6: The Difference A Bit Of Sun Can Make

11:15Luke Power-Hippisley:I know. i had one of these uh excellent i had one of the first um when the tgx shape came out and that didn't have a fridge or anything it had a matter it had a horrible manual gearbox now it was really really stiff and hard to use but it was almost brand new so just when he said you're having that lie i was like joy it's not that and because he had like a uh four-year-old version 2 fh at the So I thought, is he giving me the new motor for him? But, I mean, when I drove it, I thought it was a little bit of a pig to drive. So I thought that's why he's decided not to have it himself, boss.

11:49Mat Ireland:Probably, yeah. But I'm just trying to think now, sort of just going off on a slight tangent, when my first fridge was. I mean, I used to have one of them plug-in ginormous things on the passenger seat.

12:00Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, seat, yeah.

12:02Mat Ireland:I don't think my first ever Arctic was a 4-series Scania. and I don't think that how, I think I was still on my plug-in fridge at the time. I honestly, I can't remember. So yeah, I don't think I got one until I actually started at Trans Am. I don't tell a lie, but when I was at Tannitons, my DAF had one in 2003.

12:22Luke Power-Hippisley:Right. Well, I was, my first truck with a fridge was 2013, which was an Actros MP4, which I'd expect new. Yes. So up until that, it was the same for me, just plugging in a fridge. Anxiety, is the truck going to start in the next morning because that thing's just been running all night and draining the batteries. I'm worried, like thinking, oh, you've got to try to drive your phone as well and make sure that your alarm's going to go off in the morning. That's it, yeah.

12:48Mat Ireland:Yeah.

12:48Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah.

12:49Mat Ireland:Absolutely. So, I mean, you're probably no better than me, but are they kind of standard fitment now? Generally speaking? I think, yeah.

12:57Luke Power-Hippisley:I say if you're ordering like an, I think the salesman would pretty much, I'm guessing they ask you what type of work it is you do and you say the drivers are out tramping, they just put a fridge in there anyway. What they actually cost on the spec, I know if you want a retrofit one, it can be like£500,£600. But it's about£50 extra when you're doing it from a build from you. And I think, I know you've got some big fleets that might only do day work and stuff like that. And they think, well, we're never going to need it. But a part of you do is think, well, but it will help for the resale value, I suppose, in time.

13:32Luke Power-Hippisley:But I suppose a big NASDAH, or someone like that, they don't care. It's pretty much getting made into washing machines and bean cans when they're done with it anyway. Well, that's it, yeah.

13:43Mat Ireland:Companies like that, they're not buying a truck thinking of resale. They're just buying a small cheap motor just to send up the latest eight hours a day sort of thing.

13:52Luke Power-Hippisley:Well, yeah, or if it's a supermarket one, it's pretty much never gets time for the oil to get cooled, does it? Yeah, exactly. They'll get everything they need out of that truck. They don't need to worry about the resale value. So that's just, if they only get£1 ,000 at the end of its life, it's probably paid for itself 10 times over anyway.

14:09Mat Ireland:Absolutely, mate. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we've obviously gone off quite a tangent here. So you did your trip from Majorga, obviously on your own back to the UK. How did it go from there then? So from there, because like I said, it was the credit crunch,

14:27Luke Power-Hippisley:all of Mark's big conference work and things that he used to be done, used to do a lot for a motorola which was they'd sort of throw a bit of a jolly really for all the execs from around the world and stuff they'd hire a cruise ship and mark would follow it around the mediterranean with a red carpet in the trailer and stuff to roll out and yeah they've had people like diana ross and lionel richie performing and tom james and all that yeah just like at the evening dinners that they're putting on so just my luck that work all got cancelled because they couldn't be seen to be splashing all that money out after they just made 1500 people redundant in the uk yeah so it was a bit dry really with um getting back like really getting off the ground with the international work so i then ended up working for a company called sas logistics it was based in bristol near me yeah which i was tramping for them for it used to be tay group and it was just as tay group got bought out by bibi distribution right so i've done that for them for I reckon I'd done that for about a year but because I was still a gunfire and sometimes I'd be doing bits elsewhere I'd do the odd job for Mark I basically over the years racked up a load of debt as well it would be in like I said I keep bringing it back to the credit crunch but it was being doing remote in the removals industry at that time I was lucky to work two days a week so yeah I had a lot of um I had a lot of credit card debt and things I had to pay back so um I wanted a steady full-time number which yeah I see express then said well now they'll um give me a full-time role and they'll uh look for tramping work yeah so I was pretty much about to sign up with them and then Mark asked if I could do a job and I said I can't lose dates

16:10Mat Ireland:because I'm going full-time with ice express yeah she said well what's that doing told him

16:15Luke Power-Hippisley:it'd be haulage and what he's doing so well why don't I rate one of my trucks down because this we're only at 28 ton for doing event work so what if we just up rate one of mine and give it a go and that and i said yeah yeah because at the end of the day i'd have a bit more autonomy and it there's more chance of me progressing properly up through the company as opposed to just working for working for ice express i would have probably only ever made it as far as being maybe their longest serving top driver but yeah necessarily mean that i was carrying any sort of authority I don't know what you'd call it but yeah

16:50Mat Ireland:and it's not the work you want to do either is it

16:52Luke Power-Hippisley:no no and I think obviously with going with Mark and on at Tudor I could go out and start seeking work that would suit me but just basically seeing what's out there whereas I'd have just been doing whatever the office told me at IEC so yeah that was where I went on with Tudor and as you know I ended up I'd done 13 years, was a director of the company up until last April? No, April before.

