$2 per mile for a full load is a new norm?

That’s copy machines, not carpet machines. lol

 

My wife has also been known to leave some less than stellar comments on some dealerships Facebook page...

 

The old guys let all the jobs get shipped to china then ##### about the younger generation making 15hr at McDonald's. The old guys made 60k a year working in factories. Where did those jobs go? Old guys got greedy and let them be shipped away.
A 4 year degree in the 80s was 8k in today's money. Now it costs over 20k. That's the old guys being greedy again.

 

Yes, Auto haul has always been a cyclical business, the trick is to survive. BUT, I really don't see rates going back up anytime soon, I think we are in the middle of the perfect storm, you have way too many people out here doing the job too cheaply, doing it part time, or doing it as a "See the country" hobby.

On top of that you had a lot of veteran companies that jumped in with both feet and bought, or maybe even overbought equipment over the last two years, of course you have to take care of your customers, but I think a lot of people got greedy?

Also, look at the time of year we are in, this is historically been a slow period when you average it all out, and on top of that, we are coming into an election year, that alone is enough to stall sales and have people put new purchases and expansion on the back burner, but this election is different, it is a no holes barred, kick them when they are down street brawl, I think a lot of people are going to be scared or upset no matter who wins, so in the end, you are still only going to have half of the country happy, or confident going forward.

Like I said, Perfect Storm! Jmho.

 

Im with you Kansas. Our business is down dramatically since about the first week of the GM strike. You see it every where. Auction traffic is down. The lanes we normally run are virtually dead right now and what’s out there is so cheap I refuse to touch it. And if it weren’t for one very faithful customer that’s been moving 20+ units a week we’d be in significant trouble. So we tread water and keep praying for any bit of uptick possible.

 

I was at a Ford dealership new F150 destination charge was $1525.00 I understand that amount probably covers the cost of every time that car gets moved including driving it off the assembly line to shipping it to China. Does not matter if your dealership is 5 milles or 2000 miles from the production plant. But carhaulers are definitely getting screwed. Rates im getting are down 30-40% on new cars in just the past 2 years while these charges to the consumer is probably up 25% in the same period. I remember the big carriers/ brokers saying rates would go up 15-20% when e.l.d. was mandated, i see how that turned out.