Idleaire closing

I could never afford it either. Plus in the winter, you need to run the truck anyway, especially below freezing, if only to keep fuel from gelling.

 

I remember Park and View and paid that price because it was worth it and I never had the problems that there were with Idle Aire such as having an attendant ask me to move when I wasn't using it! It took several calls to the fuel desk to get them off the side of my truck!


BUT some moron that could not pull into an angled spot and couldn't figure out how to get between the lines they would not ask to move and straighten out the truck even if it meant they lost a paying customer! Not smart at all!


I had an APU since they became an item and never would bend to pay that cost of IA. If I had to idle and the only spot left was an IA spot I would do it and look at the attendant like he was crazy when it was to cold or hot not to idle but this was due to using that POS Rig Master that always had a problem! Thank God for Tri Pak!

I'll give you a bit of advice.
If there is no anti idle law in the area and a driver comes in and idles, he could care less about the guy next to him!
I know that IA had a "Small" problem of pumping exhaust fumes into cabs due to idlers.
You either need to run a large duct from a spot where the exhaust will not be picked up or install a better filter system at each station.Whats cheqaper and better? Duct work!


Have the attendants MAKE a moron who can't park between those two yellow lines you paid so much to put on the ground for them to park between and not on top of MOVE HIS TRUCK! Get between them or leave! Whats more important? 1 truck paying or two? I think two!

If a driver wishes not to pay for IA and does not have an APU allow him to back into the slot. If some rookie or moron can't back out around a hood from an angled slot them he deserves the DAC hit he'll get and the preventable also! If most drivers can back up it doesn't matter if it's a hood or the back of a trailer! Angled slots can't get any easier to pull into or back out of unless they are a pull through! Beats a 90* any day! And this coming from 32 years of backing and driving in straight lines!

This isn't the military so parking as a unit or nose to nose like a IG inspection is about to happen so it doesn't matter. Besides, if that driver has a reefer then ALL the noise is 53" behind the customer using the system!

The funniest thing I remember about that Park and View was watching the drivers that forgot to unplug their cables and watch them drive down the road pulling that 60' of CATV and phone wire listening to everyone yelling at him on the CB but he's listening to his book on tape!

To bad they folded so soon as it was a great service! Nothing like laying on your bunk talking to the wife and kids or waiting for a dispatch from the truck! We did not have to go into the stop and disinfect those nasty handsets after Bubba who hasn't showered in a week finished getting all that ear grease in it! Since cell phones, I do not get ear infections anymore! Thanks to all you grease balls out there for those memories! Can you image looking at the headset and seeing all that gooey stuff and having to ask the waitress for a wet rag full of soap to clean it before you stuck it to your ear? Eeeeeerrrrrr!

Anyway Idle Aire, get an engineer thats DRIVEN TRUCKS to redo the system! Or hire a retired trucker (ME! ME!) with some experience in mechanical drawing and engineering to help you get the kinks out that the old owners would not do and maybe you'll do better, BUT do NOT try to get so rich off the system! As I saw it, the price was getting up to the cost of a gallon of fuel per hour! That was what kept so many away from it! Yes, money is nice but MORE money made from a lower price is better! Build it and they will come. Over charge and they will go! Remember that truckers can spend money on the dumbest things but they are also some of the biggest tightwads on the planet!

Also, drop the cost of WIFI only! Before I went to my cell carrier, I tried to go with IA but that cost kept me away!

Add off shore power for drivers to plug their block heaters into. Just another small cost that would bring in a few more customers that refuse to shut it down on those cold nights!

 

I will add that my only experience as an IA customer was in Amarillo, Tx. one night when the temp was 80+. The A/C unit stopped functioning 3 times during the night and I had to call the attendant to fix it. There were no more spots to park in. The next morning, I returned the window adapter and demanded my money back. I have avoided them like the plague since that dreadful night. Typically I am good down to 40 degrees. and up to 75 or so.. Other times I idle.

 

How many rest areas already have “commercial services” like as in vending machines and newspaper boxes? Isn’t the answer nearly all of them in every state?

 

No problem....I stole it from someone else, myself!! LOL

Judi Kay

 

That was one problem but several years ago they all looked into it again and truck stops AND all the stores at exits screamed that they would lose money and somehow had the lobbyists get the those items dropped off of legislative bills as you know how the gooberment works! NATSO (National Asso. of Truck Stop Owners) were all over those bills and helped to get them squashed as if they would lose that much money! I liked the idea of rest areas having services like toll roads have. makes you wonder about the difference between the two! None except for the hassle of paying tolls several times on a trip!

We do have to look at states and cities with those anti idle laws. If you are a company driver and get a ticket who pays the ticket? Hopefully the company! An O/O or L/P who pays? At least mine did and immediately looked into APUs! This will be a good thing in those areas IF the company pays for it. If the cost is at least way less than a gal of diesel then it might be worth it in the long run. Remember idling doesn't just cost for the fuel but the "miles" you put on it sitting and not rolling in the cost of having to service sooner than if you just ran the engine while rolling down the road and every O/O worth his salt knows that idling does cost more in oil changes and filters.