17:19Mat Ireland:Yeah, April before. Yeah. Yeah. When you struck out on your own.

17:24Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was shit I'd get off the pot time, I think. I just thought I needed... Because Mark, he's getting towards his retirement age, but there was no real clear when he was going to retire. And I think... I can understand him not wanting to go out and get financed on this, start moving yards and all the rest of it because he's looking at like knocking on the head but the thing is in this this job you've got to keep it is like you've got to keep spending and putting

17:52Mat Ireland:in to get anywhere which uh transport feels so yeah yeah me waiting two maybe three four years

17:59Luke Power-Hippisley:who knows i thought well i'm i'm not really going to feel like i'm progressing the way in the direction i need to so that was why i spoke to mark and said i'm gonna be i didn't just say I'm off I said look I'm going to be leaving in a year yeah which gave me time to do my CPC find the truck just get everything in place so it wasn't like a mad panic and I can make sure I had everything set up right ready when I started as opposed to having to go oh shit got quickly go and find a lorry and you end up buying the wrong truck struggle with a yard whatever so

18:31Mat Ireland:yeah yeah and the truck and the truck you bought to start with was quite you I think unique is a

18:38Luke Power-Hippisley:good way of putting it isn't it yeah so um i bought it from anthony bins and it's quite stand out as you know because you've obviously seen the pictures it's the mercedes hell green magno color which the original owner apparently he buys a truck and a trailer every year to take his car to car meet yeah he bought this one to match his supercar uh when i had it painted to match his supercar and then he took delivery of it in march 2020 just in time for the pandemic to cancel all the events so the truck just got parked up for two years and um that was when binsley wanted to buy the trailer and he said that he mentioned the truck to me and i said i can't do anything for about a year yeah well i'll run it for now and give you first refusal and true to his word he done that so yeah as soon as i was ready yeah the deal was done so yeah it was nice to know that and the mileage obviously it spent two years doing nothing yeah an extended warranty which which they'd basically, because it hadn't done anything, they, what would you say?

19:44Luke Power-Hippisley:They prolonged it.

19:45Mat Ireland:Yeah, extended it as such.

19:47Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think the warranty might have only just ran out on it, and it's six years old now. Flipping out, that's good. Yeah, I've only done 270 ,000 keys in it, and it only had 80 ,000 when I got it off a van. Wow. So a six-year-old lorry, that's only done that. Yeah, I've got years worth of work left out of that truck. so yeah that said it was it it was perfect it was exactly the truck i needed and i think for a lot of people starting out they would look at the price tag and go no chance but like i said i've been doing it long enough i know how everything works how to cost things and stuff like that so yeah i had the confidence to go out and buy a truck that's costing me like 90 000 pounds for a first truck is i know a lot of people and i understand why you would think well i don't want get too carried away i'll start with one for about 10 15 000 and yeah you you can do that it's not impossible to do it but you also could be buying someone else's problems yeah yeah yeah and yeah that cheap lorry starts uh becoming quite the opposite and yeah it's not just the money you've got to spend on them to get them repaired which is obviously always it's always four figures i don't ever get a bill which is less than four figures it feels like um but it's the time as well so you think yeah it wasn't just oh i spent 1200 pounds on that i also didn't have the truck for a day or two maybe so yes she lost revenue as well so yeah absolutely some yeah sometimes in some cases it does just pay to just have something new or pay the pay the finance bill but you have the peace of mind that that truck's going to be out working 48 weeks a year pretty

21:21Mat Ireland:much without fail that's it especially if it's got this warranty to back it up as well this That's a lot of peace of mind, isn't it?

21:28Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, well, I've run Mercs now for 10 years. So I've spent two brand new ones at Tudor. And I managed to get us a few secondhand ones. We had an extra Stabart one. One that came from a flower company. Another extra Stabart one that came from our mutual friend in ethics. And I have 10 years of good running out of these. And, well, they all made it to a million keys. And I've got a Volvo now as well, obviously. and I've had a lot of grief with that. And a couple of weeks back, my driver reported an issue with oil leaking out from around the prop shaft area. So I thought, well, you're passing through Bristol, come back to the yard, jump in my Merc, take that out and I'll try and get yours sorted.

22:11Luke Power-Hippisley:And he just finished the rest of the week off in mine. And I must admit, I went home and I slept like a baby, knowing he was out in the Merc.

22:18Mat Ireland:Yeah.

22:19Luke Power-Hippisley:Whereas my Volvo, I don't like that truck being out working when I'm not working, because I want to be available and on call. Right. If he's doing nights and I'm doing days, I'm thinking when I'm trying to get my rest, at any point that phone could go off. Whereas I just don't get that worry with a Merc. They've just been so reliable for me.

22:37Mat Ireland:Yeah.

22:38Luke Power-Hippisley:It's nice I've got warranty on the one I've got, but I feel like I don't need it because the truck's just so reliable.

22:47Mat Ireland:Yeah. It does seem a little bit unusual for a Volvo to be given that sort of frame of mind from various operators and drivers that I know who run them. Maybe it's just a Friday afternoon job perhaps,

23:02Luke Power-Hippisley:but you've just been unfortunate

23:04Mat Ireland:and you're the one that's now running it sort of thing.

23:07Luke Power-Hippisley:I know. Sometimes if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. So, yeah, it was... And a few things, as unlucky as I've been with that Volvo, I've been fortunate with the problems I had. So I was coming down, I was literally, well, pretty much it's the one year anniversary of the incident. I was on the way down to Barcelona on the job that I'm doing at the moment. And I was just coming through the St. Eymar Payage and I heard like an horrible crunching and grinding noise. And I thought, what was that? Looking around, can't see anything. I pulled over, can't see anything on the floor. Everything looks okay with the truck.

