Posted by David Sherman on Friday, February 25, 2005 at 8:17PM :
In Reply to: cost of motor freight posted by m.bolyard on Friday, February 25, 2005 at 7:11PM :
on what you're shipping. I have used freightquote.com a couple times when I had to have something shipped commercially. It will always be cheaper if you can find a friend of a friend who's going that way, or get it on a backhaul, or have somebody at a nearby business that does lots of shipping who can get you their good freight rates. Basically, the more time you put into calling lots of people and trying to work out non-standard arrangements, the cheaper it will be, but if you have to use a regular commercial trucking lines and you don't ship stuff very often, you won't get terribly good rates. A couple years ago I had 3 days to work out how to ship a 5000 lb generator 400 miles and it ended up costing me $600 via USF Reddaway. I'm sure I could have arranged it for half that if I'd had plenty of time.