I'm looking at making a move from delivering furniture in the northeast to pulling a refrigerated unit. The furniture business is not what it use to be and was wanting a change. Are most refrigerated companies the same as far as the dealing with grocery warehouses or do some have a dedicated line of customers that may eliminate those horror stories from happening. Thank you for any information.

New furniture or HHG?

HHG is NOT what it used to be, I can vouch for that :wink:

I guess it depends on the reefer company you drive for. I started driving
in a no name , less then 10 truck reefer company and saw the ugly warehouses you talk about. Waiting 10h or more was normal. Since I drive for Shaffer i have very often drop and hook and many candy loads
from MM Mars or Hershey and they are also loaded under 2h most of the
time. Maybe ONCE a month I see an ugly grocery warehouse. Then I know Shaffer couldn't get me a NORMAL run and they took what was available. Hope this helps you a little bit.

Grocery warehouses are misearable, awful places staffed with underpaid people who tend not to give a rat's a$$ about anything. Then you get truckers pulling in there yelling and hollaring about getting loaded/unloaded which sometimes makes for a very hostile situation. I've seen arguments and fistfights break out on the dock on several occasions. One time, some ahole at McClane wanted $500 to unload my trailer. Jeez, that's highway robbery!! I wasn't even paying the freight and I felt like punching the guy in the nose. So I called the bossman and he damn-near keeled over with a heart attack. "No way! No Fing way. Pull the truck outta that fing dock and get the hell out of there" he says. OK, go to drive away and all of a sudden the service manager runs up and suddenly gets in the mood to bargain. So he and the bossman haggle back and forth over the phone and they finally hammer out a deal. Oh, I'm getting paid how much to deal with all this crap? That's right ZILCH!!! And for the icing on the cake, I empty out 6 hours later and they boot me off the lot in the middle of New Hampshire where it's snowing like hell, no place to park, and I'm damn near out of hours. Yep, all kinds of fun-n'-games at 3AM.

I would never go back to pulling a reefer, especially with the new HOS. It's just too much BS for the $$$

The good ole days and DITTO! :lol:

Yeah, my concerns parallel that of wbw71's:

Do some/most/all refer companies go to grocery warehouses?

If so:

a) at what hours? Do they have insane appointment hours? I.e., 4am?

b) And/or do they unload quickly?

c) If they don't go to grocery warehouses:
1) How fast to unload and/or lots of drop and hook?

2) what are the delivery windows at non-grocery warehouse drops? What kind of appointment times?


What kind of refers do they have---and i don't nessesarily mean or care about thermo kink vs. carrier. I'm more concerned wether the refers are the quiet type or not.

I'd say most if not all go to them.
a) All hours and yes, 4 AM.
b) Sometimes and sometimes not
c) It happens
1) It varies and I wouldn't say lots, but some. May have gotten better since I quit doing it due to the change in the HOS 10/1/05
2) It varies from shipper/consignee, but many are 24/7

I personally prefer TK to Carrier by a long shot. I'd say it would depend on the company. I know Marten has a lot of the Whisper models and so does Shaffer from what I've noticed. Like ColdFrostyMug stated above, I personally have zero interest in EVER pulling a refer again and won't even consider it with the current HOS regulations. We didn't even mention the joy of produce or priming a reefer unit that's run out of fuel. :lol: Crete's van freight has spoiled me. Hope that helps and good luck.

As a company driver is there any upside to reefer vs dry van?

I know as an O/O you can sometimes use reefer loads to get out of "Black Holes" like S. Florida

I know Shaffer pays a cent more per mile than Crete, but they can have it. :lol: As you mentioned and it's huge, you can haul wet and most dry with a reefer and if the economy takes a turn for the worse, people still have to eat. Also, some drivers like set appointment times and BIG warehouses with plenty of room to back, but there are some really cramped ones too. Some will argue that the average length of haul is longer in reefer, but I disagree to an extent. I think it depends on the carrier.