The ugly truth about Landstar

Glad you wife was ok Terry. That is great news!

 

I've had both. I sold my stepdeck Oct 2012 and have been pulling one of theirs ever since. I currently am pulling a 2013 Fontaine step with 60,000 or so miles on the hub. There is zero difference in pulling a LS platform vs your own trailer, besides paying a weekly payment. Since I had my last trailer financed through LS and payed weekly, there is zero difference.
Now if we are talking dryvan, that is completely different as they don't have weekly rental, only a lower percentage of pay, 7% lower.

 

Pulling your own trailer really limits the freight you can haul for them. Ls has ALOT of drop and hook. At least they did when I was there. It might be different if you do coast to coast. That and not having them babysit you with that stupid gps on the trailer. Does anyone know if its a Qualcomm or something like that they are using as eobr's?

 

Qualcomm MCP50 is the basic EOBR that Landstar is using. They also have two other higher end MCP models. Platform trailers don't have the trackers, and there isn't any general drop and hook with them.

 

Right I meant van. I'm looking to go back after I get another truck, I'm going with flat or step in your opinion forty, what's better. I know having a step limits me on freight but opens the door for other kinds of freight. My pops is leased to them and pulls a flat but pretty much runs coast to coast except California. Stays out for a few weeks then comes home. I probably wouldn't do that because I have kids at home and always did well even staying in the northeast and Midwest. Just looking for your opinion.

 

To me it seems that 53 flats have the most options as far as they can haul anything except tall. I have 53 steps and sometimes regret not getting 53 flats. I think one of the reason we did not has something to do with limitations on certain states with the length (altho I could be wrong). There is not much stepdeck freight these days (at least not in general freight). There is a lot of long pipe and such, especially out of TX. If I started from scratch tomorrow, I would purchase all 53 ft flats because 70 plus percent of what we haul would go on a flat, but yet we miss a good bit of loads that will not load on a step.

 

FYI, LS company dry vans are equipped with SKYBITZ tracking. I dunno how it works I just know that they are dinging everybody hard if your log book doesn't match up with it BUTTTTTT they have a lot of problems with it....like if it loses contact with your trailer for too long a time it defaults and shows you in Nova Scotia or something like that, shows wrong locations a lot plus if you don't do your updates properly on drop and hooks it might show the trailer still wherever you dropped it and you've been long gone for 2 weeks.....me I've had my own dry van for years now. Nope, don't have any of that garbage and I still paper logs. I just make sure I match up fuel stops and double check my logs real good before I turn them in. I get an extra 8% (older contract) and don't miss the D&H work at all. A lot of the D&H stuff is prenegotiated with lower fsc money, bad or no detention agreements if it's live on one end, empties not availabe as promised or not roadworthy....hasseling with trlr. maint. to get something repaired......nope, not worth the aggravation. IMO

 

I know what you mean about agrivation just saying from previous experience with them d&h was a big part of what I did. Doesn't really matter about the GPS on the trailers anyway if they are making all new leases get a Qualcomm. That really sucks to be honest. Hate the fact that the government can tell me how much money I can make. Anyway I'm sure their are a lot of conflicting arguments about eobr's ill just leave at that.

 

LOL, yeah the EOBR argument could fill up this whole website......I know a lot of guys do real well here with the D&H stuff but they mostly have been around long enough to put together a kind of regional gig within a small regular group of agents and customers.....midwest & southeast are good areas to build a nice triangle back home regularly from what I see. Being I live in Calif. it doesn't really work for me.

 

Gotcha never a big fan of Cali. That's what I had before I sold my truck. Mostly auto parts so getting my own trailer would have been useless.