toby1234abc:
There is a uk firm that have depots in Spain,called Silver Wolf,but i will not comment on how good they are,i know that LK Walters in Austria have a good credit rating,i would use DSV via their Avonmouth depot.Or Davies Turner if they operate in Spain,if nothing happens,is there a chance of running empty to France,to get loads from Irun or Bordeaux,dead mileage though.
I wouldn’t try Wolf, they haven’t paid us for our last two loads of groupage from tilbury to gib and they were the end of last year
Thanks guys. We have done some work for LKW Walter, and they do pay us, though the rates are not great. And they said they can’t promise loads from Spain. ‘If you ring us when you’re out there, we might have something’. Which isn’t very concrete.
Helen Stevens:
Thanks guys. We have done some work for LKW Walter, and they do pay us, though the rates are not great. And they said they can’t promise loads from Spain. ‘If you ring us when you’re out there, we might have something’. Which isn’t very concrete.
If the Spanish desk af Walters cant load you back from Spain there’s nothing coming back!! They stopped doing ‘perrishables’ some years ago (which narrows the focus a little) and however hard you push they won’t give you a clue where you’re loading till you ring them ‘empty’.
Don’t forget, there’s much more cargo coming out of Spain than going in, so whilst decent return loads aren’t falling from the trees, there will be freight about.
Good luck, Ross.
PS, you could always beg a load of wine off Vasco from Spain to Holland then load to UK from Benelux??
Helen Stevens:
We are a small family run haulage company who have been offered 4 months worth of work to Madrid, one trailer a week. We have had a look for return loads to the UK from Spain but have so far been unsuccessful, since we don’t have the contacts for this work. We do some work for one international haulier, but they are non-committal regarding return loads from Spain, the rates are not great, and we cannot afford to be stranded out there with no return load. We need something firmer and a little (or preferably a lot) better paid!
Does anybody have any suitable contacts please? We are very reliable with a decent fleet and a good set of drivers. We will do a good job. Midlands based.
Many thanks for any assistance anybody is able to give.
Kind regards
Helen Stevens
Hello Helen, here are some some English Companies that are offering fairly reasonable, and regular loads out of the Madrid region. Google or directory enquire, for their numbers etc.
Cargo Refrigeration (mostly ambient goods disregard the name) Freight Ex Dover. Paragon Freight. RH Freight. There are many others, however, once you start this process you will eventually lead into some fair paying and regular work. There are a few Spanish based forwarders, however their payment terms are not the most favourable.
bigr250:
If the Spanish desk af Walters cant load you back from Spain there’s nothing coming back!! They stopped doing ‘perrishables’ some years ago (which narrows the focus a little) and however hard you push they won’t give you a clue where you’re loading till you ring them ‘empty’.
Don’t forget, there’s much more cargo coming out of Spain than going in, so whilst decent return loads aren’t falling from the trees, there will be freight about.
Good luck, Ross.
PS, you could always beg a load of wine off Vasco from Spain to Holland then load to UK from Benelux??
Thanks Ross. That’s interesting. So you think they have got stuff, but they won’t tell me about it? They won’t tell me what they are prepared to pay either, so I don’t know how they imagine we can run the truck out there on the off-chance that they might give us a load back, and probably at a silly rate.
That load to Holland isn’t such a bad idea actually, as we’ve just been contacted about some loads out of Gent back to the Midlands. But that’s a whole new thread!
bigr250:
If the Spanish desk af Walters cant load you back from Spain there’s nothing coming back!! They stopped doing ‘perrishables’ some years ago (which narrows the focus a little) and however hard you push they won’t give you a clue where you’re loading till you ring them ‘empty’.
Don’t forget, there’s much more cargo coming out of Spain than going in, so whilst decent return loads aren’t falling from the trees, there will be freight about.
Good luck, Ross.
PS, you could always beg a load of wine off Vasco from Spain to Holland then load to UK from Benelux??
