E.W. Wylie has it all!!

04/24/14-I delivered a mixed load of sheet metal and coils in Sherman Texas. And it had to be tarped. Two of the coils used the coil racks and the other 2 coils were "eye to the sky ". The coils were under 5,000 pounds. I used all my edge protectors, and used straps and chains. The pick up was in Houston tx. 3 guys helped me with the tarps when the wind got bad.

 

You are the responsible party. I just hate to see someone cause themselves unnecessary work. But you run how you see fit, and you'll figure the different loads out as you see them again and again.

Glad to see they're finally running you 'normal'.

 

04/26/14-I picked up a load of steel I beams. Things were going pretty well until the regen light came on. I pull off to the side of the road and called fleet net. They told me how to do a regen and super thick black smoke came out of the exhaust and then the truck shut down after five minutes. They said now I had to be towed to the shop. Sigh.

 

Wondering if you have my old Mack LOL.

 

I have truck 1004. I'm now stuck at the hotel until monday. The truck will be towed to the memphis Mack dealership monday. It turned out that the DPF was clogged to death. Too far gone for a regen. I knew something was wrong when smoke was coming out from under the cab and the engine. I thought the truck was catching on fire so I turn it off.

 

That park regen been giving everyone hell latley....glad I dont have it

 

04/27/14-I'm starting to see a strong negative point with this company. I'm thinking this might be common with smaller companies. Weekends. Everything is shut down on the weekends you are pretty much on your own. The only positive is that their Break down service is pretty good (FleetNet). I had to stay in the hotel and they don't take EFS checks so I had to get cash. Something was wrong with my password and customer service told me I have to contact my company so they can give me a new password. That does nothing for me right now because I have to wait until monday. I just paid my rent and credit card bill. I had just enough money to pay for the hotel. Of course they are going to reimburse me, but I won't get that money until next pay day which is two weeks away. Luckily for me all the bills are paid, and I have plenty of food. When I was working with Schneider I got paid every week and some of the expenses were automatically reimbursed (like the hotel) once they updated the system. The things I took for grated. But Schneider is a huge company so it wouldn't be fair to compare E.W. Wylie to them. Hopefully by June I'll be back in the green and I can start SAVING money again.
Trucks- If you are doing all 48 you get the nice newer trucks 2012-2015). If you are regional you get the trucks the 48 guys had several years ago. So the trucks could be pushing 5 years. I had to deal with an old truck when I was with Schneider and it sucked. For the first few months I got stuff fixed or replaced that the other driver(s) should of done. It looks like the same pattern here. The truck don't have to be brand spanking new I want it to work so I can make money. So far I had to get headlights replaced, the window handle on the driver side fixed, and the handle and the shifter tightened. I also noticed the A/C cutting in and out, the hood mirror on the right side is won't stay put so I had to use duct tape because tightening it doesn't work. I noticed I had some hard starting friday and some rough idling (along with the sucky MPG). I was going to report this monday once I delivered my load. I never got the chance. Since the truck is going to the dealership Monday anyway I'll address these issues. A lot of these problems can be prevented if company drivers treat the trucks as if they own it. It maybe a non DOT issue, but those things can add up. If you see sensors coming on let the mechs know. The mechs have enough to deal with, and if you wait for a small five minute fix to become a two day job, that hurts everyone. How are you going to expect the company to treat you better if you treat their equipment like crap? I know all drivers don't do that, but a lot of them do. I don't know if the DPF problem with the truck was due to driver neglect or it's just a thing with Mack trucks, but for the filter to get that cogged? Isn't there a warning light that suppose to come on to tell you that you need a regen? Aren't the trucks suppose to be able to do a regen while driving? Well I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Chains vs Straps: I think I'm faster with chains than with straps, even though the chains are heavier. This load I have with Nucor Steel was the fastest I had so far. Adding up all the time together it was just under 2 hours. It was just 3 steel I beams. I had to put dunnage on the flatbed for the beams to lay on. After the beams were placed, I had to put 2 chains on before going out the door and scale out. After I scaled out I went back to the staging area where I put 3 more chains down. As I was placing them a guy in a pick up truck from the company came over and told me that I didn't need to put edge protectors on this type of load and the chains won't hurt the beams. He told me that if I was using straps then I would of needed the edge protectors. He also asked if I needed help. I was practically finished at that point and I thanked him. I didn't know if I needed to protect this load from forward and backward movement and to be on the safe side I added two more chains. One for the front and back. I'm glad I did it because when the truck was towed the trailer was leaning slightly back anyway. After the tow truck dropped the truck I checked the load and everything was still tight.
Well it's pouring down rain. There is a tornado watch/warning from Mo, to Waco Texas. I have a feeling I won't be getting back on the road until tuesday. Looking at my current settlement I found out that I got layover pay of $96.00 a day. And Uncle Sam takes out too much money in my opinion, LOL.

 

Never go percentage or two week pay period. Too many fish in the sea for that!

 

04/28/14- I'm at the Mack Shop in Memphis. It turned out the the filter was so clogged that it burnt up. Too much back pressure, poor idle, the A/C cutting in and out, and all the bad things. The truck will be fixed by today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

My single biggest pet peeve. Hands down. Bar none. End of story!

Sorry for your bad luck, reddove.