With new reefers hitting $110,000 why don't we start refurbishing old trailers?

Same as most things today.

Things are not well designed for repair, throw it away and get a new one is the theme.

Couple that with not knowing exactly how something was abused for the first years of its life, its not neccessarily worth the fixing cost (sometimes), but you wont know until you start

 

Pretty much this. Guy i know decided to go the restoration route on 10 ratty reefers he picked up as a lot for $30K each to restore and flip. They ranged in price from $5500 all the way up to 65K to restore. And 3 of them still ended up being only good as parts doners and nothing more due to rot and internal damage pushing the repair cost uo over new cost. And keep in mind that was with him doing 100% of the labor in his own shop. Someone paying a shop to fix these trailers would have been looking at easily as much or more then new on a few of those trailers.

 

A guy might have to make a business out of reefer remanufacturing to make it pencil out.

 

If it only cost 9000 for 5 more years of use it would be worth it.But I think it would be much more then that.

 

For whatever reason, it seems a reefer will never be as good in retaining the cold after being fixed. The spot with the replacement insulation will be a hot spot in the trailer.

 

The floors get weak over time. The floors crack at the rear of the trailer, generally because shippers and receivers drive their forklifts and pallet jacks into the trailer like they are at a Nascar track. The cross members at the rear also become weak. Road salt adds to this as well as having tire failures usually the result of running recaps

 

One big problem I see with doing that in “these times” is it takes forever to get parts in. Might take a couple months to get everything ordered in and get it done. Most people just don’t have the time for that. Also got to have plenty of cash in the bank for the parts. Not like just financing a new one and going to work with it.