23:45Luke Power-Hippisley:So I set off on my way. and then it was after a while i sort of thought what's that noise it sounded like there was a helicopter or something overhead or something following me yeah so and then i thought is there a flat-spotted tire or something like that i got out and checked again can't find anything anyway we've um i've made it to girona so i spoke to i'm not sure if you know ob trucks who do like a lot of recovery work all around europe um sean sean the owner he's from manchester and uh but he He's based in Girona, so I was sort of workshopping with him. And he's done a few jobs for me in the past when we've had breakdowns over the water.

24:25Luke Power-Hippisley:So he said, well, if you can get it into my place, I'll get my mechanic to take a look at it when you get here. So we've got it down there to set the mechanic out for a test drive. He looks at me and says, that's the diff. So you sure? He's like, yeah, yeah, that's the diff. So he's cracked the bung open and it looked like a glitter ball had been smashed up in the diff casing. So, yeah, so he said, right, I'll price up the diff for you. He spoke to Volvo. They said, yeah, we can get you a diff for 9 ,000 euros and it'll be with you in six days. So my heart sank and I'd only had, that was my third week of driving that truck.

25:03Luke Power-Hippisley:So anyway, Sean said, oh, there's a guy in Stafford who breaks Volvos and Renaults. He will probably have one. And we were searching for the diffs anyway. and because it's a low ride truck the ratio is obviously different to your standards bulbos so i had to find one with a 2.5 ratio as well right so looked online i could find one in estonia and one in poland spoke to the guy in stafford and uh he said you're in luck there's one here and i thought what he was doing then was just probably pre-warning me to say right i'm just lowering your balls into the vice to find out how am I going to tighten it up now yeah yeah he said a thousand pound I said send the invoice now yeah and um so then my mate John uh he's got his own track he's an owner driver as well but his truck was off the road for MOT so he was just farting about at home he said oh well I'll bring it down for you if you want oh brilliant um yeah he said I fancy a jolly I thought can I ain't a jolly it's me and he so he's he is a he's a bit of a character, John.

26:10Mat Ireland:Yeah.

26:10Luke Power-Hippisley:He was in a Vauxhall Insignia he just bought off of our mate for£600 about a week earlier. Doesn't really know much about this car. Him and his mate Matt have jumped in the car, gone up to Stafford, picked the diff up. And when the Ford was lowering the diff in, he said the suspension just wouldn't stop going down. It was just going down and down and down. But him and Matt are a pair of big lads. So I said, well, luckily it's you two in the front of it to balance it all out. So it'd be all right and so i called him at two o 'clock on i think it was a wednesday afternoon yeah two o 'clock in the afternoon and thursday morning at 10 o 'clock in the morning they pulled up in girona yeah so yeah they put a bit of a shift in they got to move on in that

27:01Mat Ireland:a very a very heavy insignia with very light steering I would say

27:07Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah yeah I think it was probably being pushed to limits it hadn't been tested at back when it was built about 20 years ago so I should say yeah he's done that overnight and yeah like I said I thought that day started at 9000 euros just for a diff yeah and it was a miracle I made it to Spain all together anyway and we know what France is like is savage if you get a break down there that would have pushed me probably 9 ,000 euros just to get off the motorway so um yeah when he opened the casing up i looked in the bottom and i thought it looked like there was pebbles there it's the teeth and he said well you're lucky you've not hit a bump and it flew back up into the gears and completely like obliterated it so yeah very true i thought as bad as it is it could have been a lot worse and i've had a few other breakdowns and where they've happened i've it could have it could have happened in a worse place each time so i've just thought well it's not great but it could have been worse it could have been worse yeah yeah i've had worse breakdowns in the past um with other trucks so yeah i just think well you you've you're quite out of pocket on the truck but you could be a lot more out of pocket and probably hanging off of a balcony or something at the moment so uh yeah yeah just try and see the silver linings i suppose well that's

28:22Mat Ireland:Yeah, so I mean, obviously you've still got the Volvo.

28:26Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, yeah. So I'm hoping, I mean, I've got spending fatigue, but I have just had to just ignore what I'm spending on it now. Because I painted it green as well, which that set me back quite a lot of money.

28:38Mat Ireland:Yeah.

28:39Luke Power-Hippisley:It would have been, I would have got rid of it by now otherwise. But I just thought, well, that green paint job has probably saved that Volvo's life because I didn't want anyone else running around in those colours. oh yes that's why i don't want to sell it so i thought you just got to keep the faith now and you do see people selling these trucks over a million and a half kilometers on them so they can do it yeah um it's just a case of well working your way through the issues so there's only one i'm slightly concerned about at the moment is potentially doing camshaft which i think there's no signs that there's anything wrong with it but i have heard people say they do go wrong and i'm thinking what it would cost to preventatively do it now might be worth doing it's not a bill particularly what I pay right now but I would really rather not pay £10 ,000 if it was to blow myself to bits on the motorway

29:28Mat Ireland:so it could be cheaper in the long run essentially

29:31Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah exactly yeah I could be saving myself 90 % so yeah and that's in the best case scenario like we said if it happens in France this game over then might as well close the company down because you ain't gonna have a lot of money left in the account afterwards no that's it

29:47Mat Ireland:and And can we just explain to people who might not know, so in France, if you're on the motorway as such, auto, not auto route, is it? The Payage. The Payage motorway. If you have any sort of problem, you can't just, like, for example, a puncture. If you have a blowout, you're not allowed to get out and change that wheel and tyre yourself, are you?

