment they own.
If you drive a vehicle 10,000 miles a year and the vehicle gets 8 miles per gallon, then you will purchase 1,250 gallons of gasoline each year. If your gas cost $4/gallon, you spend $5,000 per year on gasoline.
If you can find a vehicle that gets 12 miles per gallon and you drive the same 10,000 miles, you will only need to purchase 833 gallons of gas…saving 417 gallons of gas a year or $1,668 less per year. That’s big-time savings!
Think about it. When you reduce your acquisition cost plus reduce your ownership cost plus reduce your operating cost you can really lower the cost of your trucks.
We know that a light duty truck like the one shown here may not get the job done if you need to haul a crew of six people and carry multiple zero turn lawn mowers, but we know almost every company operates small crews that could work very efficiently with a light duty truck allowing you to get rid of those trailers!
Trailers require maintenance. Tires are frequently going flat and trailer lights quit working over and over again. Get rid of these productivity killers and your crews will get more done.
We are proud to share this story. And although we are just entering our beta-tester 2024 program with these Super-Lite Eco series of trucks, we will be offering these compact truck bodies on the Ford Transit in the third quarter of 2024.
There’s much more to come.
We promise to keep you informed.
But until we get to meet you at one of our trade show events, you can count on our word…
Professional landscape contractors will have an option to lower their costs of trucks and truck bodies in 2024.
Now…please hit reply and tell me what you think.
I’d love to hear from you.
Stay energized and lower your costs when you can!
Tony Bass, founder
866-923-0027
PS – If you would like to participate in our beta-test program with the Super-Lite Eco Series of trucks please send an email to sales@superlawntrucks.com and put Beta-test Super-Lite in the subject line. We will be in touch with the details.
