Jonny69

The conversation or voicemail normally starts with "Hi, xxxxxxx person has given us your number" If not then I ask who gave then my number. Not one person has googled it. I haven't got a website so it would be tricky to search for anyway.

Out interest what is the magic number for when you are making "Real money"?

You don't go out and find commercial work. I'm not sure what this commercial work really is though tbh. Eventually you will work for someone who passes your number to a house builder, who's mates with the director of a Property maintenance company, who knows a contractors manager for some else etc and that's it. Those type of customers wont google someone. They will pick up a phone and ask people they trust for a recommendation. I've never once googled a tradesman to do something, I know no one has ever got my number from a google search. To increase income, put your prices up.

The master of intellectual pretence, thought Stewart's errors are intentional. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id2SNd6HnC8

As far as I can make out a Shogun sport is a "lifestyle" 4x4, whatever that means. The proper Shogun is the tool for heavy towing and going off road. The 3.2 will drink more fuel. However it is buttleproof and will pull a house down. Automatic in the older boxes will be less economical, however they are a lot kinder to the rest of the transmission and engine. Should be good for lots and lots of miles. You normally lose a couple of mpg. If fuel economy is a major concern then any large 4x4 is not really what you want.

Get a proper lwb shogun instead. They are really good. If its an 04 the tax will be cheap anyway as the emissions tax changes came in later. Economical they are not, but loads of power and the auto box is really smooth. I had a 10 plate but I don't think much changed for years except a facelift.

I just did one of these. Was a strand pulled on the cable next to the carb, which meant the cable would only intermittently retract through the sheath to allow idle. We had been using it like that for months as it wasn't a pressing issue. Took longer than I thought to fit, I just ordered the whole part from stihl instead of buggering about threading new cable through old sheath and having to crimp ends on.

I just did some rough maths based on 8L per hour usage, whether a petrol or diesel machine uses more or less I have no idea. Assuming the machine owner is VAT registered and using the machine 200 hours per year the cost difference is about £550. If you are not Vat registered the difference between red diesel and petrol is about £1000 per year

Any chance you could elaborate? I thought they looked an interesting alternative to the Bandit HB20. Thanks

unscrew the top, if its painted on then get a set of grips round it. Only plastic though so don't go mad with the grips. EDIT: There is loads of paint on that. Might be worth taking a knife to just under the lip and try to break the paint before attempting to unscrew.

Sounds like you are up the creek then. Although there is no way that vehicle requires an O licence. You may well need a tacho for towing if you travel any distance. I can't really understand how the O licence has any relevance to the cost of the vehicle or it's monthly payments. Just go through a different lease company.

So you have ordered a new vehicle, then want to retrospectively lease it through a 3rd party? Or is the vehicle being brought directly through a lease company. Just pay for it another way. Sounds like they have either made a mistake or are trying to have your pants down.

Surely they explain your liability to the customer and requirements on the LOLER inspectors NPTC course?

One thing to bear in mind. The copies are pretty good and i've had several sets over the last few years. However some of the batches need a bit of fettling with the file to get them working. We've not had a slopply set and I would of course have sent those back, but sometimes they are very tight on the pin holes where the crank attaches in the head. Sorted with a few strokes from a chainsaw file. I do buy new sliders, bolts and spacers from stihl. When they go everything starts falling to bits. I cant tell the difference with cut quality compared to the OEM items.

My 1/2 Milwaukee M18 is good. Not sure if it will crack chipper knives as you can only get it on the allen key side on the bolt head. This is on a bandit 75. I know it shreds the bolt head before the knife undoes, we just crack the bolt side with a breaker bar. and wind it off with an allen key in the impact gun. I imagine these are about 400ftlb when you try to undo them, they seem to tighten with use. Milwaukee sell a 3/4 inch drive one with some big numbers which might be better suited to your big chippers. The 1/2 inch spits wheelnuts off in about 1 second and I use it a lot for F1 style pitstops taking the outer wheels off the HB20 grinder. Saves no end of time on that job. I think Makita may be lying slightly with their specs. I've seen mine against makita and snapon equivalents and the milwaukee is the best, the snapon is the nicest to use but the milwaukee I would say is a fair bit more powerful than either. Though the specs would suggest its the least powerful.