30:11Luke Power-Hippisley:No.

30:13Mat Ireland:Let's acknowledge that I might have done that in the past. Officially. If you can do it without getting spotted, then you'll be all right.

30:22Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, because I think you're not even allowed to, even if you get it into the services, I think if you get caught doing it, they'll stop you and say, no, you need to get someone out to do this.

30:30Mat Ireland:Yes, yeah.

30:30Luke Power-Hippisley:Even if you're not on the motorway. I don't know if that's true or not. I think that's just what I've been told.

30:34Mat Ireland:I mean, I have heard that as well. Perhaps someone out there will have actual first-hand experience.

30:39Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah.

30:40Mat Ireland:And whether that's a driver myth or actually the case, because it would seem to stand to reason, because the motorway service is the same as in the UK. You can't just access them from anywhere else other than the motorway. So they're part of the payage network, aren't they?

30:55Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah. So whoever's got the contract for that region just has got a licence to start printing money, haven't they, as soon as there's an issue. They can't wait for you to get your lowest points so that they can come and make it a bit worse for you.

31:08Mat Ireland:That's it. So essentially, if you have a blowout or a breakdown or whatever, you then have to get the relevant authorities involved who will then get their contracted recovery companies come and collect you, drag you off to motorway services or wherever, pay their hefty bill that they've chosen to charge you before any work can be undertaken.

31:30Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, and if it's a tyre, they've only ever got Michelins. They've never got any. We've only got a Michelin left. That's the only one in stock. Of course. Every time, every time. And don't worry, it's only 1 ,500 juries.

31:43Mat Ireland:Yeah.

31:43Luke Power-Hippisley:it's uh it's quite a um very sad day bargain all day long yeah yeah well i had a breakdown about that would be about four christ that would be about 12 13 years ago now i was just coming up

31:58Mat Ireland:at our bordeaux loading with wine yeah and i'd only had the truck we had the truck for three

32:02Luke Power-Hippisley:months and it came with a three-month warranty when we bought another stobart man tga and what was weird is i was coming up the hill thinking it's pulling quite well this is i was overtaking a timber lorry yeah and then i got to the well i started to sound a little bit ropey once i pulled up to the toll booth and then i it well i basically you know it's a i could smell a lot of oil and uh freshly laid tarmac yeah i i can't remember exactly what happened now but there was oil everywhere so i had to wait for well they called out their recovery lorry which a wrecker turned up and a tractor unit so you get so someone you got to pay someone to come and pull your trailer as well yeah for you so they took me 11 kilometers and that was 1800 euros then to get the unit from their yard to man which was about another 15 kilometers that was another 1200 euros and then they they looked at man and i was speaking to man in avon as well and they said don't don't let them do anything until you spoke to us yeah because they had a horror story about someone paying an 18 grand for, well, getting an 18 grand invoice for a 7 grand lorry that broke down in France.

33:17Luke Power-Hippisley:So he just got his stuff out of the truck and left it there. Never came back for it. So I thought, well, once he spoke to them, he said, yeah, don't let them touch that lorry. You need to get that back to the UK. So basically, the recovery company from the UK towed one of our other trucks down. I flew home. I double-manned the recovery lorry down with the recovery driver, towing one of our other tractor units. He then took the broken down one back, and they done that for£1 ,800 in Bristol to Bordeaux. Yeah. So, yeah, we paid€3 ,000 just to do the best part of, like, 40 kilometres.

33:59Mat Ireland:Yeah. And you all lot managed Bristol to Bordeaux for half. Yeah. Yeah.

34:05Luke Power-Hippisley:So that was a long time. That was over 10 years ago. So that's what they were striping you up for back then. So God knows what they would do at the time.

34:13Mat Ireland:It just goes to show, you know, if you're considering becoming an owner driver, especially doing European work, you've got to consider this.

34:21Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, yeah, do your research.

34:24Mat Ireland:Yeah, as a worst case scenario. This episode of Matt's Trucking Great Podcast is kindly sponsored by MA Ponsonby Limited. If you're requiring specialist haulage from the West Midlands area, give Mike a call thanks Mike for your support appreciate it I'm pretty sure France is an exception I can't think of anywhere else in Europe that has a system like that off the top of my head no yeah

34:51Luke Power-Hippisley:so you can obviously yeah I think France does tend to be the most expensive I'd imagine Germany probably operates a similar sort of thing because the Germans do like to impose rules don't they oh yeah

35:02Mat Ireland:they love a rule

35:03Luke Power-Hippisley:they're not going to have you sitting at the autobahn for too long at the side of the road they'll send a wrecker out and you'll be paying

35:09Mat Ireland:whatever the contracted

35:10Luke Power-Hippisley:company is but

35:11Mat Ireland:yeah

35:12Luke Power-Hippisley:so that's the thing I was just going to say

35:15Mat Ireland:having said that I've heard stories about national highways being much the same with smart motorways and things like that yeah

35:21Luke Power-Hippisley:so we've created a problem and now we're going to sell you a very expensive solution to it so I've heard people get charged seven and a half grand to get an Arctic off the motorway

35:30Mat Ireland:yeah

35:30Luke Power-Hippisley:and you just think it's no need like we didn't need this we didn't need these smart motorways yeah well i don't know how you feel i'm sure you you're a truck driver you probably feel exactly

35:39Mat Ireland:how every other truck driver does about them but yeah yeah i'm yet i'm yet to find somebody who's a fan of a smart motorway and um no i know i know my good friend alex broadly um we had a chat about when he had a blowout and he's just said it's one of the scariest things he's ever ever been involved with you know so and he'll be coming on again with me soon so we'll perhaps get marie Gayle that one so uh but I mean go back to the Volvo it's clearly not put you off the brand

