Buying guides, specification tables and the standards behind them, for semi trailers and shipping containers. Start here if you are working out what to order.
Most buying mistakes happen at the category stage. Once a buyer has settled on a flatbed, they rarely end up with the wrong flatbed — but someone who needed a fence body and ordered a dropside will live with that for years.
So these guides start before the spec sheet: what each type of trailer is built to do, and how to work out which one your load needs.
Frame sections, axle ratings, suspension types and the standards behind them. Also: tare, payload and gross — three different numbers, and which one a manufacturer means when he quotes you a weight.
Get those three mixed up and you find out at the weighbridge, with a fine.
Dimensions, weights, cubic capacity and the code system printed on the door of every box. The tables cover every standard format, 20 ft through 40 HC.
The standards that govern container sizes and markings, what a CSC plate is, and what a certificate does and does not cover.
What a certificate actually covers: the models printed on it, and nothing else. That catches people out more often than it should.
What to inspect on a semi trailer and in what order — brakes, axles, suspension, king pin, landing legs, and the frame welds that fail first on bad roads.