My definition of skilled or professional is at least a Bsc, Masters, PHD or being chartered in your field. Spending two weeks felling and climbing a few trees is definitely not the same. Which is why the barrier to entry is so low and businesses aren't worth much. Two weeks training, a transit van and one phone call to an insurance company and you can be working on any construction site/school/council in the country.

Lovely trucks, they fetch strong money second hand because they are good. Still quite noisy and agricultural. But not as bad as a defender. Make sure you get the automatic and all the spec if you can. The fancy stereo and seats are quite nice in them. Though the one I had was a 10 plate so may have been a different generation.

Be a bit careful thinking your business will be worth something, if it doesn't run without any input from you then its not worth any more than the assets. Also you'll want to be turning over a fair amount of money for someone to be interested. Selling a business which is involved in an unskilled service industry is always going to be difficult because its so easy to set up yourself. The right climber is worth whatever he/she wants to charge. If they are really good at their job then being competitive with their price is not relevant. If they can knock out a job in 1/2 the time of one of your climbers, then they are worth more than double what you currently pay climbers. They will save more money than they cost, you can knock out twice the turnover in a day/week.

Have you checked the battery/charge system? Mine was playing silly buggers after I replaced a burnt out coil, later discovered I had put a connection back in wrong. The battery didn't charge and when it ran low enough after a bit of grinding it would give up. Earliest symptom I got was the electro clutch not engaging. i assume the same thing would happen if the battery was damaged during the roll over.

I think we may be missing each others points. The price of the job has no relevance. You were suggesting that the other guy was to cheap, so I suggested maybe someone would think you were to cheap. You then did some maths and realised that was the case! Which is what my first post was alluding to. Pricing has nothing to do with being competitive. Apple, Bentley, Rolex, Farrow and Ball etc are all excellent examples of this. I'd never pay £90 for a tin of paint, but someone obviously does! What I was suggesting is that putting in a price that breaks even for the sake of getting the job is a complete waste of time and no business can sustain running like that. Loads of business owners will say its all about expansion and thinking they will take over the world. 20 years on still driving the same battered pick up and have multiple stress related illnesses.

I genuinely reckon you are about bang on. Cheap enough that you should always have regular work and expensive enough so that if you do a few weekends should be able to clear 35-40k. I would say that's a pretty happy medium. Neither of us have any real qualifications, I basically didn't go to school so for us manual labourers that would be considered reasonable going I think.

My defender is done. It makes loads of torque but it tows heavy every day so is worth doing. EDIT: It's a 2.2 transit engine. They design the engines for horrible humid environments and with porridge for fuel. We don't worry much about that here, so its pretty safe to make more use of our climate a bigger intercooler and some colder air.

I am very competitive with price, quote against two others regularly with Council and school stuff. Just get the work done quickly. If earning a decent income couldn't be done then i'd give up and do something else. Flogging a dead horse is not the thing to do. Also, you are a poor example of the reason this thread has started. Being the only self employed climber that has done more than two days with me! The rest were useless and I just ended up doing it myself anyway, so judging what you want per day in comparison to what the guy who started the thread wants is almost impossible.

DPF removal, intercooler and custom map. Will see it over 200bhp and boat loads of torque. Depends what you are doing with it though. If not towing a lot then I wouldn't bother doing anything. Plus making more power and torque on those engines does the dual mass flywheel no favours at all

Without being rude, that was the point of my last post. I couldn't put that manpower and machines on site for the kind of money you were quoting. Not without coming out with £50 at the end of the year. So the next question is..................... if the theoretical third person who priced the job at £900, because he wants to earn a half decent living came on here moaning about you, pricing it at about £600 and the other bloke at £450. Which one of you has the correct price?