Calex Express....My New Home!

Thanks, how goes it with you and your wife, getting through this very easy winter ok?

 

Feel better. Maybe I'll see you Monday at the yard.

 

Well usually on a Saturday or Sunday I would say I'm home, not this weekend.

I got to my delivery Thursday night in Florence NJ. Been there before, real nice place to deliver. At 5:15 am Friday the receiver knocked on my door to get the paperwork. As usual, a lot of the trucks I loaded with were lined up behind me at this receiver. As the morning progressed, I moved my truck up in line. When it became my time to bump the dock I went to start my truck up and nothing, nada, not a effing thing. The service indicator light was flashing for my transmission, the alarm was going off and the dash was reading a fault code. Great. I knew from previous issues with these automatics that if you unhook the battery cables and let it sit a while it clears the computer and resets it. Not this time.

I called into the shop and let Ray know what was going on. I told him I unhooked the cables and nothing. He said that if that didn't work then I was dead in the water. I told him I was at one of our regular customers with a load of lettuce on and that I couldn't get to the dock to unload. In the pouring rain I'm doing everything I could to get this pig unstuck in gear. Finally Ray said he was sending a wrecker to pull the truck out from under my trailer and that Louie made plans to have the receivers yard jockey spot my trailer and someone would be picking the trailer up the next morning. The wrecker came, I gave my bills to the receiver and off to the Volvo dealer went I. So far everything is working out the best it could, the receiver was very helpful in spotting my trailer, the wrecker was there in an hour, Ray was great to work with and of course Louie had to give my Florida load away to make sure it was covered.

I got to the Volvo dealer in Pennsauken NJ, about 20 miles south of where I was and they put my truck right in. The service manager said to wait until about 7pm before I went to the motel to make sure it wasn't something simple, like a relay or fuse. The last time something went nuts with this tranny was back in October of 2010 when I was broke down in Youngstown Oh for 4 days with a tranny problem. This time I was told that they found out the problem and they should have it done by Monday if the E-Service with Eaton came back saying XY shifter is bad along with the tranny wiring harness. The wiring harness is what was replaced the last time so they said hopefully it would be fixed before Monday. I went to the hotel up the street and checked in. I put 3 nights worth of room stay on my credit card, had my food with me and was ready for the long haul.

This morning I get up, go down to the lobby for my free Continental breakfast and as I'm looking out the widow drinking my coffee what do I see driving by? My truck. 20 minutes later the dealer calls and tells me I'm good to go. This time the XY shifter went bad, Eaton said to change it under warranty, test drive it and release the truck. What I thought was going to be a long boring weekend in Jersey has now turned into a long boring weekend in Pittston. After checking out, getting my truck, I drove back to my receiver to make sure the trailer was picked up, if not I would get it. I got there and was told another Calex truck was there about 2 hours earlier and left with the trailer. I called into weekend dispatch to let them know what was going on and to have them tell me to come back to Pittston. I got the ok and drove the 128 miles to the yard. I found the empty trailer and both my load locks were inside. I wasn't really worried about them, for some strange reason I had a feeling they would be left in the trailer.

So here I sit until Monday. I guess it could be worse. I just want to say thanks to everyone involved with this. It all worked out, the load was delivered, the truck was fixed and it was covered under warranty. I must say though, this is the first time in over 30 years of trucking I ever broke down on a receivers property and could not make my delivery. Oh, one last thing, through all this I somehow lost my winter coat. I have no idea where it could be, so off to Walmart goes me to buy a new one, which really fry's my backside as I have a duplicate one at the house. And my wife? She found me a cheap ticket to fly home from Philly if I was to be there for an extended period of time. We figured the motel was going to cost 70 bucks a night, plus layover so I called into safety to make sure I would be reimbursed for the plane ticket if I chose that direction, Mort said yes, but we decided that for me to do that just to be home for a day or two was not worth it.

Have a good weekend all, God Bless and be safe.

 

I don't know if I want that headache either. New, somewhat new, not new, old whatever you call it, if it's got electronics attached to it, it will always breakdown. Thanks for the offer though.....lol