On the fence - New trucks, thinking about leaving job

We are in a little dry spell right now. The main processing plant is shut down for inventory control and should be back up and running the end of this week or early next week. The other plant in Jamestown is not running all that hard either which means less loads going in per day. I haul potatoes for processing into french fries etc into JR Simplot in Grand Forks and Cavendish Farms in Jamestown ND and we haul some into Fosston Mn to a dehydrated veg plant. Most of my running is usually pretty regional. For the most part I do not do alot of camping like I used to but when Jamestown starts pulling hot and heavy out of Manitoba etc then it means alot more camping since it is too far out of route to head home each night.

But in a nut shell, the potato yield was way down this year so raw product is getting scarce which means the plants are shutting down for longer clean ups and inventory control so they don't run out of raw product too early.

But we have over 100 trucks just running spuds around ND, Minnesota and Manitoba. The fleet consists of Volvos, a few Pete 379s,alot of Pete 386s, a few new KW 900s, and some T800s. They just recently purchased 3 International Prostars to try out along with some newer 386s with cummins motors in them.

They got the truck I am running used back in early 08. it is showing 830K on the clock now and they want to get out of it and into a truck with some warrenty on it etc before this one starts nickle and diming them.

But I have had the option of trying out a diverse choice of trucks due to the fleet we have. The 379s and the W900s that we have are the best riding trucks we have in the fleet. Funny thing is they also get alot more for them come time to trade them off. Also the aero dynamics of the tractor mean nothing due to the wind brakes for trailers we pull and the weights that we haul. It has more to do with the type of motors then anything. The C15 mbn that is in the truck I am running is the worst out of the fleet. We have some other older 379s with detriots and now some with cummins that get more then 1 mpg better then the bridge cat that is in the 379 I am running. And they are on par with the aero trucks that are pullig the same trailers.

 

I know the truck has to go down the road but what some are not understanding is that it doesn't matter what the hood looks like when you are pulling one of these trailers and grossing over 100,000 lbs everytime you are loaded. You will not see a huge savings in fuel economy going with an aero hood over a square hood.

There are just too many variables with what we are doing. You can't suck the trailer right up to the cab to get them out of the wind. Pins are nto deep enough and it would put too much weight on the steers. That and there is always going to be a gap because we run longer frames so that we can have liftable pusher axles installed without cutting the tanks in half etc.

If I were to buy my own truck and lease onto this company and haul spuds with one of these trailers then it would most definatly be a 389 or a w900 with a 550 hp motor. But I am not about to go into trucking on my own again. Been there, done that.

Oh and yes that was a Volvo in one of the below pictures. Was stuck in it for a week while the head was getting replaced on the 379 due to a broken rocker shaft, jake box etc. The best that Volvo got for milage was about 4.7 mpg but then I was not running 100,000 lbs because it was not permited for it and did not have a pusher so I was only running a tad over 88k with it. It had a D13 in it not sure what the HP/torque was set at on it. Huge sleeper but no place to put your daily stuff within an arms reach and my thermos kept rolling across the floor out of reach.

But our Volvos are mostly going away also because they can't keep the pieces of stuff out of the shop. They are getting replaced with 660s or large bunk 386s. The local mid roof Volvos are slowly getting replaced with Petes also.

As far as running past a million miles with the current truck. I would gladly run it for a few more years. Send the ECM to Mr Haney and get rid of the bridged programming in it and get the 6nz programing and all would be good. They would more then likely see a huge boost in economy and would be saving thousands of dollars and I would have a smile on my face. I would park it in my yard again this summer and buff it all out again and do all the aluminum again.