what happens if your reefer breaks down while you're loaded?

I was! Crab salad ain't cheap.. but I did what the company said. . And covered my rear by communicating via qual comm. .

Gotta remember to cya.. any company will hang you out to dry if they can save a buck.

 

Company... you notify your shop and dispatcher immediately. They will help you find the nearest repair facility. The good thing about ThermoKing is they have a large network of shops and they do emergency repairs.

Then again you have to figure the outside temperature, how close you are to delivering and the product. There might be an instance where you are close enough to get the freight off. The trailer is a big cooler and if you aren't in extreme heat it takes a little while for the temperature to change.

There is also a network of cold warehouses around the country. If you deal with one on a regular basis they might help you out in an emergency.

In other words you do everything humanly possible to avoid losing the load. It does happen.

I've been fortunate enough to only have three breakdowns. One I was empty and prechilling which wasn't a big deal and there was a ThermoKing enroute that fixed me in 30 minutes. The second one was leaving the house and I hit the the local ThermoKing on a Sunday. He was called in and brought two pizzas with him. He even gave me a hat. I thought that was cool.

The last one I was 30 minutes from delivery and I made a run for it. It was a load of meat to Walmart. I cleared the alarm before I checked in with security. They knew no different. They are more concerned about the seal. Once you get backed to a dock you can borrow their cold air from the warehouse. I would guessdamate it would take at least two hours if not more before your product was outside an acceptable range.

Perishables like produce is more critical than meat and frozen. They have to pulp within 2*.

If you work for a good company they'll keep their equipment up. Then you play your part with pretripping the unit. Then if something happens it is usually an easy fix like a sensor.

 

When I was driving a tow truck in Albuquerque we were called out several times to transfer the load into our refer then the trailer went for repairs, sometimes we delivered the load to a local cold storage warehouse, sometimes they just rented our trailer to store the product, once I delivered it to the end customer. Same thing in Pennsylvania, I transferred a load of frozen broccoli and then delivered it to Boston the next day for the carrier. As said before, not cheap but it is something to have in the back of your mind if needed. Ultimately it will depend on what the person responsible for the load wants to do, if you are the owner/op then that is you and I would be really familiar with my insurance coverage and have a contact lined up 24/7 with the insurance carrier for their assistance and guidance because if you do the wrong thing in their eyes they will try to get out of paying on the claim.

 

You get it fixed.

 

Had a few reefers and heaters go out on me. Usually route myself to nearest dealer Thermo King or Carrier. When I call the shop they tell me to head where I'm already going and then I call back for an EFS check when I get the big fat bill... Costs a lot to fix a broken unit in the middle of the night. My company usually doesn't have all the most recent places to go. I think they're using an old reference guide from the 90's? Had a reefer brake down in bfe OK. Found a TK dealer on my gps they didn't know about. They just said, yeah ok take it there. Lol

 

The reefers I drove the last couple of years had digital readouts, and part of my routine was checking for abnormal codes. When the reefer would have a problem, I'd call a service provider and find out how to reset and clear the codes. It worked great, about 8 of 10 problems were solved by this method. The other 2? Went to a shop, got fixed, was lucky to be close enough that the cargo wasn't threatened.

 

i had a load of tyson meat had to go to a meat house they transferred the load to another one of our trailers
because TK had to work on reefer from the inside

 

I had my reefer break down only once and my dispatch was able to find a repair shop about 30 minutes away. The reefer is well insulated and can maintain the temp during the repair. I am sure the food didn't taste as good though for the customers who bought it at the store. Which explains why sometimes the food we buy seems old.

 

Had this happen the other day... Truck was heading to wm DC Los lunas from Philly. He was just near Moberly, and caught it at the right time. We pushed him into Moberly and swapped with a north platte truck and los Lunas. Just lucky we service many DCs this time of year and all had the same loads rolling. Some shippers smell an automatic insurance claim... Good shippers will help you find a solution.

 

O/O'S have what is called Reefer breakdown Ins....... mine is a 1000.00 deduct....... I also carry 250k cargo.... covers just about everything