Good time to start!
- Thread starter mouse549
- Start date
This is probably the best time of the year to put on a truck.Living in the Chigago area you should stay busy,the 3rd and 4th quarters have always been busy for expediting. Both Con Way and Panther are major players in this industry,you will hear good and bad about them but that is true for all of the carriers.Alum-bunk has a somewhat spotty reputation,make sure everything works before you leave the area,you might want to ckeck with your local Freightliner Dealer to be sure that they will honor the freightliner warranty.Right now they appear to have a large inventory so you can probably arrange a good deal.
I don't know anything about Con-Way, but I did have some experience with the other two companies you mentioned. I'll start with the easy one, PantherII. I will give you the short version about these people. When we showed up for orientation, we quickly realized we had been conned and lied to by the recruiters they had there. This group would have made the worse of the sterotyped used car salesman proud. There was also a group of 4 or 5 E unit drivers, that were friends, and ran together, at out orientation. Each one had spoken with the recruiting dept, and all had been told the same lies. We gave them a few months, they had very little freight, and dispatchers that must have been fired from McDonalds, for incompetence. If you do go with them, make sure you understand the way they pay. I'm not sure if they have changed it since we left, but the plan we worked under, was supposed to be illegal.
Now on to Alumi-Bunk, now this company, I'm sorry, but, I'm going to have to be REAL NEGATIVE about this outfit!!! We started out by dealing with Dave in the Lake Station office of Alumi-Bunk, we had ordered a custom designed truck, that when he delivered it to us 6 WEEKS LATE it was no where near what we had ordered. Dave got in touch with the owner of Alumi-Bunk and he agreed to return our deposit, the next day after thinking about it, we decided to take him up on it, but now he was no longer available, and we had to deal with his son, Eric. Eric's response was that he had built a custom truck and we were stuck with it. Now remember this was supposed to have been built to our specifications, and they were given detailed, scaled drawings with complete measurements. At this time Dave washed his hands of everything. One of the major things that was wrong with the truck was the width of the sleeper, Eric tied to feed us a line about they had never built one as wide as we wanted it, and it couldn't be done. When we were at the orientation for Panther there was another truck there just like ours, and guess what, it's sleeper was the width that we had ordered. I decided to speak with Eric about this, his reponse was "YOU ARE LYING".
Some of the other problems that we found after we finally took delivery were, we ordered the 250 high tourqe Cat engine, what we found out we really had the first time we took it to Freightliner was the 250 low tourqe engine, this engine also comes with a lower rated transmission, which meant the hp/tourqe could never be turned up, as we had thought we might do in the future. Eric did finally agree to give us a small refund for our,inconvience, after many months of his avoiding our phone calls. The other major problem we had with the truck was the Aux Generator we had them install on the truck, before they delivered it to us. We picked up the truck on cool and rainy days, and didn't notice, in our shock from the rest of the problems, that it didn't work. Come to find out that these units have a history of not being reliable, but not only that, the big service network that they claim it has, doesn't exist. Most of the places we called trying to get warranty work refused to work on it, and a few said it was because they wouldn't get paid for it. We eventualy spent over 30 hours in the shop trying to get this thing fixed. That is 30 hours in the shop, that does not include the days waiting to get it into the shop, and the missed loads while they were working on something that should have at least been working when they delivered it.
I have heard similar stories from other people who have dealt with this outfit. You have been warned. When we bought the truck, we were with Robert's/FedEx, they had a list of all the different companies at that time, that were building expediter trucks, they had one company on a list of companies that were not recomended, guess what company that was. My suggestion, Buy American, if you decide to get into this business.
Now on to Alumi-Bunk, now this company, I'm sorry, but, I'm going to have to be REAL NEGATIVE about this outfit!!! We started out by dealing with Dave in the Lake Station office of Alumi-Bunk, we had ordered a custom designed truck, that when he delivered it to us 6 WEEKS LATE it was no where near what we had ordered. Dave got in touch with the owner of Alumi-Bunk and he agreed to return our deposit, the next day after thinking about it, we decided to take him up on it, but now he was no longer available, and we had to deal with his son, Eric. Eric's response was that he had built a custom truck and we were stuck with it. Now remember this was supposed to have been built to our specifications, and they were given detailed, scaled drawings with complete measurements. At this time Dave washed his hands of everything. One of the major things that was wrong with the truck was the width of the sleeper, Eric tied to feed us a line about they had never built one as wide as we wanted it, and it couldn't be done. When we were at the orientation for Panther there was another truck there just like ours, and guess what, it's sleeper was the width that we had ordered. I decided to speak with Eric about this, his reponse was "YOU ARE LYING".
Some of the other problems that we found after we finally took delivery were, we ordered the 250 high tourqe Cat engine, what we found out we really had the first time we took it to Freightliner was the 250 low tourqe engine, this engine also comes with a lower rated transmission, which meant the hp/tourqe could never be turned up, as we had thought we might do in the future. Eric did finally agree to give us a small refund for our,inconvience, after many months of his avoiding our phone calls. The other major problem we had with the truck was the Aux Generator we had them install on the truck, before they delivered it to us. We picked up the truck on cool and rainy days, and didn't notice, in our shock from the rest of the problems, that it didn't work. Come to find out that these units have a history of not being reliable, but not only that, the big service network that they claim it has, doesn't exist. Most of the places we called trying to get warranty work refused to work on it, and a few said it was because they wouldn't get paid for it. We eventualy spent over 30 hours in the shop trying to get this thing fixed. That is 30 hours in the shop, that does not include the days waiting to get it into the shop, and the missed loads while they were working on something that should have at least been working when they delivered it.
I have heard similar stories from other people who have dealt with this outfit. You have been warned. When we bought the truck, we were with Robert's/FedEx, they had a list of all the different companies at that time, that were building expediter trucks, they had one company on a list of companies that were not recomended, guess what company that was. My suggestion, Buy American, if you decide to get into this business.
I have spent the last couple of months searching for a truck to use for my non-expediting business. I have been to dealers in Chicago, Grand Rapids and Detroit; and points in between. Although I am looking for a D unit, I have had a lot of opportunity to learn about various aspects of the expediting business.
My first suggestion to the gentleman from Chicago is to make darn sure you understand the expediting business. The Freightliner dealers are overflowing with used trucks that have been repossesed by Mercedes Benz (the finance company and owner of Freightliner). If the truck isn't on the highway, you are not earning money for payments.
Take the time to read the vast number of extremely important stories that can be found on this web site.
The only way that I would ever consider becoming an O/O for most of these companies is if I was independently financially secure and just wanted to have the opportunity to drive to different parts of the country.
It does appear that there are some great small companies out there, but these BIG companies require a lot of patience, money in the bank to support you (and family) until you learn the ropes.
Good luck.
My first suggestion to the gentleman from Chicago is to make darn sure you understand the expediting business. The Freightliner dealers are overflowing with used trucks that have been repossesed by Mercedes Benz (the finance company and owner of Freightliner). If the truck isn't on the highway, you are not earning money for payments.
Take the time to read the vast number of extremely important stories that can be found on this web site.
The only way that I would ever consider becoming an O/O for most of these companies is if I was independently financially secure and just wanted to have the opportunity to drive to different parts of the country.
It does appear that there are some great small companies out there, but these BIG companies require a lot of patience, money in the bank to support you (and family) until you learn the ropes.
Good luck.