Good night from...

I have been out here almost 20 years, and there are times that I can not hit a dock if your paid me, and I am talking about wide open docks. The more open, the more problem that I have. wait until you hit docks that do not have any lines to help you. But give me a football field, and I will mess up. Or wait until you hit a dock that is on a angle, or inside of a building. So much fun

 

The instructors beat you to it... they also did the "you backed under the king ping routine... one of them standing on the steps of the fuel area while the other looked at the back of the tractor and shook his head and said "this is a VERY COSTLY REPAIR that I DON'T feel SWIFT should PAY FOR..." they love doing this kind of stuff...

 

I thought YOU WERE GETTING PAID!!!!!!!!! WAIT A SECOND!!!! I AM CALLING MY RECRUITER RIGHT NOW!!!

 

Still in Del Rio, but at least finally got a load. PU in the morning at KC, then off to Southhaven, MS. What could have been a 4k week, turned out to be less than 2400. Now just have to hope for a short one out of Southhaven for Weds, then can maybe salvage some of this disaster.

 

Made it the Flying J in Baytown, TX with 8 minutes to spare. Had plenty of time until traffic west of Houston (on I-10) came to a stop and delayed me for 45 minutes.

Normally I prefer Flying Js but I probably won't be back to this one. 200 parking spots and I got the last one @ 6:00 pm. Only reason I got it is because it's behind the shop and required a no room-blind side back. Funny thing is I greased it! I too have more trouble hitting wide open docks/parking spots. Surround it with trucks and/or obstacles and I make it look easy.

Dead tired and definitely getting sicker. Only 855 miles to go and 2 full days to do it.

 

I figured I would not create a thread and would just ask this here. When you all were given your first trucks at swift how did you like them? Were they good and ran well or were there constant annoying problems? Or was it a mixed bag?

 

I liked my first truck... Had the EGR leaking coolant, bad steer tires. Got those two problems fix pretty quick... Never did figure out why it leaned to the right. You have to pay attention to your truck and get things fixed as soon as you can. Don't take that extra load because youll be on the side of the road. Look listen feel and smell. Preventive maintence goes a long ways.

 

I've been with Swift for just over 7 months and I've had 7 trucks so I don't think it really matters what your first truck is like. My first DM made me clean out my truck every time I went home but I always got it back when I went back to work. Some friends had to clean out their trucks for home time and got a different truck every time they went back. Last month, I had three trucks in three weeks. I kept getting trucks that had problems and needed warranty work right after I got on the road and it was either wait around for 5 days for repairs or take another truck.

 

..."constant annoying problems" ... that's pretty much the nature of a big truck. We do as many miles in a month as car does in a year, with the same amount of annoying problems in a month, that a car has in a year.

At the mothership tonight ... spent some time checking over what will probably be my new truck.

 

Wow that sounds like a huge hassle. At least they were able to get you another truck quickly.