found a trailer out of state , need to get it home

OP: title and register your trailer before you leave home to pick it up. You can do all the paperwork via overnight delivery with the seller and registering the trailer at your local gov't office that does that. Throw the plate in your briefcase and bobtail to pick it up. Expecting to go right out and load it is being too optimistic. Probably more likely a day or three when you get there to be spent fixing a few things the seller forgot to mention. No help now, but you should have been considering the cost of transport when shopping a trailer so far away.

I did exactly this with one of my trailers. Bought it sight unseen off a Penske yard in KC. I got the title done and got the plate here in GA while the trailer continued to sit in KC. Bobtailed 800 miles to get it, which also turned into a driving evaluation trip for my then newly hired driver BigJohn54. Since two of us were drivers, he did the bulk of it and I finished the outbound and return trips to make the 14 hr drive in one stretch, saving about a day on 10 hour breaks. I considered the $400 in fuel plus John's outbound mileage driver pay when negotiating the purchase price.

When we got there, we wasted two days getting some lighting issues fixed along with a reefer checkout, PM, and a chute installed. Also spent a 1/2 day at the Freightliner dealer getting them to do a bad job of re-repairing something that the Jefferson, GA shop screwed up for me the week before when I bought the second lemon of a vehicle in my lifetime.

Edit: forgot to add that, once the trailer and truck were sorted, I booked a load for the return trip. All I had to do in that regard was bolt the plate on the newly acquired trailer and go. In addition to the lighting and reefer work, I had the trailer shop that did the lighting work also do an annual DOT on it since that was also not current.

Personally I'd feel a lot better putting my own hands and eyes on equipment before putting it into service, versus taking the word of someone I hired that's 1717 miles away.

 

Actually T/A Pete has posted his background on several threads. His advice has never overstretched his stated experience IMO. What cracks me up is you calling him out over a generalization that, to me, seemed a positive statement coming from anyone with some experience in any line of business.

Maybe I misread it, but I took it to mean that at least a new guy with the guts to ask questions has a chance. Apparently the OP and a few others took it in the negative, as-in "if you have to ask something like that maybe you should reconsider this business."

 

You can either get it registered before picking it up or get a temp registration to haul a load back. You can not register an out of state piece of equipment in Texas until it gets into the state and is inspected and you have a "green sheet". I got temps for both trailers I bought out of state in the past and hauled loads back. I also ran a power only most of the way to pick up the first one to cover my cost. One word of wisdom, I'd want to see the trailer before I put out any cash for it. I bought my first trailer sight unseen from a company I used to work for and that was a big mistake. I could have had problems corrected before I ever got there to pick it up but anyway, live and learn. If trucking was easy money, everyone would do it and I might still be out there too!

 

Maybe so......I think so myself.

Like I said, I'm outta the bickering, which seems to happen more in this "owner operator" forum than anywhere else on the site.

Again, sorry OP.

Martin

 

Great point. Georgia does not have this requirement. Valid proof of ownership in hand and $40 is all you need to leave the tag office with a plate. They verify with a title check at the counter, but no separate state inspection.

I also learned the hard way on my first trailer, bought at an in-state dealer oddly enough. I asked for a temp or drive out tag since it would be a week or so before I had the title in hand and could get the permanent plate. My son went by there later and they gave him what I found out later was a photocopy of a Maine plate I guess they had laying around. He made a round trip out to TX like that and there was only one issue on the return at the EB I-20 scale in GA. The DOT lectured about it but did not write an inspection. At the time, I already had the plate in hand waiting for him to return to attach it to the trailer.

 

It was a joke about the lease agreement... Reread it carefully... you do know what "#### it" means right? Lighten up, Francis

 

Yeah I know what it means, but with some of the folks in this section, making statements like that could land someone in trouble

Martin

 

What is a tractor head, never heard of that............