Parts are going up in price...

It’s a big shake up. @gentleroger mentioned about all the new entrants into the industry. Many don’t understand their long term costs and the ease of using brokerages makes it easy to get started. Freight payers are using brokerages more as it’s a cheap way to ship without a long term commitment to the broker vs carrier. These new guys are killing carriers as the carriers cannot compete with others hauling for free. It’s sad.

 

That should tell you something.

cheaper to produce than ever before parts are up 2-300%, but labor is up less than 50% in 5 years...

 

It's not easy to get in people's pockets as a single truck chuck. You can't offer much capacity or nearly guarantee availability, that's the attraction of using brokers as a shipper. It's kind of a catch 22, can't get good contract freight without multiple trucks, can't afford multiple trucks without good contract freight. Everybody I call or talk to the last 4 or 5 months says "were not taking on new carriers currently." All around a crappy time to be trying to switch trailer types and find good paying non loadboard freight.
With places like Meadow Lark and Convoy dropping we have to be about to the bottom, no telling how long we stay there though.

 

When even prime inc team trucks are sitting for days without a load, says everything without saying anything.

 

I doubt prime is going to haul for a loss…I’d say it’s mostly smaller carriers that are messing things up.

 

Private message me who it is if you would. Thanks.

 

I use load boards/brokers because, as someone else stated, you really can't get round trip contracts with just one truck. I know my operating costs are around $1.10 - 1.50/mi so, to do better than a company driver, my rock bottom rate is $2.50. Since I've been staying in TX instead of doing OTR, I'm actually averaging around $3/mi loaded and $2.50-ish for ALL miles. My wife tells me about those $0.90/mi loads and I just shake my head, knowing someone will take it "just to keep the wheels turning".


I'm not afraid to sit for a day or bounce to a better lane. My deadhead and/or downtime will be recouped easier than the losses accrued by hauling 48k pounds at a loss.

 

It’s funny how guys think that one truck independents are something new. Before the internet you would find a carrier or two and they would do what brokers are now doing. They would book freight and you would go pick it up under there name. Now with the internet being in everyone’s hand load boards have taken over. People hauling stuff cheaper than their expenses will not last past their first major breakdown. So it doesn’t bother me seeing them take the cheap freight. It’s speeding up the process. When it bounces back to my corner. I’m not giving breaks to anyone. The direct customers that I’ve picked up that have not returned my calls lately will be the first that I take advantage of. There’s about three brokers that I’m going to overbid by double what the going rate is on DAt/Truckstop. We just have to weather the market until it corrects itself. It is coming. It just a matter of how long…….