No inverters in Crete trucks?

Discussion in 'Crete' started by 2BucTruck, Jun 20, 2014.

  1. ralphbohm

    ralphbohm Light Load Member

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    May 6, 2014
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    200 Watts is definately not enough. 500 Watts is.
     
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  3. ralphbohm

    ralphbohm Light Load Member

    99
    57
    May 6, 2014
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    250 Watts is not enough for a laptop.
     
  4. pattyj

    pattyj Road Train Member

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    Jul 19, 2008
    Sioux City,ia
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    Yes it is.I used a Wal-Mart ciggarette lighter inverter for my laptop,dvd player,cell phone.Even worked for an extension cord.Of course you can only have one thing plug in at a time but it worked.
     
    LGarrison Thanks this.
  5. Incorp

    Incorp Bobtail Member

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    Aug 18, 2017
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    Edit: Just realized this thread is ancient. Sorry for raising the dead and all.

    Just my two cents as someone who's new and in Reefer, DON'T DO IT! Granted, my company doesn't offer ANYTHING extra for reefer, though you should theoretically get extra miles as you can haul dry or refrigerated, but that's not really my issue. When they asked me I said sure because I felt like I wasn't really in a position to be picky, and they said it really wasn't all that much more on top of dry.

    That was #########. I know, because my trainer was in dry (Oh, we can't find you a trainer in a reefer now; do you want to wait until we can or just go with someone in dry? It's really not that much more to learn... lol). During the training period (which was admittedly pretty short for the average) we had maybe one or two loads that took more than two hours from arrival to departure for reasons other than us purposefully taking our break there when the shipper/receiver allowed it. I'd say maybe 75% of my loads now take over 4hrs (and my company's detention pay is atrocious, not to mention the fact that the shippers/receivers always ######## on the bills and basically put the time they finished loading not when they actually got you the paperwork. I spent two hours the other night in a hot arse break room waiting for paperwork), quite often over six, and several times (in the two or so months total I've been there outside of training) up towards ten. Spent eleven hours at a shipper the other night, though that answered the question of why they gave me such a crap schedule with so much downtime on that load (still almost made me late lol).

    That's not even addressing the rest of it. In dry you might not even have to clean the trailer every time. For whatever reason there's a lot less debris - I imagine the runners on reefer trailers must cause a good bit more damage to pallets being loaded by forklift drivers going fifteen miles per hour (as they load a handful of pallets per hour lol), and of course as you're not transporting food shippers don't really expect a spotless trailer. Different story on reefer. I've managed to avoid doing washouts all the time, but that's because I've got a good broom for breaking up debris and a 450cpm blower for getting every bit of dust possible out of there. I've still been nervous as hell going into a few shippers with water stains (from condensation when the doors are opened and the trailer is -10 and covered in all the crap the last receiver's forklift tires tracked in) that a brush and blower wouldn't handle, but haven't been turned away yet. In theory it would be better just to wash out all the time (the company even sent out a fleet message #####ing about people doing this to avoid doing it themselves on even relatively clean trailers) but the reality is that you'll quite often find yourself in a situation where you have just enough time to get from your last receiver to your next shipper assuming traffic doesn't act up, and the only washout available is ten or twenty or fifty miles out of route. They're quite sparse in some places.

    It's a LOT of hassle for a couple extra cents, and the theoretical extra miles are countered by the huge wait times. I kind of understand why you get much less preloads and d&h in reefer as noone wants to pay for the fuel to leave a load in a trailer that could be sitting in a more efficient warehouse; not sure why it takes them several times longer to load it from said warehouse, but it's a fact. Granted I've already had several 3.5k mile weeks, but that's as much because of where my trips fell in relation to the pay period as anything else, and not the norm.

    On a side note, not saying my company is ####. Their pay certainly is, as well as detention and a few other things, but I went to them because they had a reputation as a good starter company who would give pretty much anyone a shot and I was already well aware of most of the negatives. There's a lot of positives too like the fact that even as a new driver I got a practically brand new truck with less than 10k miles on it (and an automatic transition, which is pretty great when I'm going past Chicago or Atlanta or someplace like that), a 1500w inverter that runs off a good apu and was installed for free, etc. I just really REALLY regret agreeing to go reefer when I'm pretty sure they would have still hired me if I had insisted on box, and I'd suggest you don't make the same mistakes. Dunno how much of that is the problems created by not actually being trained on Reefer (my training for reefer consisted of a 10 minute walkthrough with our orientation guy lol, which is great when you're wondering things like 'when is a trailer too dirty to take to a shipper who the preplan specifically says is picky about cleanliness?') but I know for sure that it's still not worth it.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2017
    JOHNQPUBLIC Thanks this.
  6. crxdc

    crxdc Road Train Member

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    Jun 24, 2013
    Las vegas NV
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    One it was a dead thread. Two your comment had nothing to do with the threqds contents. Three you are a whiney little kid. You should get out of trucking if you are afraid of a little extra work.
     
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