Star Transport, morton il

and yes truckdriver 402 white petes with red logo

 

I started and finished driving for Star Transport Morton Illinois. I had no problems with the company. I had more than enough miles except for about a 2 week period and I worked there for 2 years. My first truck was nothing special but then I got a fine Pete and they would move you into a newer truck especially if you requested every 6 months or so. The oldest truck I drove for them after the initial (test this newbie) was less than 3 years old. They never kept a truck beyond 500 thousand miles. The stories about lousy equipment are nonsense because when I worked there it was all rented tractors and then they turned them back into Peterbilt. I got maintenance anytime I asked for it even if I was on the road they would authorize it in a heatbeat. Some people never have a good day but for me, the sun always shines.

Star may not pay the best but if you stay with it you will make money. The reason I left was not because of Star but because I got offered a sales job by an old friend and I could not turn him down.

Right now sales are down and I am seriously considering going back to Star and putting everything in storage so I can save the money for rent.

My dispatchers name was Rick and he was a great guy and always treated me with total respect.

Mark

 

I am also a former Star driver and will share my experiences.
1. equipment, not bad. However, way too often needed repairs were not completed. Case in point, I was told that my drive tires were ok, but then again there were no tires at the shop to replace them with. I had to have them replaced on the road.
2. Home time. average to poor. I would be on the road 2 to 3 weeks at a time sometimes, and not at my request. I made a request to be home Friday for my daughters high school graduation, was given a load that delivered to York Pa Friday morning, had 150 miles left to deliver when I started for the day, then was given a load to pick up in Baltimore md, going to Wisconsin for Tuesday, the run did get me by the house. However if I ran legaly I would have missed her graduation. I called my dispatcher, was given a ho hum, called dispatch manager and given a ho hum, called safty was given a ho hum. I had been telling my dispatcher every day for 2 weeks about the graduation so it defiantly wasn't a last minuet surprise. I did make it but with NO HELP FROM THE COMPANY.
3. Miles. average, worst week 800 best 3100 ( when I wasn't training new drivers) total for my 3 years average was 2435 a week.
4. Communications. poor. First dispatcher decent, 2nd great 3rd and last horrible. see home time, was given a trainee out of Iowa, I live in Ohio, wasn't told anything bout him until he called me, I called dispatch to get me close enough to him to pick him up. next day I called and dispatcher said " what trainee?". released trainee, for the next 4 days I was given loads that I could not run by myself and dispatchers response was "you and your trainee can't make it", I told him each and every time and also sent in a new msg on quailcom releasing trainee that I no longer had a trainee. Advised dispatcher I had 2 dentist appointments, first on a Saturday which I was home for, 2nd on a friday afternoon for oral surgery at 15:00. friday morning he tried to give me a load going to Illinoise for that night, reminded him of surgery, then gave me a load to Georgia after I had sat for 4 hours, again reminded him of surgery. I finaly got home at 1800. I would get calls from new trainees to pick them up but wouldn't get any info from the company. I took a vacation and when I returned I was called on Monday and asked why I didn't pick up the load the previsous Thrusday, I asked if it was normal to give someone a load while they were on vacation and OUT OF THE COUNTRY. His response, " wel it is unusual.... so you didn't pick up the load? " Personally I would rate them a negative 5 on a 1 to 10 for communications .

 

I worked for Star Transport from 11/10 - 2/11. Their safety manager , Sam Payne , got a copy of my prehire app. from when I was in school. I had already taken a job with a small , local company. He kept calling me, telling me they'd love to have me work for them. I was not happy where I was , so I took the bait.
Starting from week # 1 , they shorted me on my check. One day orientation, detention, shorthaul. On my second run , they pulled that B.S., if I didn't pick up the load I was refusing the load. It didn't matter that I was out of hours. I told them before I was hired, that was one of the reasons I was leaving my last job.
The main problem I had was with the office personell, dispatch-payroll-shop. It's true that they do not want to fix or repair everything you request . I went into the shop for service , and the mechanic screwed around and took forever to finish my truck. He had no regard to the fact that I was not getting paid while I waited for him to finish.
I was then a half an hour late for my pickup at the Mossville CAT plant. Then I had to wait there for 3 hours for some kind of trailer audit, whatever that ment. It wouldn't have been that bad , but they refused to pay me detention , and I had to make it to San Antonio in less than 21 hours!
I had the worst dispatcher they had. Then at the first of the year I was transferred to a new trainee dispatcher. I thought I had it bad before. This idiot routed me from Shreveport LA, to Memphis , up through Chicago , to get to Minniapolis. I don,t know if he was trying to get me home , but I had to leave at 7pm the night before to get to St Cloud , MN . Then he wanted me to pick my next load at 10am , without any sleep.
They definitely play favorites with the runs and the miles. And when you complain, you put a target on your back. It was always something with that company. From short paychecks, to short lowmile runs. They insist that you fuel at the fuel stops they tell you to. They have no regard to the fact they take you an hour out of route. Since they pay by the mile, they do not care about your time at all.
This is just some of what I went through with Star. I gave my 2 week
notice and quit last week. I have heard they slander you on the DAC report. I guess I'll find out. All I could tell myself is that I would be better off working at McDonalds full time and delivering pizza on the weekends. At least I'd be home to sleep in my bed, and have some kind of life. The pay wouldn't be much less.