36:07Luke Power-Hippisley:though has it no no well yeah there's a lot of nostalgia involved isn't there with all these with me so yeah so last year I bought a I think just about end of well start of November I bought a FL7 yeah so my dad used to run FL10s uh back in the day like I said those are the years I really remember going with dad all the time yeah so i've always really wanted a uh an fl so i've been looking for a long time i wanted an fl 10 ideally but i've spent so long looking for them and everything i kept finding it's been off the road for years they want five or six grand for it and i look at it and think you could probably chuck 10 grand at this and still not have an mot yeah so the week i bought it i was in skelton lake services and one had just went on facebook and I think there's some it used to belong to a crowd somewhere, a blue one and I know I have seen their trucks still running so well anyway I went and looked at it again for about three years I'm looking thinking I don't really know what I'm looking at I don't know how much this needs spending on it it's just an MOT and I had sort of agreed to buy it and then another one came up in Western and I'm based in Bristol so I thought bloody i was one on my doorstep i had an mot so he wanted 7 000 for that so i went down and looked at it i took it out for test drive i thought this is all just for show you've solved the lorry mate like yeah just i i'm just gonna go for a little drive just for the sake of it yeah so yeah i bought that i'd say it's uh well mot's are just the bare minimum mark now you have to pass so i'd say it was the bare minimum to get it through so i've had to do a few bits to it yeah since i've And it's had a full set of drive tires because the ones that were on it, the dot numbers, showed that the tires are 20 years old.

37:59Luke Power-Hippisley:And they had a fair bit of tread on them. Some of them looked a little bit worse for wear, but I thought, I got a load of budgets, basically. I thought, for what I'm going to do with that lorry, I don't need Michelin or anything like that. So a full set of budgets to do.

38:15Mat Ireland:The airbags were not good.

38:17Luke Power-Hippisley:So, yeah, well, you've seen my videos on TikTok as well, haven't you?

38:21Mat Ireland:Yeah.

38:21Luke Power-Hippisley:Well, I've been doing bits and pieces, working to it and filming my progress as I sort of blagged my way through trying to store a truck. So, yeah, I had to put new airbags on, which turned into a big ordeal. Get supplied the wrong airbags, taking them back, getting supplied the wrong airbags the second time around. Then having to alter all of the plates on it. But I got there in the end. All of these jobs. And I've changed loads of airbags in the past. I can do all of those in about an hour. yeah and you're four hours in thinking i haven't even got one on yet what is going on and this is

38:55Mat Ireland:an old truck it's not even a modern one with sensors left right and center and things like

38:59Luke Power-Hippisley:that you've got to think about you know i know yeah so it's 35 years old now that truck is wow um yeah so i put new wings on the back of it so i basically there's a lot of people that when they buy these trucks to restore them they just do it to take it to like five or six truck shows a year it sits in the shed and that's all it does and that's not what i'm doing it for yeah i'm doing it because it's being out and it's driving it and working it where i can so it's actually on the o license it is it's on the o license so i sort of set myself the goal when i got it because it was moted i thought i'll make sure that this is in a good enough condition that i'm confident to go out and do a bit of work in it yeah i wanted to do it before the end of 2025 so it was quite a mad push and i was working long hours i was um my customer let me use his warehouse so i could work indoors on it yeah i enlisted the help of john i'd have to say he's almost like my recovery driver well done with that diff for me you're in sydney a driving friend that's it yeah the response vehicle so he came down and um gave me a hand and i didn't quite get it done because i had some workbooks before just before christmas and between christmas and new year i didn't quite get it done I think because the airbags was the issue so I couldn't use it before Christmas I managed to I jumped straight back on it Boxing Day and yeah I was out and done three days of work for Amazon with it just before New Year I mean

40:26Mat Ireland:going back to it on Boxing Day that is dedication isn't it

40:29Luke Power-Hippisley:I wanted to go down on Christmas Day I was already Christmas Eve once I'd finished I'd just done a night shift I went and got all the top plates because I had to basically re-drill some holes in the top of them for the air air pipes going through and um because of the size of it it was just it it was really putting up a fight uh drilling this hole out to me because i had to basically take it from like 30 mil to 54 mil or i can't remember the measurement yeah so uh yeah so christmas eve after a night shift i was in the shed at my house fighting with them still i got it done and when i got them done i thought i want to go fit them on the lorry now but the lorry was like 45 minutes away and it's not a nice commute where I had it parked yeah I thought now you've got like it's Christmas day tomorrow you've got your daughter and everything you need like you're have a day off exactly yeah you're sort of winning again now so yes yeah once I got Christmas day out of the way and my daughter dropped her off then it was right there's only one place I'm going to be right now back down that warehouse and get these airbags on so when you when you went and looked at this truck

41:36Mat Ireland:and you very first took it out for a drive.

41:39Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah.

41:40Mat Ireland:Knowing that you were going to buy it. When you sat behind the wheel and selected that gear and set off with it, what did it feel like?

41:49Luke Power-Hippisley:Well, it's quite weird because, you know, like they say, never meet your heroes. Yes. So I thought this could be like that. So obviously Matt Campbell's got the Turbo Star and I drove that about around his industrial state when he first got that.

42:03Mat Ireland:Yeah.

