CASE STUDY

TEXAS TOUGH

TRINITY TRAILERS: TEXAS TOUGH – Jubentino Mendoza was so happy with how his Trinity trailer performed, he added 10 more to his fleet.

Jubentino Mendoza bought his first Trinity in 2008 after his previous trailer failed to withstand the harsh roads in the Texas Panhandle.

So Mendoza decided to give a Trinity belt trailer a try.

Problem solved.

“We go into farms and ranches where the roads aren’t the best,” Mendoza said. “Sometimes, we have to go through a ditch. The Trinity trailer will go right through it and bend and twist. We get back on the road and it’s straight again.”

For that, Mendoza can thank Trinity’s unrivaled flexibility. Trinity craftsmen build stainless steel belt trailers with a bridge design with no posts inside of the structure, cutting weight and allowing the metal to flex without breaking.

As a result, Trinity AGRI-FLEX trailers can flex up to 18 degrees on each side – totaling an industry-best 36 degrees of flex – that would be too much for heavier and more rigid trailers.

As the owner of Mendoza Transportation, he needed the self-unloading belt trailer to deliver cattle feed and silage to customers up to 200 miles away from the company base in Dumas. But Mendoza’s first trailer was always popping rivets or cracking its plastic liner, costing the small business owner valuable loads and risking becoming known as the guy who couldn’t deliver on time.

Less than a decade later, Mendoza now runs 10 Trinity trailers. Their reliability has helped Mendoza Transportation grow, he said.

“I call and get a valve or a part here or there, but the trailers are fine,” he said. “For my operation, there’s not anything I would change on those trailers to better serve my needs.”

The cattle industry is big business in Texas. But so is dairy, poultry and agriculture, meaning tons upon tons of feed, fertilizer, commodities and manure need hauling.

This diversity in the economy spells big opportunity for transportation companies with the ability to work across many markets. But doing so requires either taking on the expense and hassle of buying and maintaining several different types of rigs or finding a trailer versatile enough to handle it all.

For Mendoza Transportation, Trinity’s industry-leading design features do the job.

For starters, the trailer belts – 48 or 61 inches wide – are perfect for cattle feed. Anything from chopped hay to silage to wet feed to loose grains to rolled oats unload quickly and easily. And with a stainless steel bed, even acidic wet feed can be hauled without damaging the trailer.

The stainless steel contributes to making Trinity trailers some of the lightest trailers in their class. And for Mendoza, lighter trailers means more profit.

“That allows me to carry more of a payload,” he said. “Customers pay us by the tonnage. The more tonnage, the better paycheck we get.”

But even with this high level performance in the field and on the road, a big part of the reason Mendoza has grown his Trinity fleet along with his business is Trinity’s parts and service.

For example, Mendoza said Trinity’s Texas sales representative recently asked him how Trinity could better serve his growing company.

He was stumped.

“I told him that I wish I could find something Trinity needs to work on, but I couldn’t,” Mendoza said.

“I run my trailers into the ground, and none of them have failed yet. Trinity makes a good trailer.”

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THE FACTS

COMPANY: Mendoza Transportation
INDUSTRY: Contract hauling of cattle feed, silage and more
LOCATION: Dumas, Texas

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