The Old Man's career dries up, Snackbar transfers to Crete from Shaffer

Passmart has been around for awhile.

It is more a tool for better drivers who, for some reason choose to stay at a mega, to get by just a touch more efficient in a governed truck.

 

A long while, I know. These megas still to this day “test” APU’s. They know full good and well what the numbers and hard data are. It’s nothing more than a dangling carrot.

 

I do find it interesting when some act like maintaining APUs isn't worth saving money on fuel. Meanwhile we got Prime who it seems to be fine with them.
The Freightliner I had at Barr-Nunn would almost constantly run on optimized idle. Then I would get a message complaining about idle hours. Like I'm using the stuff you spec the trucks with.

 

I wish I could take off the APU on my truck and throw it in the garbage. Absolute piles of #### that always needs fixing. I can guarantee you that FCC is NOT saving any money with those. Any fuel savings is instantly wiped out trying to keep the #### things running. Even the techs and breakdown department don't like them

 

We’ve had the opposite luck with Thermo Kings. I’ve had one mounted to several trucks over the course of 14 years here at my company and the older ones definitely were unreliable but it was always a simple fix. The newer ones usually still work flawlessly when they sell the trucks in the 500k-600k mile range with thousands of hours on them.

 

What brand? Only one I ever dealt with like that was a carrier apu. #### thing kept shutting down because of "overheating". Meanwhile truck was full of coolant that supplied it. Also it was like 20 degrees outside. No matter how many times it went to a shop it kept doing the same thing.

 

Could also have what the Western Star I drove had. A external battery that handled heating and cooling when parked with engine off. Only issue was during hot temps. The battery didn't last long running AC. So had to idle the truck for a bit to recharge it some.

 

I agree with the last sentence for sure.

I think for big companies to make apu’s pencil out they have to put the same unit on multiple trucks. SPD go some brand new hand me down kw’s from COTC. They already had their used apu’s installed and my buddy had 8k hours on his apu on a brand new truck. And it’s been nothing but trouble from the jump.