Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

I see online that some of the high volume shippers are trying hard to push rates down without much luck. I had a load scheduled through Convoy for tomorrow that they posted for just under $3 per mile. I bid it up to $4.25 per mile and they reluctantly accepted it after 2 days. Then I get a text a half hour ago that the load cancelled, so I hopped on Convoy again and bid a load for the same shipper up from $2.85 per mile to $4.90 on 739 miles and my bid was accepted within 10 minutes. They must be having a heck of a time finding capacity this week with the holiday. I see certain drivers frequently whining about "the communist state", but from where I'm sitting right now it's a gold mine. Even my contract freight out of the PNW back to CA is keeping me busy and paying well. It will eventually flip, but for now I'm going to run my arse off.

 

Another thing is Convoy itself. I have not booked anything with them for 4 months now. Their starting bids could not be worse and I had not luck with them at all. Even Uber is much better than them nowadays. In an act of protest I deleted their up from my phone.

 

But that was my point. Yes their starting bids are much lower than even Uber, but at least in my case, they're accepting bids that reflect current spot market trends. When they don't want to accept higher bids, I'll look elsewhere too.. My biggest problem with Uber is that their customer service is horrible, and they have a much higher percentage of problems on their loads. A couple days ago I was on my way home from the PNW after delivering a backhaul in southern Oregon from Seattle, and dead heading home from there. I just happened to peek at the Uber app and there was a load just a few miles away heading to Las Vegas for an unbelievable amount of money. So I immediately booked it and headed over. I arrived at the shipper and was informed by the receiving desk that they contacted Uber 3 days earlier that the load was canceled, and Uber still showed it on their app as active. So without leaving the premises I called Uber support and sat on hold for nearly an hour. I finally got a rep that spoke very little English. Long story short, I probably won't get TONU and the load is still showing active on my app as if I'm still hauling it. I've tried calling them back a couple times, but can't reach anybody. I figure that tomorrow morning when their app should show me in Las Vegas delivering their load and I'm in Oregon moving a load for Convoy, "maybe" somebody from Uber will actually call me to find out what's going on. Honestly I'd rather make a little less and get good service than to deal with high rates on Uber and worry about problems. At least Convoy deals with problems quickly. At least that's been my experience. I realize that Convoy and Uber don't work for everybody, and results vary depending on where you live. Convoy just happens to work great for me.

 

My steady down to jersey Uber got booted out 2x. It was just them and the broker we go through. The shipper gave em a 2nd chance and less than a month later they were booted for good.

Although we haven't used uber, convoy has been super easy to deal with the few loads we've done

 

There we go my ####### got it to work. Not the best quality but you can hear it popping back out the intake

 

Hmmm.... if I only had a reefer

 

Scale ticket from a load i do a lot. Next time I'll have em single out the last 2 totes at the tail. Tandems all way up, 5th wheel a few notches back almost centered, few inches back.

9860 steers
34900 Dr
32180 trl

76940 gross and 300gal fuel

Aren't most newer trucks 10 on the front axle empty?

 

Done for now. I shut down. Thanksgiving time!

Below is my work for the last 30 days. It is a snapshot of my MS Access application that I have been developing by myself that I use alongside QuickBooks - which unfortunately does not have certain features that are needed by an owner operator or an owner of a fleet. It does have many more features including accounts receivable, dispatch (capacity and load matching), maintenance scheduling, cost tracking etc. Maybe one day, after I bug prove it and convert it onto more popular (Web based) platform I'll offer it to guys like me.