42:03Luke Power-Hippisley:And I thought, bloody hell, this is an iron lorry to drive. That's the gear. but I think probably the gearbox is a little bit stiff but I thought you'd feel it after doing the shift in this at the moment. So I was worried it would be a bit like that and it was just an absolute dream. The gears are brilliant. I just thought, I drive without it now and I just think, obviously I'm not running around at 40 tonne with it, but when I'm driving it I just think it's as easy to drive as any modern truck. It's just, they really knocked it out of the park when they made those trucks small though. yeah so um and i can remember there's like a noise that you sort of like a make when you come off the brakes sometimes um when you're like pulling up at junction and i'd forgotten about it and it made that sound and i thought god bloody hell like i went rushing back then to my child i'd be in sandalorian yeah when i'm with dad and he'd hear that so uh yeah it was it was brilliant first driving it and i'd never driven one obviously because i was that young at the time i never had a chance to get behind the wheel of it yeah before he got rid of them and i think by the time i first started actually was capable of moving a truck he he had a f812 by that point right um yeah it was driving it was literally the first time i'd ever driven one so yeah and i i do have things to myself i think do you think uh it's so good to drive just because of what it means to have it but john's been out for driving it and running around town in it and he said he said the same because I thought, well, it's been verified now.

43:35Luke Power-Hippisley:I've had a second opinion. Even he thinks for a 35-year-old lorry, that's a really nice lorry to drive about in.

43:40Mat Ireland:They do hold together well, don't they, Volvo? And they were a brilliant truck. The only sort of downside as such, I mean, going back to what we were talking about right at the start, like with regards to fleet motors, I mean, they weren't designed for tramping, you know, week in, week out. But at the time, that's just what people did because that's what people were bought. and there wasn't so much sort of driver backlash. Oh, I'm not taking that up the road. Because you had an FL10 or a PCab Scania, ERF, you know. Yeah. It's just all flat roofed. You know, you saw Globetrotters and stuff like that about, but they were unusual, weren't they?

44:19Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, I think people were really like, if someone had that, it was an owner driver who was really doing well. Yeah. Like you said, there'd be people going down to the Middle East in a flat top F10 and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. yeah it's weird it's like I said if you don't if you've not had it so the technology for a lot of things like fridges and all that sort of stuff you didn't add you didn't add it wasn't there anyway so yeah you didn't know you were missing out on anything really that's it no so yeah so whereas these days everyone knows what they can and can't have and yeah you just you think if you've got if your mate's lorry's got one thing that yours hasn't you think oh I must be like the mug then that's it the boss don't like me yeah

45:00Mat Ireland:yeah yeah so have you have you done a night out in it or are you planning on doing any yeah yeah yeah

45:06Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah yeah yeah i've done uh i think i've probably done about six nights out in it so far so um fair play to you yeah and i mean i'm 30 i'm 38 and i'm not like unfit not as fit as i was when i was in my 20s but even moving around the cab now and i think if you were like a 22 stone bloater like there's quite a quite a few of those in this industry now yeah this is not it's not sustainable a truck like this and uh i don't know i don't know if back in the days drivers were just um generally slimmer i suppose when you're stripping tilts and flatbeds and stuff out all the time the job probably did keep you a lot more active and uh i i do generally think that back sort of 20 30 40 years ago although you there's always the exception of all i think

45:48Mat Ireland:drivers were generally healthier again because because also even just simple things like changing gear you know it is it's still movement and you'd end up doing an awful lot of gear change in a day so you were you were constantly active like power steering wasn't as good so you have

46:04Luke Power-Hippisley:to put a little bit more effort into steering it again yeah stripping a tilt roping and sheeting

46:09Mat Ireland:all that kind of stuff it was just it was more physical um whereas you know like compared with today uh again chatting to my friend recently essentially if you put a truck on a hard shoulder remote way you could realistically put a child in it and they could point it down the road and drive couldn't they because all they've got to do realistically is put it in a drive

46:29Luke Power-Hippisley:and just drive forwards you know exactly well like Merck's now you can wedge a bottle or something in the steering wheel somewhere and like I've seen a video someone puts like a weight or something out on the driver's seat and then it's just driving down this road on its own

46:44Mat Ireland:so

46:45Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah like you said you don't you could put a child in it and yeah and then you don't have a crash

46:51Mat Ireland:yeah that's it and whereas you know 30 years ago that FL10 and again like if you're running at full weight in that you would be going up and down that box

46:58Luke Power-Hippisley:an awful lot wouldn't you so you especially especially with mine my fl7 because yeah well mine's a 260 horsepower so um yeah bob beach when i he's on my facebook so i obviously um i use it he's the oracle so oh yes i i go to him when i got questions he said that the new fh 16 780s they've got more torque in the start motor than my engine's got

47:29Luke Power-Hippisley:that's brilliant I can believe him as well because not long after getting the truck I was doing John a favour because he's got plenty of credit in the bank with me

47:38Mat Ireland:after him helping me out

47:40Luke Power-Hippisley:so his trailer needed to go for his MOT so he said could you load it up with concrete blocks for a brake test yeah so i went and loaded 16 ton of concrete blocks on it yeah and i had to take it from either mouth to yeat yeah and i i don't know how well you know the area but if you go up to the m48 to where seven view services and the old bridge yeah and then up the motorway that way it's quite a steep hill that and yes i'd had the truck about three days and i didn't know if it could even make it up that hill so i i took the alternative route but that hill is still there no matter what way you go you're gonna at some point have to get up a hill yes it was raining and i was coming up a hill that was very steep and i started running out of gears and i thought uh yeah and i i i hadn't even it wasn't even the tip of the iceberg where i was on the hill and these trucks and i think a lot of uh old manuals back in the day

48:40Mat Ireland:would have had a cooler gear which is what this has got in it yeah and i i did think well it's