 

I drove for Star Transport for only 3 months and had some good things happen and some really bad things happen. I hadn't been in a truck for a couple of years so I had to be with a trainer to get back used to things. I didn't mind that and actually was happy about it cuz it had been two years. I was on his truck for only 4 days and then got my own truck. It was a shabby looking Pete 387 with almost 700k miles on it. I understand putting the newer drivers in the older trucks but come on. After cleaning the truck and switching mattresses I still ended up getting bed bugs because they didn't clean the truck like they should of. I ended up getting a newer and slightly better looking Pete 386 with just over 350k on her.
Other than a few disagreements on how I was going to run my logs I didn't really have any issues with dispatch. I didn't ever have to wait for long periods of time for loads and they always had decent miles. I told them I didn't mind to stay out for a couple of weeks and I think that helped me get my miles because I always had around 3k or better.

With all that said is Star perfect? No they're not but you show me a perfect company to drive for and I believe all of us will be competing to drive for them. Every driver is going to have something to complain about and not be happy about something ( I think it's something we learn in school HA!). If you keep your nose clean and just do your job Star is a decent starting job to at least get some experience to get a better local job like most of us are looking for anyways. That's what I'm doing now myself. I just drive 200 miles round trip a night pulling the mail but I make just as good money as I did for Star.

 

Very well said. no perfect co. but , I was thinking about Star, now I'm kinda wondering if I should. personally I doubt it!!

 

i was fired in septeber exactly 4 montsh after i was hired due to late loads well my dac report says unsafe satitfactroy record when i did my pre-trips etc and i had 2 loads shifts which wheere on the fifth wheel plate for the trailer cause they use the metal bins star is a messed up company im seriously thinking about getting a lawyer

 

This is why you never trust the #####y whiners on trucking boards.

When i started off years ago (er.. like 10?) i started with star (thank god) after finding out schneider really didnt give a #### about getting you home. I ran hard and from the first year was on their top driver lists. I was eventually a trainer and loved/hated that (one of my trainees was the worst human being ive ever met). Star has changed. They got bought out by a bad company. They lost the cat account as cat stopped making truck engines. They stopped taking students but started an l/p program. Ive heard good and bad from their company drivers. Imho star is becoming more of a "grownup" company rather than a newbie company. Here is my actual review:

Miles: i averaged 2500 miles a week. I ran hard to do that actually and im definitely NOT a logbook nazi. I hate anyone telling me when to drive so.. things got fixed as i needed.
I always had plenty of time to make the run. I was NEVER late except one load that was scheduled to deliver 2 days before i recieved the load. As in ALL TRUCKING COMPANIES - if youre late on loads you stop getting loads. If youre a logbook whining truckstop cowboy youre gonna sit. I NEVER sat. I believe ONCE i waited for 4 hours for a load. Once or twice 2 hours. My biggest complaint was that id want to deliver early.. sometimes a day early and recievers could sometimes be a pain but star would make a call and fix that. The only loading complaints were with papermills where you sat in a #### line if you came after 1pm and harbor frieght on fridays who'd have 20 drivers sitting on their ### all day because they wouldnt release loads til 7pm.. ugh (HF are cool loads though)


Never had a maintenance issue. If i called and said my truck was messed up they either routed me to the yard or said go get it fixed. Period. I had to replace a clutch one day at 3:00pm. They were backed up in the shop and most mechanics got off at 5. At 4:00 or so they got to me and i told them it was cool i could just lay over if i had to and get it tomorrow. They hooked me up.. 4 mechanics jumped on it.. i had a new clutch by 5-6. Those guys are awesome.

Dispatcher: They had one or two ####### idiots and god forbid u got oen of them. The rest of their dispatchers were awesome.

Company culture: like all BIG companies their is an office culture and a mechanic/driver culture and the two shall never meet. Nice people in general though Jeff was apparently a thieving scumbag (he got busted.. he pretty much ran the place. his sone was driver liaison and was a great guy. The safety head was also a nice helpful guy though.. well an office guy)

Hometime. Standard megacompany. I almost Always got home. In 2 years i didnt get home maybe twice. More than likely id get home late friday night and leave sunday night sometime. Standard 34 hour reset. ONCE i got my 900 mile run home friday morning. dispatcher apologised. Guess when i got home..

Trucks: Best on the road. Period. 387's at the time (now 386's which i think are ugly as #### and uncomfortable). Downside is #### turn radius and they dont haul ###. Upside was MASSIVE torque (CAT baybee!). Prostar premiums and tricked out internationals are the only truck ive driven that compared and ive driven everything but volvos.

Remember when reading these forums a lot of these newbie drivers are P.O.S. in real life and that translates to trucking. If youre lazy/irresponsible you can fake it in a lot of rl jobs. You cant in trucking and you all know that.

 

Lol ....know how that is...glad to be on dedicated....