Your fuel costs are the largest expense in your fleet’s budget, and your trailers are the biggest contributors to fuel consumption. Trailers are heavy, boxy, and enormous, creating a great deal of wind resistance that guzzles fuel. 

Trucking is critical to keeping the nation running. Over 72 percent of all freight in the U.S. is transported by semi-trailers. In a time when supply chain is more important than ever, the trucking industry is at the core of America’s economy and business.

As just about anyone in the trucking industry knows, supply chain bottlenecks and labor shortages are creating a historic shortage of semi-truck trailers. Everything from aluminum and steel shortages to lumber shortages is slowing down production on new trailers and aftermarket components.

Damages to your trailer can occur for many reasons. If your dry van trailer has suffered significant damage, you need to get it back on the road as fast and as cost effectively as possible.

When buying a used semi-trailer, the big question on everyone’s mind is how much it’ll cost. While it might be your biggest question, it should also be your last question. The cost of a trailer depends on several factors, and you won’t know if you’re getting a good deal until you get all the information first.

At CRTS, we want to help you get the best trailer for your needs. If you start your conversation about the price, you’re more likely to get a cheap trailer that doesn’t serve your needs. While it’s important to protect your bottom line, purchasing the right trailer will be more economical in the long run. And you have our promise to help you find the trailer you need for your application. 

At CRTS, we take the time to get to know our customers before we try to make a sale. Some semi-trailer dealerships are happy to make the biggest sale, but we want to set you up with the best refrigerated trailer to meet your needs. That might not give us the most lucrative deal, but it will give us a happier customer.

When you come in, we’ll sit down with you and find out what kind of freight you’re hauling, and where you’ll be pulling freight. We try to spec our stock trailers so that most drivers can use the trailers that are on the lot. But you may have specific needs that require customized options and specifications. We can help with that, and we’re always ready to help you order a trailer to meet your specification needs.

CRTS has been around for a long time. This is our 50th year in business, and we’ve been a Utility dealer and a Peerless dealer from the start. When you’ve been around for that long, you develop a reputation among your customers. 

Our customers come to us because they know that there are at least two things they can expect from CRTS that they won’t find anywhere else — the level of experience and the quality of the service they get.

We’ve had customers who bought trailers they didn’t need, and we hate to see it happen. We want to serve our customers’ best interests, so we’ll guide you based on the information you tell us about your needs and operations. 

It’s critical to evaluate your needs before you buy a trailer and to think through the long-term considerations. Here are a few considerations to evaluate before you begin working with a trailer dealer. 

One of a fleet manager’s greatest enemies is downtime — especially unscheduled downtime. A sidelined truck or trailer usually means costs, and it always means lost revenue. While most fleet managers are continually working to reduce downtime, many people overlook some effective methods that can make a noticeable impact.

There are three main culprits that contribute to fleet trailer downtime — maintenance, accidents, and underutilization. Let’s take a look at ways you can address each of these areas.

Fuel is the second-highest operational cost for fleet managers, after drivers’ wages. In 2018, the cost of fuel made up a whopping 24 percent of carriers’ average total costs per mile. Most fleet managers are keen on cutting fuel costs anywhere they can, but it isn’t always easy to do. 

You’re probably already implementing some best practices to reduce fuel costs, but there may be other methods you haven’t considered. Let’s take a look at seven ways that can help you to save money on your fuel costs. 

Aerodynamic Devices

If you’re driving a refrigerated trailer or a dry van, aerodynamic devices can be incredibly helpful for reducing fuel spend. Any time you can improve the aerodynamics of your trailer, it’s going to help cut down on fuel costs — maybe even more than you would expect.

A recent study showed that combining Utility’s Aerodynamic Side Skirt (USS) and their innovative Aerodynamic Tail (UAT) can give you a fuel savings of 646 gallons of fuel per 100,000 miles. Want to know how much you can save by using their aerodynamic products? Check out Utility’s fuel savings calculator.

There are trailer tails on the market that are unsightly and extremely difficult to use. Utility’s patented UAT is nothing like that. The UAT is small, effective, and requires absolutely no excess work to deploy or store it. When you close the doors, it’s deployed. When you open the doors, it isn’t.