48:46Luke Power-Hippisley:shit a bus time now basically if this crawler going there i don't know what the next option is and this is a little b road on the back street so i've got traffic piling up behind me it's not like i can just quickly reverse back down and come up with plan b yeah put it into crawler gear and it crawled off up that hill and when i say crawl it is a crawl oh yes yeah you if you yeah if you had a skimful and crawled home on your hands and knees from the pub you would get there before that lorry yeah but it did it and i thought what are you doing i thought you how long have you wanted one of these lorries and you've just done that to it you don't know anything about this truck that could have just that could have it could have all ended right there and then basically yeah but the only fact the only thing is because it did make it i've grown in confidence with the truck and thought yeah so anytime like i said i keep getting bills for um my other trucks and you're like oh again oh another a bill comes up for that fl it's like yeah yeah yeah i said it's like it's like one of your kids if it needs shoes you just paid it you'd like yeah yeah i don't seem to have any issue part with um putting my pin code in uh when it comes to that fl but but what has helped is because it's got an mot and i'm getting some use out of it yeah it doesn't feel like it's completely like draining me whereas if i if i bought one that i needed a lot of work I could be tens of pounds into it still not have even been behind the wheel on the road with it I think just being able to get a bit of use out of it helps you keep the motivation

50:17Mat Ireland:and it's paying its way isn't it it's more than just a hobby machine

50:24Luke Power-Hippisley:when I pulled the handbrake on I could just put about£700 profit in the bank I thought yeah that's investment of the year the thing is when I'm driving it and my missus, I was going to her and she said, I can hear the smile on your face. I said, yeah. I said, this is my therapy, Laurie.

50:42Mat Ireland:Yeah.

50:42Luke Power-Hippisley:And at the time, I was driving, you'll never believe this, my FH was off the road with a issue.

50:47Mat Ireland:Yeah.

50:48Luke Power-Hippisley:And the mechanic phoned me and he said, it could be the retarder seals. So we got the price from Volvo. That was£800, plus whatever the fitting was going to be. But I got that news whilst I was driving the AFL, so I was still smiling. I thought, if I'd have been in my van or if I'd have been in my other truck, You'd be crying. That would have definitely ruined my day that went off. But yeah, I was happy as Larry on my way over to Newport to pick a new container up for my yard. So yeah, but nothing can touch me when I'm in this Larry. I am literally bulletproof. That is quite literally your happy space.

51:20Luke Power-Hippisley:It is, yeah. And I said, so I've seen another driver come in the opposite way that I know. And he's on the lights and he'll see me and he's like grinning when he's past me. I said, the thing is, this Larry don't just make me happy. It's the people that get to see it. It makes them happy as well. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So it was without a doubt that it was the right investment for my mental health and, yeah, just...

51:43Mat Ireland:Fantastic.

51:44Luke Power-Hippisley:It's been good fun, yeah.

51:46Mat Ireland:Yeah, definitely. So let's bring it right up to date then. So where are you sat right now? Let's just ruin my day if no one else is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

51:56Luke Power-Hippisley:Well, yeah, for the listeners, because I've already spoiled you. But, yeah, I'm sitting in Benidorm right now. At work, we hasten to add. yeah I know

52:04Mat Ireland:look how dirty this white shirt is

52:06Luke Power-Hippisley:I am working on it you know yeah so I'm doing a job with Matt Campbell and Mason he's on his way down here as well now to meet up with us

52:13Mat Ireland:yeah

52:14Luke Power-Hippisley:which we've unloaded at Barcelona at the racetrack got us sit for five days before we reload and take the stuff to be air freighted

52:21Mat Ireland:yeah so in the meantime

52:24Luke Power-Hippisley:I'm obviously I do work for Amazon so I looked up what loads traction only stuff they had coming out of Barcelona yeah and there was a load going down to mercia yeah oh perfect that i do the money was right as well so um and bearing in mind we're obviously being paid to just sit so you're sort of you only got to cover your fuel money really yeah but it it was a decent enough rate that you think yeah i'd do that obviously it's only a one way though so doing it as a round trip would um eat into it but anyway yeah so i dropped the trailer off yesterday in mercia and then bob tailed up to benadour yeah so yeah two nights here but you probably see on my facebook post that i uh i finally got a bit of use out of my cmt permit as well because i'm doing the extra movements in europe yeah so i thought that's handy that i've got that because i couldn't i couldn't have done it otherwise because we're going to milan next yeah so one internal movement yeah and then i still got to get back from milan so i want to load an uh an import back to the uk yeah i wouldn't have been able to do this run down to mercia legally um because you can only do your one internal or cross-border movement once you've um got into the eu yes so uh yeah it's um yes it is it's turned into a nice jolly this job yeah uh i've had four months of doing nights for amazon uh building up to christmas so yeah and given that i think it's rained every day in the uk since the start of the year hasn't it

53:51Mat Ireland:Pretty much, pretty much, yeah.

53:54Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, I needed this. I even thought when I got here yesterday and parked up, I thought even without doing that internal loop, I'd have just driven down here in the truck anyway. So it's definitely the right thing to do was just get down here and just have a bit of R &R, really.

54:07Mat Ireland:Yeah, a bit of winter sunshine. It's amazing what good, nice bit of sunshine does to you, it really is.

54:12Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, someone said this about, I can't remember, there was a meme about a Facebook reel and it said, it's not necessarily depression, it's your location. and I thought, yeah, when you've got a bit of sun, the world does seem a different place.

54:25Mat Ireland:Oh, it does. Yeah, it really does. So, yeah. So, if you were able to, would you have taken the FL on that trip? I think I know the answer. I was going to say, I think I know the answer. 100%.

