We’re TowawayCouple, I’m Tom, the driver and I’m bunny. I’m also the driver. She is now going to be an official driver again, you know what? Call me Fair weather. Call me whatever you want, but I don’t want to drive in the snow. Uh, I don’t even drive my own car in the snow.
I’m not gonna take my chances with somebody else’s and I don’t want some idiot ruining me. Nope. So with that said today, we’re going to talk about the shortage, the shortage of parts in a RV transport industry. Because you know, people do, they send us all messages all the time. Can there be money that can be made in here?
Of course, but just like any other job, there’s going to be times when you have downtime. So one of the things we are being told was there’s a metal sword EJ. I mean, we’re hearing all kinds of different things. So what we’re telling you is what we’ve been told may or may not be factual. We’re not claiming any of this.
We’re just, you know, cause some people make reasons for things and then aren’t true. Right? So we were told that there was a metal shortage from China. We were told that before Christmas. Yep. Either that’s still going on, or it ended and then it started again. I don’t know. I, I think that’s been going on metal wood.
What a price of Wood’s gone up air conditioners. Yeah. It was kind of, kind of weird, well, air conditioners, and I think it was condensers that they were talking about. Yeah. But we’ve heard air conditioners for the rooftop air conditioner. We’ve heard refrigerators. And recently we even heard toilets, a shortage of toilets.
Hey, you know what depends on where they’re coming from. Right. I mean, with the trucking industry and everything, it’s been pretty hectic. It’s been pretty slow. A lot of people are out. Right. A lot of people that were out of work are out of work. Right. And, and you know what, it’s nothing to laugh about.
We’re right there with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We’re furloughed from our other company, although we’re kind of not furloughed, but were furloughed. It’s a little too hard and it’s hard to explain, but anyway, um, we get a lot of people that want to do RV transport. A lot of people will go into the Facebook forums or groups and everything, and a lot of people that are feeling the hurt.
And we see them taking it out on people, honestly, asking genuine questions about trying to get into it right now, you know, kind of going back. I did read an article the other day, on Yahoo finance they kind of went into that it’s foam. Do you remember when the Texas froze? We were there. We literally, we were driving through Texas.
So if you go back to one of our videos, We talk about ways. And we talk about, um, our breakdown. We had just gone, that was during the freeze. Well, I mean, we are showing negative seven or negative nine inside our RV in Shreveport. So I took pictures. So, but basically that knocked out all of the petroleum companies, which in essence, knocked out all of the foam companies.
They couldn’t keep the plants heated up because of the electric and the petroleum and everything else. So, uh, I guess how they fill whatever they fill. Froze the pipes all froze. Correct. And well, a correct, according to the article. Okay. According to the article and this includes plastic as well. So those big end caps on the motor homes, those big old bus type motor homes are the front caps on the big fifth wheels.
Those are all plastic. They’re not fiberglass. I guess I thought they were fiberglass, but they’re plastic. Who would have known who to thank. I know the sides are fiberglass. What kind of makes make sense when you’re driving some of these sometimes and you look back and instead of it being rounded, it’s flat.
And then when you stop, it goes back out to round. Yeah. Are they’re just cheaply built. But anyway, uh, a lot of people keep going on the forums and the groups, Facebook on their RV transport, and they get really knocked down. I think personally, a lot of people are afraid that. You guys are going to come in and take all their loads from them.
And so they’re going to try to trash talk or scare you out of doing it any way they can. The fact is, is. These companies hire 12 to 20 new drivers every single day. Even during a park shortage, knowing that you’re going to get your first load for free, you’re going to get dispatched right? The same day.
You have orientation, you will have a load. It’s probably only going to make 200 bucks. Cause it’s only going 150 miles. That’s your trial. They want to make sure you get there because all those 20. 2300 mile Warrens have already been taken up by the experienced drivers. Right. But those are gone pretty quickly too.
So what happens is, is they reserve all these dispatches for the new hire. So if they hire, let’s just say when we were there, how many people now, mind you, this is during a part shortage. And a lot of people were there. First time, brand new. And this was our second orientation. Because we just moved over to the new company you had between 15 or more or more yeah.
15 or more drivers. So with the parks or adage, you know, I always told everyone, people say, why do they hire so many drivers because it’s a high turnover in there. In this Particular instance, we go through orientation, we get a run that’s only 210 miles, and then you come back and you can’t get another load.
And you can’t get a vote until you completed the dispatch and they paid you out, unless you call it this bachelor and you got to hope, they answer. So. So how many of those people get disappointed and just turn around and go back home? Well, how many people go broke? Because there is an initial investment to get into this. If you’re thinking about going out and buying a truck, now’s not the time I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t recommend it. If you have a 3/4 ton or one ton truck,. Okay. You’re already ahead of the game. Right now we’re actually talking about getting a dually and put that on hold until everything gets back in place.
