Last Saturday I left El Paso bound for Nicholasville, KY with a trailerload of cast aluminum rims for GM pickups bound for a parts supplier in Nicholasville, KY due Monday, July 16th at 7AM. Already hauled this run before so it was second nature. No worries....or so I thought.

Around 3pm near Big Spring, I began to notice a significant loss of power. I decided to pull off and look under the hood. The filter was past the replace line so I decided to stop at the T/A and have it changed. 45 minutes and $25 later I was gone.

Not long after that I began experiencing power loss again, only this time I noticed that I wasn't getting any boost, I couldn't hear the turbo. I stopped. I shut down the engine and restarted. I got boost back but after a few miles down the road, I lost it again. I called my boss who said to stop at the T/A in Sweetwater and have them hook the truck up to their computer and run a diagnostic since I had a CEL. Waited a couple hours since they were rather busy. When they hooked me up, they said my truck had a boost sensor failure. They didn't work on turbos so they recommended I go to the nearest Freightliner dealership, which was Corley-Wetsel in Abilene. My boss called them up and they were open on Sundays 8-4. Since it was getting late, I decided to go there in the morning when they opened at 8AM.

I rolled in at 8AM. I signed my truck in at the service window and waited. I told them what T/A told me, they scoffed and said that they wouldn't trust the techs at T/A with an oil change, much less a diagnostics. At any rate, a technician hooked my truck up to their computer and diagnosed a faulty EGR delta sensor. I agreed to have it replaced as well as allowing them to fill a small hole in my intake hose. They put my truck back together, I did a road test (bobtail only) and by 3:30PM I was back on the road with my load. I got about a 1/2 mile from the shop when the turbo stopped boosting. I limped back to the shop. The shop manager said it would be tomorrow before they could do anything about it so I agreed to drop the trailer in their drop lot and bobtail next door to the Whitten Inn and be back first thing in the morning. That repair cost around $450 and $67 for the room.

Next morning comes and I check my truck in again at the service desk. I told them that my boss wanted them to road test it under load attached to their computer. 2 techs took my truck on a road test. They later came back stating that it was a bad turbo. They also noticed that when the turbo was boosting, i had some bad hesitation and smoking. I said it did that but I had attributed that to the EGR. He said both problems I had (chugging/no boost) were due to the turbo. After confering with my boss, we decided to ship a turbo overnight from El Paso to the service center and have it replaced the next morning. The turbo cost around $1800 not including shipping, which I figure was probably $100 for overnight AM on such a heavy package and the $650 core charge which will have to wait to be refunded until I get back. So I returned to the Whitten Inn and got another room for $67

The turbo arrived at around 9:45AM, I was informed that work would proceed not long after that. In reality, work on my truck did not start until 3PM. It was finished around 7:30PM and I paid the labor/misc parts bill for $535. I left Abilene and got to the 360mm on I-20 when the turbo....DIED. I stopped at the Bar-B truckstop at the 370 and called my boss. He told me to return to the shop and inform them of the problems when I checked in that morning. I got back to the shop at around 11:30 and spent the night in the truck.

Now here's where the fun begins. The techs take my truck back out for a road test, an extended one. Upon returning, they noted that the speedometer "died" and that the shifting (my truck has an Eaton Lightining) was not functioning properly. I mentioned we had similar problems before but it was diagnosed as a faulty transmission computer and had been fixed by On The Border Freightliner in El Paso, TX.

They ultimately determined that it was a defective VPOD causing the boost loss. They insisted the VPOD was NOT related to the initial loss of boost, that the turbo was replaced to fix the chugging anyways, making them separate issues, which was bull, even our invoices say that the problem was loss of boost, not chugging/smoking. Anyways, my bosses contacted Freightliner to file a complaint since according to their sources at the Freightliner shop in El Paso, the VPOD sensor was usually the culprit when boost is intermittedly lost. We felt the bad turbo was misdiagnosed for the boost loss, and that we never requested the chugging be fixed. Given that, plus their seemingly lack of concern that our truck was having shifting problems after their techs drove our truck, we felt that we weren't being attended to in a professional manner. I was later informed that the service techs claimed that I said our truck had transmission problems. I did, however I stated that they had been fixed.

On the final test run, I rode in the back while two techs drove my truck. We did have the transmission failure/speedometer failure. The tech in the passenger seat running the computer remarked that he initially felt it was the VPOD sensor. I got the impression it was a slip on his part, forgetting I was in the sleeper listening to them #### chat.

When we got back they were very insistant that I pay my bill and be on my way. They stated to us and the Frieghtliner customer service reps that my truck was "ready". My boss wanted me to talk to the service manager, named Chris, who did his best to avoid me. My boss eventually told me to get a room again and leave the truck, as they took the keys anyways and I couldn't leave. We would deal with it in the morning. I got my gear and walked over to the motel. Another $67.

The next morning my boss called me and told me the scoop. To go pay the final bill ($666)nd if any problems started with the truck, to immediately stop and Freightliner would arrange a tow to the nearest Freightliner shop down the road (I assume Dallas). If they determined the truck was deemed ready and wasn't, the Abilene shop would be in hot water. I did feel quite a few sets of eyes on me as I left. I was never so glad to be back on the road.

Lucky for them, the truck has been running fine. My guess is they did some last minute tinkering on the transmission systems to get them functioning again. My boss told me this is the first time they have ever had this kind of experience with a Freightliner service center.

In closling, the load I was supposed to deliver on Monday, July 16th at 7AM, was delivered TODAY at 3:30PM, exactly 7 days from the time I picked up the load in the first place.