Everyone's Thoughts If You Have Had A Delivery From Roadrunner Trucking

[qualitymachinetools]

Hey guys, I wanted to take a poll and see how many of you have had a problem with Roadrunner trucking when we shipped a machine out. And how many have had a good experience with them.

Over the last few years, we have had pretty good luck with them, and they have the lowest rates on a lot of shipments. We try our best to keep the rates as low as possible, and as many of you probably know, the rates we charge for shipping usually do not cover the actual freight costs, so we try to keep them as low as possible.

But if the freight company is causing problems, its no good. None of them are perfect, but recently we have had about 4 that were really slow to get to the destination. Although 1 was in Montana, way out there, and one right now is in South Dakota, they have had for 12 business days (Which ends up being 3 weeks to the customer and they are getting frustrated), and I had to have it handed off to another freight company to make the delivery, because they didnt offer lift gate delivery in that area.

I was just wondering if these are a few isolated cases because of location, from others I have head that Roadrunner was fine, but I wanted to get some more opinions.

The hard part is that they are much cheaper than others a lot of the time. I think that freight costs are a lot higher than people think it is. So I was just wondering what to do here, if we drop them our shipping charges have to go up, which I sure do not want to have happen.

 

[jds]

Sir,
I had a fork through the side of the lathe crate, no damage to the machine. I picked up my machines from the terminal. Other then the company not calling to advise me, that they had been sitting there for three days, no other problems to address.
JD

 

[Duker]

Matt,

I had no issues with them as far as timeliness as they called to notify me that my shipment was in and they were able to move me up in their schedule as I told them I would be out of town later in the week.

Now as for the unloading it was a little unnerving as my driver was not very big and struggled to unload the crate and was also reluctant for me to help at first. There was one a moment when the crate was perched precariously on the lift gate as he was trying to swing it around to clear the deck and it started to tip. Fortunately I was able to stop it before it swing too far or you would have a mill to use for parts back at the warehouse!

Their lift gate barely accommodates the 935 mill I received. To get it to clear the deck to lower it down we had to have one lift rung of the pallet jack sticking half way off of the lift gate.

Other than the unloading which in the end was successful they were fine in my particular case.

Now if I only had my light and DRO I would be great!

 

[TomS]

+1 on what Duker said. Roadrunner did not make the delivery to my house. They handed it off to a local freight company. The local freight company was on time, polite and did a good job unloading my PM932M mill. However, the crate was trashed and very unstable. I can't believe the amount of crate damage was done by the local freight company. The mill had quite a bit of cosmetic damage but no mechanical damage. I had to repaint the entire mill and stand to make it look presentable. So my vote is that you find someone other than Roadrunner. They are inexpensive for a reason.

Thanks for asking and listening.

BTW - The mill is great and Ray C. was great to work with.

Tom S.

 

[Doubleeboy]

Grizzly uses Fed Ex Freight, there is constant tracking, the local office calls you ahead of time to tell you what day it will arrive and to make arrangements for delivery to you, your rigger or keep at warehouse for pickup. They no doubt are more expensive but they are on the ball. In my experience and the experience of more than a few machine shop owners in this area, is that low ball freight companies are a nightmare. They could give a rip about the customer and his machine. If price is a concern Freightquote is pretty good at finding common carriers at good prices. Message me by PM if you need a contact, I have used them for private party shipments to me with good results.

michael

 

[GA Gyro]

Both of my machines (PM935 and PM1340GT) came via UPS freight... to the Metro Atlanta area, they were delivered to a dock at a supply house I trade at.

The deliveries were on the day scheduled, the boxes had no damage, and the drivers knew what to do.

Personally, given the cost of replacing a machine tool... IMO the lest costly freight line, if they behave like the least costly freight line... may not be the best choice.

 

[qualitymachinetools]

OK thanks for the comments so far. As far as Grizzly, they do not use FedEx only, if you had something delivered by them, they are probably one of their carriers, but they use others too. And Freight Quote could not touch our prices, they have tried, not even close. We use a variety, FedEx, UPS, R&L, Roadrunner, Estes, Etc.
The problem is that sometimes I am talking the difference between $400, compared to $800.00. Not like it is 2% or something. There are huge differences sometimes.
Its just a matter if is it worth it for someone for that kind of difference in money. UPS Freight is decent, but I had them lose a machine for a week about a week ago going to Georgia. They found it and delivered, all was well, but still.
Would be a lot easier if there was ONE carrier that had good rates, good service, and that was it. But UPS might be good to one spot, Roadrunner to another, FedEx somewhere else, and R&L To another place.

As far as the liftgate, the problem is we are dealing with large machines that are pretty much over the capacity of a liftgate. That would make life a lot easier too if trucking companies all had good lift gates, but they don't. And its impossible to know what they have when shipping.

Maybe I can have an option for economy freight, and then premium freight or something. Not sure what to do on that.

But Damage is no excuse, thank god thats pretty rare.

 

[marcusp323]

The mill I got I had to contact RR myself for, as the dock manager was under the impression I was picking it up myself evidently. When the dispatcher finally got to read the paperwork, they arranged for liftgate delivery quickly. Don't know who they use locally, but delivery went well. The lathe they were right on top of. Scheduled date & time for dropping it off & again, a local outfit did the actual delivery. Bit of a tougher time for the guy getting it off the truck, (he wouldn't back into the driveway), but nothing got damaged.

 

[dave2176]

Roadrunner delivered a 7x12 bandsaw 2,000 miles away in perfert condition. They arrived before I got home from work but the driver was courteous with my wife and placed it right in front of the garage door. UPS delivered my lathe and mill in different shipments, both without incident right inside the garage. FedEx lost my buddies lathe, delivering only the 2 stands and after 10 days they found the machine crate and delivered it sitting on its pallet with sides and top of the crate in good condition. Only after unbolting the lathe and lifting it off the wooden base did he see the hole in the bottom of the crate where some object punched between the ways busting the headstock off the bed. Grizzly replaced it but it took FedEx several days to finally get it 15 miles to his home after arriving at the FedEx depot. My wife and I cringe every time we get notice that something shipped via FedEx. We've had them throw things from the curb at our front door frequently missing and landing in the roses, window well or flowers.
Dave

 

[wrmiller]

Hey Matt,

My recently delivery of my 1340GT was done by RR. Took 3 days to get from your place to Denver, then sat here in Denver for 4 days until I called and they were like "Oh! OK, we will have it delivered tomorrow!"

Then the lathe shows up with quite a bit of damage to the crate and the stand boxes and the 3 phase motor were just banging around loose on top of the lathe crate. One stand box smashed through the top of the lathe crate. The local driver wasn't even sure the 3 phase motor was mine as it looked like it had been bounced around by some gorilla sized baggage handler (you ended up sending me a new 3 phase motor...huge thanks for that!).

Local guys were great though. Even showed up with an electric pallet jack and drove the lathe right up my steep driveway all by himself. Best delivery I've had to date from the local guys.