I posted this in another thread and thought this would be another good place for my advice
Some friendly advice from a guy whose been in trucking his entire life:
NOT ALL CARRIERS ARE CREATED EQUAL
Using Werner as an example from one of the stories here. Werner is NOT primarily a car hauler, they are in the truck load business.
BEWARE OF BROKERS IN THE CAR HAULING BUSINESS
They will tell you they have trucks and buildings, hell, they will even show you pictures of the brick and mortar.
They are usually some guy or girl(to be fair) sitting at a home office(dark damp basement in an old bath robe smoking a butt) trying to make money without using their money.
They search the net and look for carriers with the lowest rate and then tack on 10% or more, just for making a phone call.
STAY AWAY FROM THEM! (unless you know someone personally who has used them)
OWNER OPERATORS
Can be OK, if you know them and they have been recommended by some one you know or by some one here on the site. (I know we have a few good guys here)
They usually have only one truck and trailer, and work with brokers who try and fill them up. This is not your best route, as things happen in trucking.
Example: the power unit (tractor/pick up/toter) breaks down and it's a Thursday, your event starts Friday evening. They can't get the part til Monday
. How does this guy recover? Maybe if its a tractor he can go to Ryder or Penske and rent one. If it's a pick up with a goose neck...lots of luck. When you go with a larger Carrier, they have ways of recovering because they have a large fleet, and alternatives.
DON"T MESS AROUND! Go with a known entity!
When I put the bid out for the VOI 11, I went with the guys who have been doing this kind of work for years.
The Carriers such as Reliable, Intercity Lines, Pilot Transport etc.
All of which are excellent Carriers, but Passport perks and rates were one I couldn't pass up.
Passport was lower in price than all of it's competition for 95% of the lanes I gave them. I was surprised at how long it took some of the Carriers to get back to me on a quote.
Intercity and Passport were 2 I didn't have to chase for month's. They were professional and had my quotes in the time I allotted. The others who I would of expected to take care of our community... not so good! I even met with one of them, along with the 3 other National Officers in person in January. They didn't get back to me with a quote until late April early May. Why? Because they thought they had the business in the bag. I explained to them that they were going to have the first shot, but needed to come to the table with a sharp pencil and that I planned on looking for competitive bids.
Well, they gave me pricing 10 to 20% higher than Passport and couldn't justify why!
I had some cheaper bids than Passport, but I like to sleep at night
. I wanted a Carrier that was going to take care of our members
I'm going to use our official Carrier of VOI 11 ,Passport, as an example. Passport owns over 40 trailers that were built for transporting Exotic/Classic/Muscle etc cars. They don't use converted moving vans, Passports trailers are built using specs given to the trailer manufacturer by Passport. These specs came from years of car hauling experience.
Passport has FREE tracking on the trailer, so you can see where your car is 24/7. Some Carriers have it on the power unit, so the trailer could be in a yard while the tractor is somewhere else.
Passport also took out this ad in the Du Pont Registry using our club in the ad! Everyone who uses Passport will get a free 1 year subscription to the magazine as well
By the way, I saw a statement that you need 2 people to load a car,
NOT TRUE!
You need 1 professional transport driver and the right equipment.
Also, I want to note as the Official Carrier, Passport will have access to the host Hotel Property that others won't. The hotel has made arrangements with us to use the
secure hotel parking garage prior to the event and after to accomodate delivery/pick up of the cars.
So at the end of the day, don't go with an unknown entity
You paid a nice price for your baby, don't give it to just anybody.
Go with a Carrier who will Deliver!
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