My experience with Knight Refrigerated

My first experience with Knight I thought I made a big mistake showed up for orientation, spent the week listing to all of the good things and then Thursday comes along and they start handing out trucks. I get a Volvo with 422,000 on it. No problem I can live with it. So I start my walk around and start seeing things needing attention. Lights, tires etc. I take it out for a little test drive and before I can even get out of the yard all the warning sensors are going off. I parked it over by the shop go the service writer to help me out and wrote it up. Back inside I find the truck guy and ask for a replacement. He says they do not have any more right now. Okay so I go home for the weekend (three days) return Monday to find not only have they not fixed the truck they have yet to even start. Back inside, I tell my DM whats up and that I need a truck. He makes a phone call and then tells me they have no more trucks available right now. I said good bye it's been nice to meet you and start to walk out the door. The Terminal Manager stops me as I am leaving and I begin to let him hear it. Two minutes after that I,m in a 2011 with 28,000.

I don't know if this has anything to do with anything just thought I would share it.

 

I started to go to work for Knight Ref. I remembered someone on here talking about the favors they always wanted people to do for free. They gave me a truck after orientation with a bunch of fleas inside it. Then they wanted me to do a favor immediatley, first thing. It was like 15 miles down the road, and then back to the terminal to get another load, but when I ask em about the pay , they had to ask each other to see if I would get paid for the favor, I immediatly left at that point, no thanks.

 

Well, I'd say it's one of the most helpful, illustrative posts about this company.
On these boards, you have 2 kinds of drivers. The first hates everything, the second loves everything (always with some kind of disclaimer.....'could be better'....whatever).
But the difference between Smaggs and the rest of them, is that he's documented his experience from day 1, and 99.9% of his posts have been positive.
Smaggs has the credibility that few others have and I really, really appreciate his time and effort.

This ain't no one and done......this guy lived it and documented it for a year. Well done, Smaggs. Well done.

 

Well I used to have your opinion of the company when I was hauling IKEA. Once that fizzled out my experience match that of smaggs. I have many friends who I still stay in touch who have all left the company do to the same reasons after being with them for years. There are also more then a few long time members of this forum that have had similar experiences with the big red ret@rd. Not saying you are not being truthful, in fact I'm confirming that a driver through luck and timing can have a good experience at knight on occasion. Just be forewarned the good times don't last for ever at Knight.

 

That's how I left knight. Stayed out for 42 days, got crap for miles so when I came home i took 5 days off and landed a job with Pride. Then promptly had a "cardiovascular event" 6 weeks later.

 

I doubt it's that your a rookie, if anything general experience is that it goes downhill the longer you stay.

 

No I don't believe it will last forever and at that time I will move on to the next one. But for now its a good fit.

 

That's a good attitude to have about it then. It's pretty much what I did. If it's not broke don't fix it. When it is broke get a new one.

 

My few experiences with Columbus and Carlisle where not pleasant. That may have been due to being from tulare. Had a hard time getting a steer replaced at carlisle and a even harder time getting a load going in a generally western direction after being out for over a month.