Business Plan/ Mentor Needed

$1.80 all miles ? What's your break even cost?

 

Working with 99 % of brokers an older trailer will never be an issue. Some shippers where it will certainly be an issue sometimes is paper roll stock and can almost guarantee General Motors will reject any trailer older than 10 years old. Ford might also but i have never seen them check. Places that are strict about this will certainly check. But again the vast majority of loads out there this will never be an issue for you.

I think you have the floors confused with walls. I have never heard of a plated floor? They make "plate" wall trailers and "sheet & post" wall trailers. Sheet and post are much stronger and will last a lot longer than plate. Plate trailers are weak. Utility won't even produce them. The benefit of a plate trailer is if you are hauling lightweight freight that cubes out almost 100% of the interior of the trailer. There is 2" extra inside width for a plate trailer versus sheet and post. New empty plastic coke bottles going into production to be filled with product would be an example of where the shipper wants to ship a cubed out trailer maximizing their transport costs.

Personally I would never own a plate trailer. But that's just me. I do think its an advantage to have a trailer less than 10 years old but again I go into GM plants, or used to a lot when freight was better. Actually expecting to see more of that in the next few years again. It depends on what kind of freight is in your area. I would suggest getting an older cheap van trailer to start out. Run that for a couple of years. If you're missing out on a lot of loads that require 10 years or newer then upgrade as needed. Don't go buy a brand new van right away.

 

I like plastic or composite lined. Wood floor is about it for a van. You can get aluminum floors but that would be unusual and maybe even useless for some freight.

 

That is a plastic lined sheet and post trailer. See the galvanized steel verticle logistics posts? The white plastic panels between those posts are the "plastic lining". Sometimes they put those plastic panels in there or a composite material or sometimes plywood. It's just generic terminolgy describing it as "plastic lined" versus "plywood lined". Look for plastic or composite and avoid the plywood lined. The "sheet" is the actual aluminum skin on the outside of the trailer walls that is riveted to those galvanized posts. Those sheet and posts are part of the structural integrity of any dry van trailer in carrying a load.

 

Yep forgot to mention. Get the aluminum roof for sure and avoid the translucent roof. I don't know if that's a good price or not its Canadian $.