A carrier's trailers are its billboard. They sit at customer docks, in truck stops and on I-35 next to the competition's, and a trailer with a winter of brine on it says something whether you mean it or not. Our trucking customers run the gamut from a single owner-operator with two trailers to regional LTL terminals with over a hundred units, and the job is the same: wash what is in the yard tonight, log it, and be back next cycle.
What trucking fleets get from a route
- Night and weekend routes timed to when the trailers are dropped and the tractors are off shift.
- Per-unit logging, so a terminal manager can see which trailers were washed, which were out and which were skipped, without walking the yard.
- Undercarriage on tractors and trailers through brine season, where the frame rails, sliders and ABS harnesses take the damage.
- Aluminum brightening on rims and tanks, monthly, for tractors that are supposed to look like the fleet's best.
- Washouts on call, when a trailer comes back with something in it that should not be there.
Day cabs, sleepers and the mix in between
Day cabs on a regional run get dirty fast and are home most nights, so they go weekly. Sleepers that are out for a week come in Friday and leave Sunday; we schedule the Saturday route around them. Trailers are the biggest count and the lowest per-unit price, and on a big yard the crew work the rows systematically so nothing gets missed twice.
Inspections and image
A clean tractor is not a passing inspection, but it is an inspectable one. Oil-soaked brakes, cracked airlines and a leaking hub are easy to find on a washed truck and easy to miss on a dirty one, which is why the fleets with the best CSA scores tend to be the ones on a wash route. Clean trucks and roadside inspections.
What a trucking route costs
Per unit, by unit type and frequency. A tractor and a 53-foot trailer are priced separately, and a weekly route costs less per unit than a monthly one. Real ranges are here. There is no contract term and no minimum charge for units that were out.
Our trailers are spread across three yards. Can you do all of them?
Yes, if they are within our service area. Each yard goes on the route that passes nearest to it, with its own unit list and sheet; the invoice can be by yard or combined.
Can you wash drop trailers at a customer's dock?
Usually, with the customer's permission and somewhere for the water to go. Tell us the site and we will check it.