Owner Operator Mistakes You've Made, Lessons Learned

When getting any kind of work done at a TA or petro, pm service especially... Watch everything they do, or they will cut corners.... I follow them around my truck like a puppy dog, making sure they hit eVERY grease fittings, and ask to see the plug magnets on the differentials, Trans, and oil plug... I got complacent a couple oil changes, running too hard, gettin my service done when I shoulda been sleeping, and my first and last time in the Knoxville TA, the boy broke my fuel filter base, didn't fully tighten one oil filter, greased nothing, etc... I found it the next morning, 100 miles down the road when I woke up to a puddle of oil under the filter. Then I proceeded to further investigate the rest.

 

Honestly, the biggest mistake I made was listening to someone else on how fantastic DAF trucks were then buying two, second mistake was expecting a backup service for them from pacaar, shoulda stuck to what I knew!!

 

Take care of your tires. Buy quality and make sure to keep them inflated. My first year on my own I went cheap on trailer tires, bought recaps that I didn't know where the casings came from. I am pretty vigilant on the air pressure but I still ended up replacing them one by one. Between tire cost and mudflaps and brackets I could have bought a set of quality virgin tires and not had the headaches.

 

Really aggravating having to baby sit someone mounting wheels correctly. Very few people take pride in what they do anymore. One of the last times I let somebody change the oil in my truck, because it was due and I had to, the kid could not hang up the phone. He grabbed a greasegun, I asked "what are you doing?" I never let anyone grease my truck he was told a couple of times already. He didn't notice the primary fuel filter,had to do that one myself. Did not prelube my filter,and almost forgot he put that gallon in nearly overfilling the oil. When I paid up bossman/owner says, how's that for a quick cheap pm much better than TA etc right? I say, sure and go on my way. You just cannot count on anyone to take time and do little things right. It's true on big things as well, overhaul for example.

I feel your pain with yokos. Been said here a few times by veteran o/o. You get what you pay for with tires. Yeah Michelin costs more up front but last twice as long so actually as cost per mile are much cheaper. Going to test that theory when my yoko drives wear out. Trying Goodyear on steers, so far so good at 50k miles.

 

Mine was using a former farm truck. After a few weeks it's frame has enough and gave out.
Lease is cheaper than buying a new one.

 

My biggest mistake was record keeping. My first year I just threw receipts in a large envelope and sorted them out at the end of the year. That was stupid. Now I sort receipts and at the end of every week I tally them up and input them into the computer. It allows me too see every expense and identify areas that I can cut expenses on. It also gives me an accurate cost lf operation and profit/loss margin. Do good record keeping from the get go, it will save a lot of headaches.

 

Is this all the crap I'm going to have to go through when I go owner op?

 

^^ Makes you take notice, huh?

 

And more......much more!

 

With that being said, thats exactly why I do my own oil changes and grease the truck. Unfortunately, nobody cares about the job you are paying them to do. The one thing I do like about greasing my own truck( and really there is nothing I like about greasing my truck) is the things I have caught that needed attention I might not otherwise seen nor been told about by anyone else.

Also beware of empty shops!!! There is usually a reason for that. First hand experience. Company that I'm leased to currently makes us do federals every 3 months, and for the last one they changed shops that we were required to have it done at. I didn't have any problems, but the same couldn't be said for my dad. The went on to say that he failed b/c both his rear slack adjusters were bad and he had and air leak on somewhere on the back prolly at a brake chamber, couldnt tell him exactly where??? Also, never jacked up the front end to check anything b/c he looked at his steers and said "well your tires are wearing fine I don't need to check anything up front." Funny thing about that is the next day looking for the mysterious air leak (which didnt exist) and checking the rear slack adjusters(nothing wrong with them as well) I decided to just jack up the front. whadda ya know, old mans king pins were bad.......not the worst but not right either. The following weekend when I was replacing his king pins finishing up the passenger side, whadda ya know again, rf slack adjuster was actually bad. So, basically wanted to the inspector was saying one set of things were bad, when in reality they were fine and there were other actual issues. I try to do my very best to stay on top of my equipment but I'm only human and bound to miss something once in a blue moon. I have no problem with an inspector alerting me to a problem that needs attention, but I cant stand something that is out failing stuff just to try and generate some work for his shop.