I know it;s not a van but i had a secondhand F6, it was about five years old when i got it and i did over 100k miles a year for 5 years and it never let me down. A lot of it is down to good maintenance. I have run two sprinters, one Boxer, one Kangoo, one Doblo, one Relay and now a Custom, they all ...

Over the last weeks i have had some customer return, the first i had not done work for over 5 years, the next was 3 years and the last was 9 years. the first two were multi national companies the last was a local family run business. You never know what the next phone call will bring.

I know one is, ME.

Because i like a "courier" chat on a forum and the Shed 5 will soon be closing i will be returning to This forum for a more frequent contribution. Now it looks like the spam has been swept away we could see it return to "the good old days" when newbie couriers would ask ridiculous questions and get ...

Look for your own work first, identify local companies that may need stuff delivered, that is most of them. Send them good quality flyers, follow up with a phone call, small businesses are often better to follow up with a personal visit. If you need to sub contract, first try transport companies tha...

Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons, What do you do if................ .....you do occasional work for a courier company from one of their customers, then out of the blue someone from that company, after a google search calls you and asks for a quote? Do you say no you must go to the courier com...

I am old enough to have seen the national economy take a dive on a few occasions, and at these times of mass redundancies i have met many people who have said "if i get made redundant, i will by a van a do deliveries". It's easy, buy a secondhand van get some insurance and the customers will beat yo...

1&1Ok.

The car was on loan, and will not be on the road. (read last paragraph), The police will have a budget for this sort of thing, they are at most county shows. motor manufacturer often lend the police new models, so that they can be road tested with a view to future sales, and as in this case advertis...

Do not forget your insurance, one that pays for an air ambulance is a must, not all accidents or illnesses are covered by van insurance.

Some times it is done to clear the competition out of the way. And some times it is not arson at all.

My Boxer has now done 140k miles, and still uses no oil, and returns 33.5 mpg, i am just about to replace the front discs and pads as the original ones are running a bit low. I have had one broken spring and many EGR valves, all replaced under warranty, and now blanked off.So not a bad van to own an...

Could pick up a few nice bits and pieces - stand on the regular flight path leaving an Amazon depot with a shotgun and drop them all at your feet. Or go up in a powered paraglider with a big butterfly net. It would give a market place for somebody who can x-ray a flying package to tell you whether ...

The guy who services my fridges told me that his colleague had to wait in for an urgent delivery before he could go to a customers to fit the compressor that was being overnighted to him. Sure enough the van arrived and the driver came to the door, and he said "I have the paperwork but i forgot to l...

Yesterday will always be better than tomorrow.

I thought it was the first world war that changed working practices and hours worked, but hey why let facts get in the way of a good story?

I do do some sub-contracting my self, but that is incidental to what i consider my main work, and most sensible couriers will do a percentage of sub-contracting, if they did not there would be no point in sites like "Shed". What i do not understand is the people who go self employed with all the ris...

There are companies who deliver to chemists twice a day, they trunk th loads up to a convenient car park where they are met by a number of owner drivers with 3.5 ton vans, the vans then do a local delivery round six days a week, i think the rate for this is good, and could be a good earner for a dri...

You are thinking of being a self employed driver so that you can work for someone else? I know many on here do that, but, i can not understand why.

Just out of interest i worked out what i paid my driver last week per mile, (every mile the van did),
the answer is 35 pence,
That is just for driving, the van is mine and i pay all the relevant costs.

Ray why pay into your personal account and transfer it across? I bank with HSBC and get FREE banking on my business accounts, except for paying in or out more than 5 cheques a month, or putting in or taking out cash. In the last 12 years i have not had any cash jobs as all my work is for businesses...

Most of my money comes in as a bacs transfer, and that is free, where as putting cash in my account would cost me.