auto brake adjusters

Sorry meant usa.

Is that the specific license required?

You can be an ase licensed mechanic in the us but its not always required. Just preferred by many.

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Automatic adjusters are nice when new, but I have yet seen one that I would trust. I still have manuals on mine. I think that if you don't know how to adjust brakes, you shouldn't have a CDL. It's not rocket science. It's almost as bad as a driver that won't report a clutch adjustment because he doesn't know that it needs adjustment. I'm sick of seeing these new drivers that are absolutely ignorant of this industry, they don't even qualify as steering wheel holders.
We got snow in Tulsa last week and had a few temps to drive the extra trucks. The first one could only drive an automatic, so he went home. The other one took off up I-44 and lost all air pressure, locking up the brakes in the middle of the highway, blew 2 tires out, and destroyed one of the rears. I went to go get the truck out of the road. The driver says he doesn't have any air pressure. He was looking at the brake application gauge. Then when I tell him to get the truck out of the road, he pushes in the yellow AND red knob (bobtail). Truck wouldn't move, I told him to lock the power divider in and get out of the road, he didn't know what that meant. Usually every year one of the drivers raises the bed up and dumps the spreader out of the back of the truck, or doesn't check their moldboard and burns the plow up to the frame. A lot of people apparently don't have common sense anymore, and it's almost impossible to teach them to think for their self.

 

It happens everywhere. The accountability at our farm has gotten so bad and the incident rate so high that ive been drafting up a damage policy that makes employees pay for damages.

Essentially if you break something you report it by the end of the day by filling out a form and dropping it in the lockbox. unless it can cause further damage throughout the day then report it with a phone call and when you punch out report it on paper.

In addition if you see something broken, or witness someone breaking something report it in the same box. I then take a picture of the damage and type up a description, date, approximate time,location and incident#. That sheet goes on the bulletin board and employees can claim them. If an employee claims they saw another employee doing something, we question the suspect, if they deny then it goes on the board.

Its hard to charge people the full amount for every screw up so I just set a rate. If you report it that day it drops to 50% of the rate. Then we move onto how many times its happened. If its your first time you pay 20% of the 50%. Next time is 40%. and so on. Once you hit 5 times within a year. You may need a new job.

Since everybody will still try to cover it up I made it a team activity. At the end of the month if there are no unclaimed incidents, we provide a gourmet meal. If there are no incidents at all. Everybody gets a gas card for a bonus. If they go two months they get two gas gift cards. If they do have an unclaimed incident at the end of the month they get none of the above. If there are multiple damages totalling in excess of $1,000 everyone starts getting a pay cut for every $100 they get $1 off their check. Sounds small, but many of their screwups cost tens of thousands which can add up fast.

Those who are caught lying either get fired, pay a minimum of 200% of the fine or pay the full amount for repairs.

Well have bi weekly meetings for discussions as well so everybody is in agreance on things.

The reason every employee across the board including owners gets fined is to maintain "fairness". Since nobody will own up to it and you cant trust one persons accusation that another did it, everybody gets fined. This encourages others to do better because even though this setup is somewhat anonymous, coworkers are not dumb and they can figure out who the dishonest one is that is dragging everone else down, theyll rip on that person to the point they quit or start owning up to things they break.

At the end of the day money talks with employees, some will do anything for the extra dollar others are too lazy and just want the minimum but start taking it away and they wake up too.

I spend so much time and money on nothing but abuse and negligence that its driven me to this point. Others dont care as much but im the one stuck in the shop not gettting anything productive done due to this stuff.

Sorry for the ot rant.


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It really is sad that you have to do that, but a lot of people don't have any integrity anymore. I hate seeing people tear stuff up by knowingly being rough on equipment then try and play it off with some BS excuse. They don't care about stuff that doesn't belong to them. I see this every day, it's pathetic. But good for you trying to do the right thing, it sounds like you have it figured out.

 

I have a 99 freightliner century do they come standard with self adjusting brakes?