Landstar Reefer

Do let us know how that reefer works out for you.

 

It's been six weeks. Whatever happened?

 

One, three, five, doesn't matter that much.

As far as weight, you need to know the tare of your truck. There's times when I run on half tanks. Sometimes a shipper might load you so that your barely legal on your steers and drives. I mean you can go back and fool with it or just deal with it.

In the end no ones gonna care if you go over and get caught.

 

Well I have three placards on each side of my trailer. One of the three is the flippers which work great when I can use them. The other two are the slide in placards which suck because they tend to fly off especially in bad weather. I never ask how many placards they will take. I've never had a LS load that needed four or more.

If I get to the shipper and the weight is thousands more than posted when I accepted the load it's time to call the agent and get more money. Or I tell them they can take the freight off and put it on another trailer. It's as simple as that. Freight bills are contracts. I agree to pull the specified load for the specified money. If my costs go up because the load info was incorrect when the deal was made then someone other than me is going to pay the extra. Now if it is a few hundred pounds i'm not going to mention it but I had one a few months ago that was 15K pounds and I arrived and the shipper added a 2nd PO and the new weight was 41K pounds. They paid me $600 more after I called the agent.

Stand up for yourself. You aren't a charity. And you ain't mother Theresa. You are in business to make money by relocating freight at the specified place and time within the parameters of the deal that was made. If that changes so does the rate. Or their driver and equipment will change.

 

The Orientation centers have clear plastic shields to slide in with the placards. Keeps them in place real well.

Since using those the only placard I lost came off when the placard holder decided to part ways.

 

My record for placards is 5. And on more than a few occasions have flown the skull and crossbones, which you probably will never do with a refer.

I just scanned my 94th load.

Of all those, I've never had one add more than a 1,000 pounds, and that is extremely rare. Now I have had them be under in my favor dozens of times by 10,000 or more.

I don't call and offer them a credit.

You'll notice the placard will tend to fall out of the passengers side. That's cause the opening is toward the wind.

Rarely will you lose the driver or back. I mean rarely.

The front will go on occasion if the holder is too close to the passenger edge.

Roll of duct comes in handy for the placard opening where you slide it in.

I typically peel and stick the ones on the passenger side.

Only once did they give me placards that didn't have adhesive on them.

I must have at least 100 in my passenger side door for spares, all different classes.

 

I have heard this from other sources as well (about the haz in the winter paying REAL good). I have been with LS for about 4 months pulling a co van (34 years as a co driver) and love it here. I live in Mpls and was doing my CABS last week and just for fun looked at the reefer lanes out of Minnesota and in the last 3-4 weeks there have been 71 loads out mostly from 2 brokers. I am seriously looking at going the reefer route.

Other than the 20-30k for the trailer, what other things do I have to know that Landstar doesnt cover? Plates? Insurance? Any other surprises?

 

One time registration fee you reimburse them for.... no recurring fee

Insurance is on you if you want it. My trailer was cheap enough I consider it a disposable so no idea on rate.

Edit: also if you run Cali the trailer and unit will need to be C.A.R.B compliant.