Thanks Ross. That’s interesting. So you think they have got stuff, but they won’t tell me about it? They won’t tell me what they are prepared to pay either, so I don’t know how they imagine we can run the truck out there on the off-chance that they might give us a load back, and probably at a silly rate.
That load to Holland isn’t such a bad idea actually, as we’ve just been contacted about some loads out of Gent back to the Midlands. But that’s a whole new thread!
its not a case of not telling you,i think its more they wont tell anyone until they are empty and then they can start allocating trucks to loads. i dont really think that you are going to get many who will offer you a return load before you set off,anytimes i’ve been its a case of ring when you are empty.
glenman:
its not a case of not telling you,i think its more they wont tell anyone until they are empty and then they can start allocating trucks to loads. i dont really think that you are going to get many who will offer you a return load before you set off,anytimes i’ve been its a case of ring when you are empty.
Ahh. But that’s where it gets tricky isn’t it? We can’t quote a rate if they won’t offer us a load. Without some reasonable information on what they are likely to pay, how far we are likely to go for a backload, what the position is on the ferries, how do you know that it’s not all going to go ■■■■ up and cost you a huge amount? Sigh. It’s so tricky when the people with the loads play their cards so close to their chests. If it were just a load or two, we might take a punt. But four months work? It would be really difficult to pull out after we’ve agreed to start, or to ask for more money after we’ve done a load or two. Not impossible, but we don’t like to let our customers down like that.
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
Helen, all our Spanish work is priced back into southern France and has been like that for the past 3 years.Only around xmas when the fruit from Valencia area is a decent rate do we load back from Spain.
Klunk
GBPub:
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
I’m affraid GBPub that’s a slightly ‘utopian’ view, cut to the bone that job as a ‘round trip’ would need to pay £3,250 without coming close to making anything like a profit. I’ll bet you could get it covered as a ‘back load’ for well less than half that figure, whilst I fully understand the idea of getting the sender to pay the full rate but I just can’t see anyone paying £3,500 for an ambient load to Madrid.
Ross.
PS, don’t forget, in Britain we’ve always been on ‘back to front’ rates, ie half as much again coming back as we do for loading out!!
GBPub:
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
so all your loads are paid round trip and you go home empty? whereas in the real world everybody else nowadays has to compete with the big boys who charge per mile or km everywhere and don’t differentiate between outward and return journeys. i wish i worked for you or your boss life would be a doddle no need to load for home just get the customer to pay the empty mileage, result
GBPub:
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
I understand what you’re saying, but we can’t expect our customers to pay round trip mileage to Spain, lovely though that would be! Plus they have received quotes from two other (much larger well known) companies, who are offering to do it for much less than we can currently offer with a cheapish backload. I wondered whether most of the money tends to be for the return load. Or whether perhaps they are putting it on a train? Because somehow they are managing to get it down here much cheaper, and I would love to know how they can do it!
(Sorry, I missed the two postings above before I wrote this post. Must learn to turn the page! I am still new here, but it is nice to be here, you are a good bunch, it’s nice to feel welcome. )
klunk/■■■■■■■■
Helen, all our Spanish work is priced back into southern France and has been like that for the past 3 years.Only around xmas when the fruit from Valencia area is a decent rate do we load back from Spain.
Klunk
We have looked at this, sort of. I could get a load off the lovely girls at LKW returning from Southern France, but it just wouldn’t pay enough, especially with the empty miles from Spain to France. We also considered loading Spain to France, because LKW advertise these loads and we do have a foot in the door there, but again the rates let us down on this one, and don’t allow us to compete with the ‘big boys’ this time.
It is nice when the customer wants you to do it, and offers to pay extra, but they can’t pay as much extra as we need to cover all the costs and make a bit of profit. I plan to have another look at the pricing later, maybe I have miscalculated somewhere and I’ve missed it.
