Comments By Brandon J.

I am very new to trucking, and am only getting interested in it because I am 6 years into running a start-up business of partnering with farmers in my region to grow, transport, process, and market food-grade beans and grains. Right now, we are in a processing facility that we are starting to bust at the seams. The primary space usage is for storage of one-ton tote bags of the crop, while it awaits processing, so to ease that pressure while we make plans for a larger facility, we have elected to buy a reefer trailer whose reefer unit is defunct, because the insulation should allow us to store the crop outside in all kinds of weather, without threatening moisture from temperature changes. I found a man selling such a truck (48' X 102" Great Dane/Timpte SuperSeal) for $6,000. It all looked good when I went to look at it today, except that he has chopped off the front of the two axles to put under another trailer. He says it's no big deal- "Now it's a single-axle trailer", but I wonder if it is really that simple.

The truth is this trailer will be sitting outside our mill for the next few years (he is furnishing its transport to my location, about 75 miles one-way, included in the price), storing as many one ton pallets as I need to/can store in it (they fit two across, on standard pallets, so maybe 45k lbs at the most), and then the only transport would be A.trying to sell it, or B.transporting it across the county to our next facility, in which case it would be nice to use it to haul our inventory and equipment.

Any concern here? Balance? Total strength? How much of the concern is legal issues related to regulation of psi/damage to roads, as opposed to structural strength and functionality as a storage trailer and/or as a short-haul transport?

Finally, while my understanding is that this is a good price for this unit, should the missing axle make it significantly less valuable?

Thanks in advance for any help. I have to make this decision in the next couple of days, as the harvest is ready to ship from the farms.