Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

Hey, you want to keep your head in the sand and not check it out, by all means, continue believing it. No one's forcing you to call Comdata and get the truth.

All my pay has always gone through Comdata, it's the only way to set it up. I requested direct deposit when I was hired, and it was set up for me so I don't have to manually transfer it, but there was no way to NOT go through Comdata.

 

Don't ever rely on the booked load weight, especially if it's Kraft or Nestle. There's no guarantee that it's right, and more often than not, it's dead wrong.

Some places will tell you the booked weight, but they won't include pallet weight. Kraft, Nestle, and Americold (especially the one in Ontario) don't always include it. So the load may be 43,000, but there's another 1800 pounds in pallets they don't mention. Produce loads, like the potatoes out of Washington and Idaho, and the onions out of Fruitland, ID, are based on how much you can haul. So if an ultra light International picks up the load, they'll load to 45,500 if the truck can haul it. If I pick up, they complain because they can get 43,500 on there.

If your load is listed as a flat round number (40,000 for example) then it's a guess from Central. It may also be the contract weight which can be the minimum or maximum for the contract. And don't rely on dispatch to tell you, because as often as not, they don't have a clue. Or, they'll ask the driver and the driver will tell you their scale ticket weight, which is useless.

Ask as soon as you get to a shipper, and ask if pallet and dunnage weight is included. It's the only way to get a reasonably accurate weight every time.

I have an extremely heavy truck, and we fight with weight all the time. We were stuck in Madison, WI for 3 days once, because the load was listed on the Qualcomm as 42,000. It was actually 42,800 and didn't count 1800 pound of pallets. So we had to sit all weekend until someone came in to rework it. That's not the most recent problem, but it was the most recent big one.

 

what truck do you drive? t2000 with an apu, 400 gallon tanks and a tag axle?

 

LOL, EVERY load I had said 80,000 on it. One even said 83,000 I didnt know what was up with that one. When I got there the bills said 43,000. I never went in with more than 1/2 tank unless I was going across the whole state so the fuel would burn off before the POE.

 

smadronia is correct, all payroll goes through comdata, and you are also correct, there is an option through comdata for direct deposit, but the option is to automatically deposit your pay, or you can choose the other option which is to deposit just a certain amount of your pay, this involves a fee if you do it more than once a week.

 

I never really counted on the load weight to be accurate on the qualcomm, but if the load info says it is a heavy load, then it would be advisable to show up low on fuel in case the load would put you overweight with full fuel. I would also, like you, see how far I had to travel before hittong a POE, and I would put enough fuel in the truck so that I would burn enough off to be legal by the time I hit the POE. Left WVDC once after adjusting my axles and fifth wheeland was still 287lbs over, shifted the weight to the drive axles because I was heading towards wyoming and figured I would burn it off before I got to the POE, as it turned out I was right, breezed right by the POE without a problem.

 

You're forgetting the 800lb kodiak bear that's my truck security, and the fish snacks that keep him from eating my co driver or myself while we're sleeping.

Joking aside, I drive one of the big nInternationals, from the first year they got them. No apu, fridge, anything like that. Just my co driver and I, our clothes, bedding, laptops, and a 12v cooler. We scaled out one day, empty trailer, full of fuel in truck and trailer, and we were 36,200. No one knows why we're so heavy. The next year's internationa?s are about 1000 lbs lighter.

 

I figure if I have to, I'll go in a half tank or so. The fuel routing can only be reduce to 100 gallons, which is about a half tank. Any lower, and you risk not being able to stay fuel compliant as a company driver.

We generLly go in fuller, because it keeps my co driver from getting too grumpy. Plus, it reaffirms we're on the heavy end of the trucks. Earlier this week we had to lose a perfectly good pair of loads because we couldn't haul 45,500 lbs. It put us 1700 over gross. Too bad it wasn't 170, we could have burned that off, but there was no way to lose 1700 lbs. The guy watching our truck was trying to tell us dumping half our fuel would make us legal. Apparently he couldn't do math.

 

when you run beer, it says on the load info do not go in with more than a quarter of a tank. When you do the Golden to anywhere out west on 70, you sometimes had to cheat a little and have closer to 3/8. If you can't axle and have to get reworked, that is one of the first questions they ask when they rework you. Notoriously heavy loads, like beer, also require you know the route and the fuel options. Leaving Eden, NC leaving out on 40, you have a bit before an in network fuel stop. That must factor in your trip planning. I don't know of a truck in the fleet that shouldn't be able to make it from a shipper to some sort of fuel stop with 3/8 starting. We were always heavy in the T2000 on 48 states. The 386 used to be the lightest truck in the fleet, and we try to run with as little as we can comfortably live with in our truck. Even still, on coors we had to run on 1/4 on several loads. On dole, we have had 2 loads we could run no more than 1/2, both the bill weight was not what they put on us. (34,256 and 27,890 on the bills on those loads.) While we can generally be fairly full going in on dole, we still try to not be at the shipper with no more than 1/2 a tank. To me, being on a true dedicated fleet makes things a lot easier. You get to know the loads and can be more confident in the weights. Of course that is my opinion (which opinions are like rear ends). I think going into every shipper full is about on the same level as thinking you will never ever have to slide your fifth wheel and tandems (again, my opinion).

 

We tried that a couple times - but then they send us for fuel across the street or freeway - LOL!