"MY" Truth about Roehl

This past Friday (2-3-2017) was my last day with Roehl as I have taken a local home daily job. I thought I would give a recap of my time at Roehl and what it has been like for me, 100% honesty with no agenda and no worries about losing my job if Roehl saw my review.

The Good
- Home time. What other company has such a variety of home options? You have your choice between 5/2, 7/4 7/3, 7/7, 14/7, 11/3, or staying out as long as you want. The home time options are what made me join Roehl. I started on the 7/4 7/3 fleet then went 11/3, then back to 7/4 7/3, and finally did 5/2 my last month or two.

- Equipment. I got a 2016 International with 90,000 miles as my first truck. Thing was practically brand new. I drove reefer and all our trailers were pretty decent. I have zero complaints about the equipment.

- The Roehl App. Neat smart phone app that lets you see your upcoming loads, scan paperwork from your phone, make suggestions, check pay stubs, and other features I never used. It was a very handy item.

- Terminals. Sure they aren't all great but they offered a shower and usually a company car you could use to run to town for supplies.

- Other drivers. Roehl has some great drivers and I made some great friends through the company. For the most part everyone is willing to help if you need it and it is not uncommon to team up with other drivers and do a cook out or all go to a restaurant.

- Roehl Facebook Group. While I left the group a long time ago because of nonstop fighting it is still a great resource for new drivers. Join until the drama pushes you to leave the group.

The Bad
- My Choice Pay Plan. The way Roehl pays is stupid. Your pay is based on a variety of factors and it could go up or down depending on those factors. Full disclosure, my pay never went down and when I left I was at a level 8 of 10. I didn't do anything special except run hard and always deliver on time. So it seems like it would be hard to go backwards.

- Everything they do is by email. Sometimes you need an answer immediately and your not gonna get it. Fleet Managers gotta send a email to whoever and then wait for a response. 99% of the time it don't matter but when it does it is annoying having to wait for that response.

- Office support seems to change a lot. Fleet managers seem to move around a lot. In the year plus I was with Roehl I had 5 fleet managers. 2 were awesome, 2 were crap, and 1 I only had for a week so I really didn't have much of an opinion of him.

- Maintaince. While we have maintaince shops at a variety of terminals good service is hit or miss. Seems they sometimes struggle to fix issues.

- Forced Dispatch. Roehl tells you what route to take and where to get fuel. You don't have much say in it. A lot of drivers ignore the route and fuel stops but I usually found it best to just follow directions.

- Truck PC. Roehl uses truck pc not Qualcomm. I didn't like it but now I'm just nitpicking.

Overall I enjoyed my time at Roehl and if I needed to I would go back in a second. They paid me well and always kept me rolling.

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If it wasn't for the home daily opportunity I would not be leaving Roehl. In fairness Roehl tried to get me home daily so I would stay and not leave but it didn't work out for a few reasons.

1. Shippers/Receivers don't always get you loaded/unloaded on your schedule.
2. I felt bad Roehl was sending me out of route to get me home. I know this was costing them money.
3. I was afraid that once I agreed to stay the getting me home daily might start slipping.

In the end I decided to take the local gig but if it don't work out I would go back to Roehl.

 

The Iron Mountain terminal is small. I have been there once. Driving reefer I don't think we had much freight up that way but I know dry van runs that way a lot.

 

So many factors play into pay. I made more than some guys I know who were there much longer than me. What I can tell you is that at a level 7 dairyland regional driver I was making $0.455/mile and would average 1800 miles in my 5 day week. As a level 7 national reefer driver I made $0.475/mile and would average about 2800 miles for 7 days.

Van drivers typically make less per mile than reefer and flatbed makes more than reefer.

Sorry I can't say anything about the other two companies but of the other 2 if I had to choose one I would choose Maverick.