Any advice for a new reefer driver

Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by Robert Eroica Dupea, Dec 22, 2018.

  1. Robert Eroica Dupea

    Robert Eroica Dupea Light Load Member

    I will let you guys know if I get 3000 a week doing reefer, for sure. I have my doubts, but if it's drop and hook I could see it. Trailer washes and all. We shall see. Thanks yall. :)
     
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  3. Allow Me.

    Allow Me. Trucker Forum STAFF Staff Member

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    the most beautiful sight is when you pull into a produce shed in Salinas or Yuma and there's 150 trucks parked in a dirt lot with their units on high trying to cool down waiting for their loads "to cool". There's nothing to eat, maybe a vending machine that the supplier forgot to replenish yesterday and the restroom is an outhouse. Oh yeah, Then while you wait with your CB on channel 29 waiting to be called to a door, and the next morning nothing's changed, you will re-think your decision to get into trucking ! ! !
     
  4. Gdog66223

    Gdog66223 Road Train Member

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    Now not all places are that way... maybe reefer but I do pretty well on dryvan.. usually in and out...
     
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  5. akfisher

    akfisher Road Train Member

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    Yeah be prepared to scale a lot and sit a lot. Reworking freight and slow workers and dealing with Comchecks. I don’t think I would pull reefer if I went back over the road. I did it for a year I would rather run dry freight or tanker
     
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  6. mustang190

    mustang190 Road Train Member

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    3000 miles a week should be average if your running coast to coast.
    One word of advice, the refer unit will always break down late at night and on weekends and holidays.
     
  7. Eddiec

    Eddiec Road Train Member

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    Remember to pre-cool and record temperatures of perishables . Take pictures of product , watch the loading process until to you get a handle on what is going on. Always get the name of the shipping and receiving clerks and keep them in a notebook. Put stars next to their names and grade them and the facilities they work at. Check out the website below for temperature guidelines . Always read the bill before signing for the load and after delivery. Good luck.

    https://www.producebluebook.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/Temperature Guidelines & Ethylene Sensitivity.pdf
     
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  8. Robert Eroica Dupea

    Robert Eroica Dupea Light Load Member

    Thanks a million Eddiec -- I'm all over all that -- great info! Merry Christmas!
     
  9. Air Cooled

    Air Cooled Road Train Member

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    Only 2 truck stops in Salinas. Dunno how it’s possible for all of that produce coming out. Rumor is they are going to be building a Loves soon.
     
    BillStep Thanks this.
  10. PE_T

    PE_T Road Train Member

    If you ever deliver at a receiver with a policy of shutting off the reefer while trailer is backed to a dock for unload, check with the office every hour if they have not started unloading you. If you are not connected to the trailer, use a flashlight and your smartphone’s videocamera to check if they have started taking off the pallets. Sometimes they drop the ramp on the trailer and do not begin unloading until 1 hour or more. It is very important that you demand and raise hell if two hours have passed and they have not started unloading with the reefer off.

    I had this very issue, and my company had my back the whole time. Most of the freight was rejected due to product not being at the correct temp when lumper guy began unloading.
     
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  11. STexan

    STexan Road Train Member

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    On hot[ter] days, you will end up with higher box temps with the unit on [cycle or cont] then with the unit off, assuming you were pre-cooled to begin with and product was already at temp or was soon added, and the doors are open. I don't care what the dock temp is, it is never below 0F. Most any ice cream place or other frozen place that knows anything will tell you to shut the unit off once those doors are opened. Running the unit with doors open only freezes up the condenser coils with humidity and it spends half it's time in defrost mode.

    But I get your point. Walmart is bad to go in with a frozen load. You can't leave unit off because it may take so long, and conversely, running the unit for that long raises the box temp. So you run risks either way. But at least if it's running, you can put the blame on them for taking too long, which they will combat with "your unit doesn't cool well enough". But I've never had a load rejected because long delays and thawing, but you can always see the effects of this when you go to the grocery story and buy frozen foods with weakened cardboard boxes that obviously sweated considerably, somewhere, sometime.
     
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