Advice On Buying A Used Trailer

A good tight, dry, odor free trailer is accepted at most places. Over 10 years old won't be accepted at some places, like hauling copper out of El Paso or Douglass, Az, or Paperloads. However if it's clean and solid looking, I doubt anybody will check the age, or at least I never had anybody check the year on my trailers. Sometimes they won't accept translucent roof trailers at the Beer facilities, but having said that it depends on the type of beer load, because one of my trailers was translucent and I hauled a lot of beer load. A good floor is critical. I like the 45degree or rounded front corners. I had two trailers and one had 90 degree corner and the other had the 45 degree corners and in the winter going across Wyoming I could tell the difference. Make sure the rear door frame is solid or you'll go thru door seals all the time and fight to get the doors shut when loaded, especially on uneven ground. Also make sure the kingpin plate is flat and solid, or you'll wear out your fith wheel, and or chase tire wear problems. In a worst case senerio the trailer will finally colaspe and fall on your tires. I had that happen to me hauling a load of explosives in some old 20+ year old trailer. It brought the truck to a stop real quick. Luckily it wasn't my truck and trailer.

 

i have worked at Ryder and they will not sell you a trailer in need of repairs. the trailers will be sold with a current DOT inspection. then too, you look it over and if you see a problem, tell them. i do believe (at one time) Ryder had a warranty on trailers, but it's not very long, maybe only 30 days, if memory serves me right. brands shouldn't matter.

 

What will you be using it for? Will you actually be pulling or are you thinking of just storage use? If you are needing a trailer to pull maybe think about leasing one. $5000 might not get you a very decent trailer. You will probably end up putting a lot more money into it. If you lease or rent one you can get a fairly new trailer that is dependable and that you won't have to put money into. Just a thought.

 

Swing door is pretty much the standard of general OTR dry freight, however you could probably use roll up doors for 90% of the loads out there. If you go with roll up doors, they are easily damaged from newby forklift drivers that accidently keep the freight to high and slam into your door. Also keep the pull down strap short with no loops on it so it doesn't get hung up on forklifts and also try not to drive around much with the door up as it causes the door to bang around and edventually it will get to where the door will keep falling off the tracks. If I was going general OTR dry van freight I would go with swing doors because there are some loads that can't fit on a roll up door and for ease of resale.

 

Check the tires

my used refer had excellent tread but light weather checking around the sidewalls in less than 3 months Only one original tire remains I spent big bucks on blowouts , I could have scraped the tires and bought 8 new virgin tires for way less than i have spent to date.

 

Check the MT weight....the '97 Stoughton I bought (53' dry van) was 15,800!!! I never hauled over 40K with that operation but i would have been screwed if I had to haul 46K loads...

 

Almost all shippers want a 53' (whether they need it or not)... if you have a 48' you will miss a lot of freight.

I pull a 48' insulated van... my backhauls are somewhat limited due to trailer length... what helps me is my empty weight as I can haul 46K+ and a lot of guys can't... or won't.