Enclosed Trailer vs open top trailer

I wish you all the luck in the world. I have made a good living and I have lost everything with a truck. I learn every day and I just wanted to throw out some major hurdles that I have seen some arrive at unexpectedly.

As for trailers, I like to close the doors and drive. I always have. At 54 I'm even less interested in a flatbed.

I think it has been covered but a flatbed pays better. It also seems to be more sensitive to the economic changes. I think this is because much of this freight is tied to building which IMHO is the best economic indicator in this country. Much of the equipment and materials are used in some type of construction.

If you don't mind the additional headaches, risks and responsibilities then a reefer can be a good choice. Everyone has to eat and many of the loads may be food products. You will find the unloading appointments are often in the wee hours of the morning. They unload trucks before they open for business. Many loads require that you pay lumpers to unload them. Some may allow the driver to unload. Many of the reefer loads I pulled had to be taken off the pallets and restacked a different way on a different pallet for the receiver.

Dry vans are probably the most common and pay the lower of the three. You can haul many dry food loads and often have some of the same headaches as a reefer. You can also haul many other types of freight.

A reefer can haul all the same freight as a dry van plus refrigerated and frozen loads. The limiting factor is the few thousand extra pounds that a reefer weighs because of the unit and the insulation. Shippers are often greedy so they want to put on as much weight as possible. With a reefer you need to watch the empty weight of your combination. Van freight might run 45 - 48,000 and reefer freight might run 43 - 45,000 as an example.

If you are loading with a broker you will often see van, reefer, and van/reefer loads. There will be some van loads you may not get in a reefer. If you are pulling a reefer it never hurts to call on van loads and see if you can scale them.

 

My rookie advice as far as a trailer. Spread axle. Flatbed it is a must and i see alot of o/o reefer hauler using them. No worries about sliding tandems, less trips to a cat scale and with a dump valve for the rear axle they will turn good. Also once you get used to backing em you dont get with variance with tandems being in different hole with how the trailer will react.