54:38Luke Power-Hippisley:So, last week, I actually ran down solo to pick up a trailer for the infamous John again. Yeah. It's getting a lot of airtime, isn't it, on this podcast? It is. Yeah, The Negotiator is what he's affectionately known as. so he was doing a job for red bull which he bought a trailer down before christmas and it was left here while they done whatever and it was ready for collection and that was when i was getting the bad news about the potential retarder on the fh so i thought what am i going to do i have to put mike my driver in the merc yeah so i thought i can't say oh yeah take the fl out for a week tramping.

55:17Luke Power-Hippisley:I mean, I can't say that, but I thought, well, he's only his second week back working for me.

55:23Mat Ireland:Yeah, he might not appreciate that. Not everyone will. No, he's a very good lad,

55:28Luke Power-Hippisley:actually. He probably would enjoy it, to be honest. But I think if anyone's got to drive the FL, it's got to be me, really. Yeah, I think so. I want to.

55:37Mat Ireland:Yeah, yeah. So there was the very

55:39Luke Power-Hippisley:real possibility I thought I'm going to have to take the FL down because I know the load was only eight ton. Yeah. I thought, all right, it's not the most powerful oil I've got but it can pull 8 ton it just might take me a little bit longer to get up some of the hills

55:52Mat Ireland:yeah

55:54Luke Power-Hippisley:but I've got a rattling noise coming from it which it's done it since I bought it and we're pretty certain it's a compressor because once the air is built up the rattling goes away but I have been told it could also be the timing gear so cheapest way to work your way through it, do the compressor first so because of that I thought bearing in mind like we spoke about with France I thought I can't run the gamble I don't mind taking a little bit of a gamble in the UK when I feel like I can find a way of getting this L 'Oreal without it much easier

56:28Mat Ireland:and cheaper yeah definitely

56:29Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah but you have an issue and you're at the toll booth on a payage or whatever it's game over so if I could if the boat schedule would have worked to ship straight into Spain then I'd have just

56:42Mat Ireland:shipped straight to spain and straight back from spain but yeah the stars didn't align on that so

56:47Luke Power-Hippisley:luckily enough anyway we fixed the fh and it wasn't needed but uh i couldn't get the boat to and from spain which would mitigate a lot of the uh risk of driving down here so luckily got the fh repaired in time and yeah i came down with the merc right when it when it was i thought oh that was it i had to smart taco so i had to book him for a smart taco right but Um, because, uh, because my local dealer of all, they're useless. Well, they're not that well, there's a few of them are. One of the park guys is really good. So I paid for the parts. They just didn't bother checking with accounts. So my mechanic went to go and pick the parts up.

57:26Luke Power-Hippisley:So they're not, well, it's not been paid for. So I couldn't take the parts. So he went off and done another job, which then meant I, I went down to even mouth with the intention of doing the tachograph in the FL. Yeah. So that I've got my plan B. then found out about these parts. So I thought, really, I need to dig into the FH. I need to prioritise that. I thought, essentially, it's just going to be a jolly if you're taking the FL down now.

57:49Mat Ireland:Yeah. There's always another time, isn't there?

57:52Luke Power-Hippisley:Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, me and Matt have been talking about April to come out with the Turbo Star in the FL.

57:59Mat Ireland:Oh, would that be a thing?

58:01Luke Power-Hippisley:He's dragging his heels a little bit. So hopefully by putting him on blast on a podcast, might get his ass into gear a little bit. getting to get on with it.

58:10Mat Ireland:Yeah, well, I think what we should do, because obviously you're going to be meeting up with Matt and Mason, if it will work, I think we should have a three-stroke four-way podcast chat and just discuss a bit more with the pros and cons of being owner-driver-stroke small-lockway as the three of you are. I think that would be quite good, wouldn't it?

58:31Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, there'll be a lot of people competing for the microphone now, wouldn't it? It'd be like a fishing session, I think.

58:37Mat Ireland:I think so, yeah.

58:39Luke Power-Hippisley:Everyone waiting for their turn to tell a story.

58:42Mat Ireland:But I think we should try and get that arranged if you're up for it.

58:46Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did float the idea with Matt the other day, but obviously he's chosen to stay in Out of Fuller while I'm down there on my holidays. So the three of us should all be parked up. I think the plan is Tortona this weekend.

59:00Mat Ireland:Yeah.

59:01Luke Power-Hippisley:So, yeah, we're going to have a bit of time to kill. So we'll see if we can get something lined up for that.

59:06Mat Ireland:Yeah, perfect. Well, I think I've taken up enough of your time on your holiday as it is now, Luke. So I'll let you go and get a nice cold cerveza in the sun.

59:16Luke Power-Hippisley:Oh, yeah, I know. I've had to hold back all day for you. I know. Well, I'm used to you doing half days, aren't I?

59:22Mat Ireland:Yeah, and the one day I've got a full day, you're an hour, mate.

59:26Luke Power-Hippisley:Yeah, I thought I'd be going down by the pool by half past 11.

59:30Mat Ireland:Yes, so did I. But there we go. Brilliant. alright Luke well it's great to catch up with you once again yeah and you mate and yeah we'll discuss offline and see if we can get another one organised with the four of us

59:46Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah happy days brilliant take it easy

59:48Mat Ireland:take it easy mate and drive safe we'll talk to you soon

59:50Luke Power-Hippisley:yeah cheers Matt cheers mate

59:52Mat Ireland:and you bye

59:53Luke Power-Hippisley:bye

1:00:05Thank you.