Landstar Questions

My promise to this thread.. I WILL NOT HAUL CHEAP FREIGHT!! Well maybe by looking into this "Grant",will eat up some time in this economy and things "might" get better... I'll let ya know how the Grant goes Thanks..

 

Hello, thinking about signing on with Landstar and I have a few questions that I hope someone past or present with Landstar can answer for me. Please no negativity already read this post from start to finish and got my fill of the good and bad just looking for some facts.

1st can someone tell me the current load volume coming out of Wisconsin? (Flatbed) If so can you give me an example load with rate? Also if possible the load volume back into Wisconsin for home time reasons?

2nd What kind of average miles are being run a month and how much home time in that month?

3rd Always being a company driver and getting 26 max. I was amazed when I read getting 100 to 300 per tarp jobs. How accurate are these figures and what is the percentage of loads requiring tarps?

4th This one is aimed at Chirichahua. I noticed you also pulled for CSRT Malone and since I am still in the keeping my options open stage are you still glad you switched and what were your main issues with malone?

5th How many of you are running under your own authority and what are the advantages and disadvantages to doing so?

I am going to stop there for now. I am sure there will be more questions in the future and I look forward to the answers.

 

13 loads leaving Wisconsin # $1.14 to 1.75. 17 loads into Wisconsin # $1.08 to 1.67.

You can run as many miles as you can log legal. And you can be home as much as you want/afford.

Agents were paying more to tarp, but not this year. Everything has dropped out since I came back from my two winter months off.

Agents that offer $50 bucks to tarp now don't get me on those loads.

Malone only had 31 agents, and tried to tell me that there were no loads so I started having to get them myself. Then they wouldn't give me fuel money for the loads nor post them on my truck.
Basic starvation tactic.

My own Auth is prolly next but not now.

Hope that helps.

 

Yes that does help and thanks

You can run as many miles as you can log legal. And you can be home as much as you want/afford.

I guess one of my concerns is that I am basing my break even rate at 8000 paid miles a month and I want to make sure this is feesable and if not I need to make adjustments

 

Break even at 8000 miles seems high? Right now 2000 miles per week with the picks and drops is tough for me. But not last year.

 

I had thought that too. I have my break even rate going up .11 per mile from 8000 to 7000 miles a month. In your best guessdement do you see things improving in the next couple of months?

 

It will pick up a bit this summer.

Honestly, I don’t see it picking back up to normal for at least a year. More like the following summer.

Seems like Manufacturers are still shy from the economy.

And when freight is low, the brokers and agents tend to want to keep more. As you well know they are in the process right now of seeing how low an O/O will haul for.

And as long as O/O’s hauls the cheap stuff, the cheap stuff will stay around.

I was hauling loads that were paying $2.99 for 27,000# by contract. And now they are going for $1.21 # 45,000#. Go figure?
The customer can’t believe that trucks are still showing up. It’s Government contract so the customer has already signed the rate. Fuel was included.

So the agent and Landstar are cutting the rates that much. And are now using brokered trucks for what was once mostly an all Landstar truck gig.

If the freight stays low, the brokers and agents will keep more to pay their bills.

I’ve showed up to pull Hummers # $930 to Texarkana and had other Landstar drivers pulling the same load for $600.

The Gov puts the rate on the BOL. So Agents are able to change the rate that they are posting somehow.

I’ve been talking to as many older drivers as I can meet. And they are telling me that it will be at least a year before it turns around.

These are all opinions, but I’m starting to tighten my belt another notch.

Save your spare money in case it doesn’t turn around quickly. And if it does turn around then you’ll have some extra savings.

If more drivers sell their trucks then it’ll help the rates somewhat.

 

I wanna thank every single one of you,the one been honest about Landstar.Some new people want to sign with Landstar and they think my own personal negativity was the problem.Maybe I was negative but for a good reason.And this is the reason I was so negative about LS,almost to be bankrupt(I'm not out the wood yet) and so many of my bills are behind including my house mortgage,credit cards and all my savings are gone,thanks to LS and thank to me been an idiot and hanging around with Landstar,maybe things will improve.Now that I'm gone from LS and other O/O are confirming what I was writhing in all my treads except on different wording,I'm very happy with me been honest a not lying about LS and their broken brokerage system.Seem like LS agent are liars,not all of them,just about all of them and I will be honest again,not all agent but those witch I have done business with.I am glad that I left them before they will put me out of business.Now this day with the business so slow just about everywhere I make a decent pay check,not as muck as at LS,but not pulling loads under $0.30 cpm after fuel and tolls.Gross income at LS use to look bigggggg but after every one cut,not much left for me.Best of all,I have to pay may medicare and social securities from my own new job,so YES,I'm behind even with this money thanks to LS.With this new job comes new challenges and different kind of business but at least I get paid after fuel and tolls about $1.25 a mile.Not many miles but every single day in home and 99% of the time I sleep night on my own bed with my fam.Loads are 99% of the time very heavy but not much I could do about that in this economic hard time.My best advice to any one looking to work at LS is to look into your local trucking jobs,chance are you will do better money wise and time wise,maybe the check will look smaller but real.And don't forget,the bigger the company is,the more headache and less money you will make.GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF YOU.

 

I'm not trying to put you down, but if you aren't doing well at Landstar then you need to get out before it gets worse.

Look, by your own admission you yourself admitted that you should have gotten out sooner.

Last year freight was up and rates were too. This is a whole different issue with this year's economy. You shouldn't try to correlate the two very different years.

Are Landstars Agents and Brokers liars? You darn right on that. But you run your business at Landstar not the other way around.

Landstar has definitely gone towards a cheap brokerage freight company more and more each year. But the drivers hauling the cheap freight have to accept some of the blame for what Landstar has become.

The Economy has its part of this years issue also. It took years for it to get this bad and it will most likely in my opinion take years to get back to normal let alone good.

Again, you can't afford to haul cheap, heavy, over mountains, small fuel surcharge and into certain areas.

The days of finding a good agent to work with are gone. Too many drivers desperate now to haul that freight, so be conscience of what and where you haul. And who you haul it for.

All I know is that when I'm doing poor in my business, I look in the mirror and ask my Boss "How much longer".


Being Negative is sometimes part of the healing process. I can't be in your shoes to know what you went through. We all have the right to our opinion.

It's always nice for me to worry about nothing, and pray about everything. However sometimes the human factor seeps in.

I wish you good fortune with you new endeavor.