I've always pulled reefer, and I always will...dealing with lumpers and food distributors is a pain sometimes, but altogether you'll run harder pulling reefer freight. I don't know about anyone else, but if I don't subconsciously hear my reefer kick on at night I wake up and get worried...
I pulled reefer one time and got so used to the noise that when I came home and slept in my bed it was so quiet I put my old Briggs & Stratton mower next to my bedroom and fired it up at night. :lol:
We pulled reefer for about a year and it pays decent, like others have said you can haul just about anything however getting pallets/getting rid of pallets, and trailer washes can be a pain. Also you have to travel out of route to find a reefer repair, we actually had to go 200 miles OOR to get ours repaired once and that was unpaid miles. As for going to only grocery warehouses that depends on who you haul for, we went down many a country road to pick up a load of produce or into Queens to unload.
You will get used to the sleeper rumbling behind you and like someone said it will wake you up if it shuts off for a long period of time. The best part about parking with a reefer, if it is a really loud one then the trucks on both sides of you leave shortly after you arrive which makes for getting out of your spot easy! :lol:
I agre with movinit. Not always do you end up at nice roomy grocery warehouses. Its always nice delivering prduce in south Chicago or on the jersey or new york shore at 4 AM and you're hoping not to die. It's kind of funny thought, its like a flea market, all the 'ghetto' folks jumping up on your truck and trying to sell you tools (probably the ones they stole out of the truck next to yours) or trying to sell you lumper services "pre-paid" so they take off with your cash and don't empty your trailer...Oh, then the guy on the dock telling you your load is crap and bitching and yelling at you, when you know damn well there's nothing wrong with it.
I got to the point where I would just start shutting my doors and I would say "Fine, if you don't like it I'm sure I can find someone else to buy it".
That got em every time.
I never got used to that damn reefer unit while I tried to sleep either. My hats off to those guys that haul reefers their whole careers.
The pro's? Like everyone else said, nice big grocery warehouses, made for trucks to fit in there.
Tons of freight year round
great pay, specialy if you're O/O or independant, cause then you get to choose flats or reefers for the higher pay.
Plus, it's a challenge compared to dry vans. You have to learn how to take care of your loads, keep them cool or warm enough, loaded right so the air flows so not as to freeze the front half and not cool the back half of that 53' trailer and so on.
So while dry vans can get to be so routine, reefers make you think.
SO, to each is own. It's like anything. Each aspect of trucking has its pro's and cons, decide which you can live with and do that.
then the guy on the dock telling you your load is crap and bitching and yelling at you, when you know damn well there's nothing wrong with it.
I got to the point where I would just start shutting my doors and I would say "Fine, if you don't like it I'm sure I can find someone else to buy it".
That got em every time.
do they not have to take the load??? if they dont want do you do with it
