Beep Beep Roadrunner

Bottom line seems to be all about high production miles for mediocre rates.

For the third day in a row ran my 70 down to zero- well had 15 minutes left when I parked at the Jubitz yesterday. 1st stop is about 7 miles away so had to wait til 2345 to start a 15 minute pretrip and drive over with positive hours. I spoke with them a couple days prior about my arrival time but when I got there a new guy chewed me out for not calling in 8 hours prior to arrival. I guess he was butthurt about it because we did not get unloaded til 1400 today otherwise I could forgive him if he was a Seahawks fan. Arrived at final in Sumner WA and dropped trailer for yard dog to dock it later. Tomorrow morning going over 6 miles to Puyallup for a big fat sit down breakfast then to Walmart and Petsmart to stock up on some supplies.

 

OH man that sucks. Most of the problems with my truck have been regen issues too. I have driven with a check engine light more than not. Spent thousands of dollars trying to chase down what's wrong. In the end on mine, if the CEL is off I worry what is wrong lol.

Is your truck still under warranty? I recall in April 2012 mine derated, limped it into a shop. They replaced everything brand new, I came out with a $475 bill. Most of it is still going strong, although did replace EGR valve and 7th injector last summer. Need a new turbo soon.

 

Next load picking up here in Sumner WA terminal going to Milwaukee WI. Too bad we were held up so long in Portland although no guarantee we would have or could have gotten another 2000 mile run if we had gotten up here sooner, but it would have been nice to turn in a 4200 mile week for pay. Well it gives us a head start for next week (if the snow/ice isn't too bad) after 2 weeks of 2200 mile runs.

In other news my good winter jacket is 11 years old and have been thinking about replacing it. Besides that, it is a medium and is just a little too small for me. It is a Sears Craftsman jacket that has served me well and will now be retired to my museum closet with all my other Carhartt company safety jackets which I will never wear. Today went into Sears and scored an XL Craftsman jacket $130 bucks on sale for $39.99.

 

Take full advantage of that 30 day warranty. You're in a good shop now, I would not leave til everything is fixed. Even if you have to beg borrow or steal to stay in that hotel for a whole month while they fix everything.

I don't know anything about extended warranties. I got my truck through Swift lease, used and the same first 30 day warranty. Plus it had the 500,000/5 year warranty (got it at 281,000 miles). I can't stress it enough to get the shop to go over your truck front back side to side and top to bottom right now while it is in the shop and hammer the lease company to honor their 30 day bumper to bumper warranty. Once that 31st day hits it is game over.

For anyone considering leasing any truck from any company I recommend having a few thousand bucks in the bank to hold you over for your bills and hotels for when not if your truck breaks down. These used trucks they leasing companies put out are usually former fleet trucks that were problem trucks that they just want to get rid of. Mine was the same way, I believe it was in a wreck prior because they said they had to replace the passenger mirror. I notice there is no California Idle sticker on the passenger door like there is on the driver door so they may have replaced that too. When I first got the truck the water from the rain would come in the sleeper like a sieve. They put brand new tires on it but I noticed they were wearing funny after only a few thousand miles, did a more thorough pretrip and discovered Ubolts holding front axle leaf springs on the passenger side were bent far forward which threw the frame rails off skew to each other causing the truck to go down the road sorta sideways. That was on me because I discovered it after the 30 day warranty. Protect yourself because these people are cold hearted greedy bass turds.

 

Got to Milwaukee terminal Monday morning at midnight when they open, they were closed all weekend. Had a chance to run real hard and get to the Richfield WI truckstop and do a 34 but decided to run nice and easy days on in. Been here 29 hours already getting unloaded and reloaded. They didn't have enough freight for a full reload to Nashville so are taking it all off to load a final stop in Atlanta in the nose then reload the Nashville stop to the rear if that makes sense.

Been taking Abby for lots of long walks around the neighborhood but she is picking up a lot of road salt in her feet. Have to brush her feet off every few hundred yards. Will have to pick up some puppy feet booties at Petsmart next time we go in.

Was going to go to the movies earlier and searched Recreation/Entertainment on the Rand McNally GPS and it said there is a cinema 1.7 miles away. We drove over there but the first thing you see is NO TRUCKS. Plus it was all boarded up closed up, bummer really wanted to see American Sniper.

 

Couple years back Abby slashed her front foot open digging for gophers. Got her a shot and the guy gave me Bag Balm to slather on her foot. Don't have anymore Bag Balm so got some lotion and slathered it on all of her dry feet. She doesn't like the application but I can tell it helps because she runs full throttle again no pain in her toes.

Finally got loaded in Milwaukee around 0600 for Nashville first stop then Atlanta final. Wonderful, now will be trapped in Chicago rush hour, or not. Went to the nearby truck stop and waited 2 hours then left out. Only hit one slow spot through Chicago and got all the way to Seymour IN for 8 hours in the sleeper. Got up and jammed on down to the Nashville term and got unloaded very quickly about 0500. Stayed in the dock for the 2 hour break and left out to get on to Atlanta. GPS said I would be there about 1300 but they don't open til 0001 so plenty of time for a full 10. Don't care for truckstops in Atl so stopped in Cartersville, lots of trails out back for Abby to explore.

Another advantage of running the load this way was the weight distribution. Was so heavy in the rear that I had to reweigh it 3 times and found that the 19th hole back was the magic spot. Never ran a trailer that far back. Went through one open weigh station and sat on the scale for a long long pause. I imagine they were conferencing inside-- 'hey Bill are those tandems too far back?', "Looks good to me Phil, it's 22 degrees outside" lol.

Anyway the rest of the scales on down to TN were all closed and once I got Nashville's weight off could slide the tandems up to something more typical. Rolled into and out of GA's scale no problems although they were busy with an oversize guy with 2 escorts.

Got an email further explaining the clean inspection bonus' for the 2015 year. I could have sworn I read it that they pay $200 each up to a max of 5 per quarter but the email says $1000 each. The big thing that caught my eye was the IC has to be elogging at the time of the clean inspection. So we on paper maybe don't get squat for clean inspections?

 

Dropped loaded trailer in yard at Atlanta about 0100 local time. Parked off to the side and went to sleep. Called 'em in the morning to see about a reload that night (Thursday night), guy says, nothing available but Friday night should be better. OK, so got some breakfast and shower and settled in for a 34+ hour break. Got cold called from Nashville terminal, asking if I want to go northeast-- no thank you lol, but do you have westbound freight? Livermore he says-- cool that gets me home I will take it.

Was searching the yard desperately for my empty trailer when I see the yard dog pulling it out of a dock about 200 yards off. I knew it was my trailer because I have hazmat placards stuck to the inside of the doors lol. Jammed over to him and told him to drop it where it lays, I will take it right now. Got into Nashville and docked and went to bed. Get the call several hours later, load is done. She mentioned a lot of trucks already returned for rework due to overweight, I wasn't worried, only 40,000 pounds on the paperwork. Scaled and discovered 38,000 pounds on trailer tandems. Hmmm. Now back at terminal waiting for re-work.