Where Did They All Go?

Huh, now that you mention it, I don’t see many wabash trailers these days either.

I personally have had pretty good luck with the handful of Hyundais I have pulled, but don’t really have enough experience with them to form a legit opinion.

I worked for many years at a distribution center with their own fleet, and they used Great Danes for just about forever. The old ones were indestructible. The last batch that they bought (I think 25 of them) had a defect in the door frames, to where you often couldn’t get the doors closed even on level ground. A bunch of drivers had to bring them back to the yard with the doors tied shut. Great Dane made a feeble attempt to fix them and failed. We ended up fixing them ourselves. I didn’t get the whole story on what exactly transpired between our company and Great Dane, but I do know they switched to Stoughton trailers after that debacle. I left the company shortly after they made the switch to Stoughton so not sure how that panned out.

 

Was just reading about that yesterday. Wabash is in an internal knot. They’re in the process of retiring a half dozen or more brands they’ve acquired over the years, and re-tooling a couple of production lines. They’re putting Benson, Transcraft, DuraPlate, Brenner Tank and a few others to bed and consolidating all of it under Wabash. They already have a back-log problem to sort out, they probably don’t even want to talk to someone that’s going to order 3 or 4000 trailers at a time just now.

 

Wabash was formed out of the bankruptcy buyout of Fruehauf. They in turn began to do the same things Fruehauf did by buying up any competitor they could and then got way to top heavy. Fruehauf was #1 for 50 years or more, was the industry leader and pioneer, and supplied other makers with parts and technology but along the way got to top heavy and crashed. Wabash it seemed was on the same path. Hopefully they get themselves straightened out. They are very good quality and built to last just like Fruehaufs were.

 

I can see the lift gate being especially hard on a lightweight trailer. In operation that gate is probably capable of putting way more than 1000lb/ft on the rear 1/4 of it.

 

Yep. Had liftgates for years on straight trucks. If there is a long overhang behind the drive axle You can feel them trying to buck the truck on rough roads. Unlike when on a trailer they don’t put any stress on the body because they are mounted straight to the frame rails.