Freight delivery: inspect the pallet before you sign

A bed, a flatbed, a bumper or a service body does not come by parcel carrier. It comes on a pallet, on a truck with a liftgate, and the five minutes you spend before you sign the driver’s paperwork decide how easy any problem is to fix.

Parcel or freight?

Smaller parts — lights, modules, mirrors, brackets, hardware — ship by parcel carrier and simply arrive. Anything large or heavy moves as freight: on a pallet or a crate, by a carrier who will call you to arrange a window.

Either way shipping is free to all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii. The difference is not cost, it is what happens on delivery day.

Before the truck arrives

• Answer the phone. The carrier calls to schedule a delivery window. Missed calls become storage charges and redelivery fees.
• Plan the unload. Curbside delivery means the driver gets it to the back of the truck, not into your shop. A pickup bed is a two-person lift at best; have help or a forklift ready.
• Check the access. A 53 ft trailer does not reverse down every driveway. If the address is tight, say so when the carrier calls.
• Be there yourself if you can. Someone who did not order the part is the worst person to inspect it.

Inspect before you sign

This is the part that matters. The delivery paperwork is a legal record of what condition the goods arrived in, and once you have signed it clean, proving transit damage becomes much harder for everyone.

1. Walk around the pallet before it comes off the truck if you can see it. Look at the wrapping, the corners and the edges.
2. Look for tears, crush marks and forklift punctures. A hole in the wrap at fork height usually means a hole in something behind it.
3. Check the part itself, not just the packaging. Pull the wrap back where you can. Drivers expect this.
4. Photograph everything — the pallet on the truck, the wrapping, every mark, and the part. Phone photos with timestamps are the best evidence there is.
5. Write the damage on the delivery receipt before you sign. “Dent to driver side rail, photographed” takes ten seconds and protects you completely.
6. If it is badly damaged, you may refuse the delivery. Call us first if you can; if you cannot reach us, note the damage and refuse.

If something is wrong

Tell us promptly, ideally within 48 hours, and send the photographs. Transit damage is our responsibility, not yours: you get a full refund and we pay the return freight. A later report inside the 30-day return window is still accepted — reporting early simply makes the claim cleaner.

The full detail, including how we handle a refused shipment and what happens with a lost shipment, is on the Shipping Policy page.

How long it should take

Handling is 1 to 2 business days once payment clears, and transit is typically 2 to 5 business days, so most orders are with you in 3 to 7 business days door to door. We do not promise guaranteed dates, because the honest answer is that we do not control the carrier’s network — what we do control is getting your part on the truck quickly and telling you the truth about where it is.

Picking up instead

If you are near San Antonio, local pickup is free. Order and pay online first, wait for the ready-for-pickup email, then come to the yard with photo ID. We hold a collected order for 14 days. Picking up also means you can look the part over on the spot, which for a bed or a flatbed is not a bad idea at all.

Questions about how a specific part will ship? Ask before you order — we will tell you whether it goes parcel or freight and roughly what the unload looks like at your end.