GBPub:
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
I understand what you’re saying, but we can’t expect our customers to pay round trip mileage to Spain, lovely though that would be! Plus they have received quotes from two other (much larger well known) companies, who are offering to do it for much less than we can currently offer with a cheapish backload. I wondered whether most of the money tends to be for the return load. Or whether perhaps they are putting it on a train? Because somehow they are managing to get it down here much cheaper, and I would love to know how they can do it!
maybe they don’t have the same attitude as you about professional drivers and keeping the customer happy, preferring instead to employ monkeys and pay peanuts or even worse they’ll sub it out to a lorry from flipflop and sock land who don’t care where they end up
welshboyinspain:
maybe they don’t have the same attitude as you about professional drivers and keeping the customer happy, preferring instead to employ monkeys and pay peanuts or even worse they’ll sub it out to a lorry from flipflop and sock land who don’t care where they end up
While I hate to generalise, you are most likely right, I know. They certainly won’t care about the load as much as we would since they don’t know the customer personally, it’s only one small customer amongst hundreds to them. That’s what’s so FRUSTRATING! ARGH!
Ahh well. Que sera sera. If it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be.
GBPub:
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
so all your loads are paid round trip and you go home empty? whereas in the real world everybody else nowadays has to compete with the big boys who charge per mile or km everywhere and don’t differentiate between outward and return journeys. i wish i worked for you or your boss life would be a doddle no need to load for home just get the customer to pay the empty mileage, result
Sorry, but we don’t run anywhere unless we can afford to come home empty and still make a profit on the job. A return load in our opinion is a bonus not a necessity and no we rarely if ever come back empty.
GBPub:
Surely if you are going to require a return load to make this job viable, then in my opinion you are undercharging your customer in the first place. My advice if they aren’t prepared to pay a fair rate would be to walk away from it.
so all your loads are paid round trip and you go home empty? whereas in the real world everybody else nowadays has to compete with the big boys who charge per mile or km everywhere and don’t differentiate between outward and return journeys. i wish i worked for you or your boss life would be a doddle no need to load for home just get the customer to pay the empty mileage, result
Sorry, but we don’t run anywhere unless we can afford to come home empty and still make a profit on the job. A return load in our opinion is a bonus not a necessity and no we rarely if ever come back empty.
we do malaga to koln for about 2600 euro, so you would want 5200 to make the job pay where we would reload germany for andalucia for another 2600ish? and you don’t get problems with being undercut by eastern europeans who obviously do it cheaper than everybody else? my gast is absolutely flabbered that in this day and age of backstabbing and undercutting you can afford to price the job to run home empty if need be what with rising fuel costs and tolls
GBPub:
Sorry, but we don’t run anywhere unless we can afford to come home empty and still make a profit on the job. A return load in our opinion is a bonus not a necessity and no we rarely if ever come back empty.
GBPub, please don’t take offence, I have to ask. Do you really run European work? Or do you stay in Blighty? If so what is it that you run and where? (And if you are daft enough to give me us the customer’s name, there will be a queue of hauliers outside their door on Monday morning.)
We could all understand it if you have a specialist trailer for cruise missiles or something!
GBPub:
Sorry, but we don’t run anywhere unless we can afford to come home empty and still make a profit on the job. A return load in our opinion is a bonus not a necessity and no we rarely if ever come back empty.
GBPub, please don’t take offence, I have to ask. Do you really run European work? Or do you stay in Blighty? If so what is it that you run and where? (And if you are daft enough to give me us the customer’s name, there will be a queue of hauliers outside their door on Monday morning.)
We could all understand it if you have a specialist trailer for cruise missiles or something!
Only do Euro work, small family business with 4 units. Been in the business for over 40years so must be doing something right. Don’t get me wrong the business is tougher out there than I have ever known it to be. But we stick to our principles and most customers have been with us for a long time.
and they were the end of last year 
Plus they have received quotes from two other (much larger well known) companies, who are offering to do it for much less than we can currently offer with a cheapish backload. 
I wondered whether most of the money tends to be for the return load. Or whether perhaps they are putting it on a train? Because somehow they are managing to get it down here much cheaper, and I would love to know how they can do it!