| Lee |
| 6/28/2008 11:12:00 AM |
| Wheeler Shipping |
| Good Experience |
I reached Wheeler Trucking by filling in one of the on-line forms to receive quotes from various companies. Sue Wheeler was not the lowest price but when I researched the trucking companies' ratings on-line I found that many had poor performance. Sue Wheeler had excellent ratings and many reports (I found some companies with a few reports and excellent ratings only to find that they had changed their name recently - the reviews for the same companies with their prior names had less than favorable ratings). When I contacted Sue, she explained how the system worked. Basically the trucking industry is segregated between actual truckers (which it appears you hardly ever deal with when scheduling the loads and brokers who deal with you and try to get the truckers to pick up your load (you pay your broker, in this case Sue Wheeler, a fee for scheduling the load - you pay the trucking company the remainder directly when the load arrives). The reason I go into detail is that when I spoke to Sue, the going price to get my car shipped was higher than originally quoted. Sue explained this to me and told me that to get my car shipped on-time and without issue, I would have to pay a going rate that was ~$100 higher than her original quote (I contacted her about a week after receiving her initial quote and with the recent increases in fuel and perhaps other factors, the going rate had increased). Basically a broker cannot move a load, only try to incentivize the trucker to pick it up. If you low ball a load, truckers will by-pass it to try to pick up higher paying loads and optimize their profit. At a low price, your car may sit until some trucker can't fill his load and will take you rcar for basically ballast. My perception is that the better truckers are more capable of choosing thier loads and she knew which truckers she liked to deal with (I also get the impression that my load might have been "recommended" to certain truckers after it was posted on their system although Sue never said this directly). My feeling is also that the truckers who just take cars to fill their load are often less capable and more prone to damage and/or being poor at forecasting their arrival time.
Overall this was a surprisingly pleasant experience. My car was picked up promplty, delivered promptly, and arrived the way it had been shipped with no damage. The only caution I have is that it is sometimes hard to get information on the truck as it makes its way to the destination. I am not sure why this was the case but the day before my car was delivered, I was told that my car was more than three days out and wouldn't arrive until the next week. I was called later in the day by the trucking company and told that they could deliver the next day as long as they could deliver late at night (10pm). Sue Wheeler had nothing to do with this confusion; once the car is picked up you have the name of the actual shipping company and their number and deal with them for the remainder of the shipment; your broker is there to help but with normal shipments there is nothing for them to do other than call the trucking company the same way you do. After that little confusion was corrected, everything worked out great.
I really appreciate Sue's effort to explain the process to me and work with me to get my car shipped as promptly and efficiently as it was. She remained accessible to me and always followed up. Thanks Sue, for a good first experience shipping a car.
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Lee gave Wheeler Shipping a rating of: 
| Review details | |
| Quote or Order ID: | 6694 |
| Quote or Order Cost: | $950 |
| Origin: | Louisiana |
| Pickup: | On Time |
| Destination: | California |
| Delivery: | On Time |
Total Time from pickup
to delivery of vehicle: | 5 day(s) |
| Truck/Carrier Type: | Open |
| Dirty: | No |
| Items Stolen: | No |
| Damaged: | No |
| Honesty: |  |
| Knowlegeable: | |
| Hold Times/Promptness: | |
| Overall Customer Service: | |
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Valley Solutions, Inc.