We didn’t want the extra payment, but we do want to get a dually specifically for RV transport. But not use as our every day vehicle. We love our current truck as our everyday vehicle. But we don’t want to Ruin it, putting all the miles on there from RV transport. So like, you know, to into, like I touched on already, the part shortage would be like, if you’re in your regular job, something happens and work is slow.
It’s the same thing. And one of the things that I try to relate to people that don’t know the industry, it’s like. Currently right now, trying to get a load is like throwing 10 French fries to 2000 pigeons. Correct. They’re going to go like that. They go fast. You gotta be quick fingered. The best way to get a load is be willing to go.
Anywhere and literally think fast act fast and you’ll get a vote. Meaning if you’re going to think about it, or you want to go to a specific location? The chances are you’re going to be one of those people on Facebook, 2 or 10 minutes later, or two minutes after everyone’s sucked up all the loads, because you took too long complaining that the load boards, saying you didn’t get a load.
No, the load board was there. You just weren’t fast enough to get a vote. And unfortunately that sucks, fortunately, and unfortunately, yeah, you’re right, because you don’t have time to look at where you want to go. It’s pick a load and go. Um, we ended up going to Delaware. We have never been in Delaware.
I told I, but I did look at, I look at weather ahead of, ahead of the game too. And I told them we do not go to South Dakota, do not go to Wyoming. They’re getting snow. We didn’t even look at those. So he’s like, how about Delaware? And I’m like, great. And then later on, there was a Mississippi load and she goes, grab that.
And I’m like, can’t we just dispatch? Cause we’re going to go home to Alabama. And that would have brought us all the way home within two hours of our house instead of. But, you know, into everybody wants to go south. Everybody wants to come back towards Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. Those are the perfect runs.
I mean, they’re great runs. And half the people that drive, I think, live out here. I mean, I turn around and come back to Alabama every time we could, but you know what, the way that we look at it is it takes us a lot farther away. You, you know, but just, we’re just taking it as an experience and we’re learning and we’re, we’re actually seeing the U S too.
Yeah. Now once the park sorted ends and it will end people. Don’t mistake a, it goes up and down. This is just another glitch in the pandemic up, but you know, it could have been partly caused by the container ship in the Suez Canal, blocking the thousands of other container ships for the toilets and refrigerators or anything else.
Any supplies could have been out in the ocean. The Texas thing did happen, but the article was very, very positive that by mid may they should be back up to full steam. That doesn’t mean the stuff will be delivered to Indiana. No, it just means. The supply chain will be back to full levels. Right!. And like, you know, and just like everybody else, you know, we’re, we’re biting at the bit to, to get out there and hauling, and, and now it’s like, all right, well, I wanted this and now I got to tuck money back in.
You know what? It, it’s just learning how to go with the flow. So right now, should you get into the question? The big question we always get is. With all I hear about all these load boards. Should I get into RV transport, you should be able to get an RV transport. I probably wouldn’t write today. And today we’re talking April of 2021.
Well, 20th, 20, 21, but maybe in mid may, first part of June, look back at it. If there and what I, what we did was we contacted. Couple drivers from different companies and asked them, Hey, what’s your load board look like? And, uh, people that were very helpful told us at each company, how many trailers per day were on their load board.
And that’s why we chose who we chose in the beginning. Now you can do that right now. If you contacted us or anyone else, we bought the load board and say, As of right this second there’s one trailer and it’s going to Canada. So unless you have a passport, and that trailer probably overweight is what you’re allowed to pull, because unless you have a CDL you’re limited to 26,000 combined pounds between your truck and the trailer.
So a lot of times you’ll see a load on the load board. Only a CDL driver can drive, uh, kudos to them for having a CDL, but, uh, Yeah. Whenever the load board gets full or filled up. Definitely, You just got to jump on. It started last year in July and came out of orientation with 782 trailers on the board right today.
I mean, we, we were at home, we’ve been at home for the past couple of days. We watching the load board and yeah, there might be 30 or 40 at a time. Go up. And they’re gone. So you gotta really, you gotta be quick. You gotta know. Like I said, just pick wherever you want to go. And you’re going to make some money are kind of our topic on the shortage.
The shortage could be any number of things. Uh, we do know sometimes they close the plants, all the plants for like two weeks. Why they redo a new model a year. Yeah. And we hear there’s a slowdown during that period. And I know it’s typically sometime in the summer and right around Christmas time this year, it didn’t happen because of course, right.
Not only did it not happen because of that is because there’s so much demand for RVs. They did not come out with a new model year. So that’s interesting. So yeah, I definitely, uh, will post the link to the article bunny found in the description of this YouTube video, as well as on www.towwaycouple.com under our resource link.
So for review that I’m are just looking at this and wanting to get into it, kind of hold off a little bit. Okay. Hold off for a little bit. Don’t I, I’m not, we’re not saying don’t get into it for the rest of us. Let’s just all hang in there and go with the ebbs and flows and get through this part forward is again, right.
So, all right, until next time, see you down the road, see you down the road