As for the loss of parking? I have to ask where? I have been in every truck stop in America! Some of them like that pit hole in Harrisburg up at exit 77 I-81 in PA until they put in the gantries that place had a hood left on the ground every night! Idle aire actually fixed parking in many stops as angle in parking is way safer than the 90* back in and in some of those dark as hades places where they were too cheap to put in lighting there was always a chance of a hood being left on the ground or a trailer getting rammed into the side of your tractor or trailer and they were gone before you could get out of the bunk! It was better than watching some moron who pulled into a "back in" slot and then take forever trying to back out of that 90* spot when the truck stop got full! The main drivers that cried over the "loss" and angle parking were old hands like me who so can't handle change! Me I just go with the flow and to tell the truth it did help out some of those stops where drivers coud not park between 3 lines if their lives depended on it!

Yeah, maybe a few spots got lost due to the pilings and some infrastructure BUT it did make for easier parking. I never paid for their services but I never did leave when "asked" to move! And backing OUT was easier than backing into a 90* and as the old saying goes I have more miles backing than most of you have going forward! Backing out of an angle slot is childs play! Turn on that tool you all should have in that truck called a CB and if someone is coming up on you a yell on that tool will be all you need to stop and let the other guy with no courtesy pass you.

I had a long talk with Jeff AKA "Idleaire" the next day after my last post and hopefully he will take some of what I had to say to task as he sounded like he wants this newest enterprise to work for not only the company but the customers and the service personnel. As one employee stated way up at the front of this thread the old "Office" would never take them seriously when they had suggestions. He listened and I know he was writing down my views on a product I didn't use but I haqd talked to many drivers who had and as with most drivers were quick to 'b&%^h about it's shortcomings!
This industry is changing and faster than some can handle and will always be there to whine aboiut the change! Even the HOS! The best thing to hannen for us with actually getting real time off instead of being pushed after thoise oh so nice 8 hours to do everything needed and a reset! THAT was the cats meow but for some (IBT) it was forcing us to drive more hours! Yeah whatever! Lover the no zeros coming back to haunt my bitt after my weekend at home! But I degress! Get used to change as us old guys are almost gone. For those of us who can't understand or accept change they will be the ones who fail the "new age of trucking" and get canned by the companies as they figure it out.
It's happeneing and fast.
But back to the topic, I hijacked my own post! Not hard to do in my state of mind!

In NJ no truck stop can expand more than what their parking lot allows now. NO new truck stop will be built! Take the TA at Bloomsbury. There is land all around that stop BUT they can not get the permits to make that into a tax paying business! That parking lot sucks now always has for as long as it's been there! To bad they couldn't buy the land around it and fix that insane parking lot and maybe have a company like Idleaire help in the purchase of that area around it and improve and add parking in an area that so needs it!

Or maybe in rest areas and those would be pull throughs so you who can't back on an angle will have it easy!
Or even these super coops especially when in anti idle areas! Just think, you're OOS and sleeping and idling and that knock on the door. You KNOW it's not going to be a lot lizard and when you answer that knock in the dark you're handed an idling ticket! I bet idleaire or something like it would have been nice! Did anyone get one while at Hunts Point? How about Barstow? Ontario? How did you like those prices? Yep, No APU but a service like this would save you a lot of cash!
Time to quit complaining as it's needed. If run properly then it's not a hinderance!

If you drive for a no idle company then that's YOUR problem so either pay for that service or sweat or freeze your butts off in the cab and do it without whining as you signed on not us! File it on your taxes at the end of the year and get some of those costs back.

Right now March 2011 the cost of fuel is on average $3.81 nationwide! If the temps keep rising as they have for millions of years after winter and those prices do not come back down how many of you O/Os or L/Ps or company owners will want to idle and pay that gallon or even 3/4 gallon an hour idle time when summer hits, crime is still raising so windows down isn't an option in many areas and motels cost $40 a night for cheap rooms that even I would not sleep in from the skanky smoke and sweat smells and those suspect sheets and blankets!

Besides it's a PITA to have to find a motel to park in and hopefully come back and the truck is still there or everything I had in it when I left was still there including the freight!

Give the new company a chance. As I told jeff make money but don't try to make it all at once! Listen to any comment made or suggestion from customers and actually listen and not AHHHUMM as they talk.

At least they are now making amends for the old owners and are honoring old accounts that carried a balance that the old company didn't bother to honor. I think they just might slide in to a nitch that did work but might not last as long with APUs doing their thing and growing in popularity, but untill every truck has one and these states would quit following that libtard west coast one with some of their stupid ideas as you will not need a "clean" compliant CARB engine they will help untill that application becomes complete and then Idleaire might go. But untill then if it helps drivers and not run them around like the last one then hey they did us a favor.

 

lmao # park & view, and remebering folks who forgot they we're hooked up and drove off. Also remeber when Idle-Aire first popped up, the joke on the cb radio was: If one guy farts, everyone will smell it.

 

I always thought idleaire was a good idea. I only used it twice because it made my truck smell like crappy cigarette smoke. They should have had automatic shut-down with a smoke detector in each unit...

 

That I did not know. You mean it recirculated the air? Now that would pee me off knowing that I was pumping some skanky smoke smell into my truck! Looks like the need to add a hole vent to the window plate and drop the recirculation and just bring in fresh air or as fresh as it can be at a truck stop!

 

You say "air', "fresh", and "Truck stop", all in one sentence???

I say "oxymoron"
Sorry, Rollover, just havin' fun...