Good night from...

Got asked to help with Sears dedicated. Picked up in Middleton and sleeping at the mall for my first stop. Two more here in Maryland tomorrow and then headed for Miami.

Yeah, everything has been East Coast so far. No complaint about short loads, per se. It's the sitting on loads that's killing me. I think I'm going to start calling customers to find out if I can pick up or deliver earlier. My last load has a window of 16:00 to midnight but when I called the shipper it was ready to go before noon. I have been unclear how self reliant/motivated I'm allowed to be here. Roehl had a lot dispatches with notes not to call the customer. I haven't seen that here yet but I've been reluctant to stray to far from what is sent to me.

 

you might see a note once in awhile that says not to call the customer or no early deliveries, it never hurts to try other wise since I have delivered early quite a few times. Also call your DM to find the real window, I have seen plenty of those that will say 16:00-23:59 and the actual window was much larger going both directions.

What a long night, finally shut down a little after 5 this morning with 21minutes going over the clock but I got the load back to the DC. On the side street once again though so not a happy camper I cant get my shower, tonight I have a slower night going to North Hollywood to deliver and then to Yussen and back to DC, I will be taking my butt to the flyingj after.

 

What a day. Offered one Target load right up into the middle of the snow squalls, Rochester, NY. Looked at the weather map, and from just east of Erie all the way to Rochester, so nope. Then a round trip target (supposedly) to Uniontown, PA. The only problem, the load assignment only said one way. Then another back to the East Coast with this storm getting ready to hit there, and then 2 t-call loads to gary for Saturday, also right at about the time a storm getting ready to hit there. My DM kept telling Memphis, SW. Memphis does not care. Was even told that Memphis could care less if you are company or L/O. So I guess that I am getting a 34 hour here, 50 miles from my house. They did dispatch me on getting a mt trailer, the only problem, where I was picking it up, no longer allows truck parking so I will wait until actually get a load, then go and get the mt, if it is still there. DM even said wait and not start the clock. There is a chance that someone could sneak in and steal it, even though it is assigned to me.

 

delivered the load this morning in el paso tx. then drove to terminal to have this shop look at the coolant leak. service manager asked how long i wanted to be here. said short as possible . anyways, dl looked for another truck,but no dice. so he said to go ask dispatch for local work that needed to be done. called dl few minutes ago,owhile i'm getting loaded) and he said they jumped my truck up since i was helping out.

 

My newly assigned truck is a '12 KW T660. I like the more comfortable seat and mattress over the '12 Cascadia I had been driving....

... and that's about it. I'm begging to get assigned another truck, but so far they say there aren't any tractors available in...

... Phoenix???? Really?

The QC unit on this thing is balky as heck, sometimes I can't enter any messages or access options for navigation for up to an hour at a time. The final straw is when I pulled my first load with this tractor on a 360 mile run I checked performance 1/2 way through the trip and it showed 7.8 mpg. By the time I finished the trip it showed 5.8 mpg.

I'm about 400 miles into my next load headed to Phoenix and so far it is showing 5.7 mpg.

Anybody else running a KW T660? What kind of mpg are you getting? This seems crazy to me. This unit is a L/P unit I took over after my Cascadia went kaput.... which also means I REALLY need to watch my speed, as this baby will get above the 67 mph max speed allowed for company drivers in a hurry.

I REALLY don't like the very cramped work area in the truck. Getting in and out of the truck is a headache (literally) and there aren't very many storage bins for items I want within reach when I'm driving. I end up stacking a bunch of stuff on the passenger seat. Yesterday I nearly deployed the trailer brakes when I got my coffee cup out of the cup holder, that would have been fun times running on the freeway in greasy conditions...

 

I am in a mid-roof 2012 kw t660 pulling a conestoga so I have a giant brick in the wind all the time and get 6.5 -7.5 loaded and 9-10 empty

 

This baby has 430,000 miles on it, and seems to run rough from 1200-1300 rpm's, like some cylinders aren't firing. I'm thinking the shop in Phx needs to take a look at it.

I was getting 7.0 to 8.8 mpg in the Cascadia when loaded, maybe a couple times around 6.5-6.9 running over mountains with a full load. I'm beginning to understand why my O/O brother struggles so much getting above 6.0 in his '03 KW.

 

I only have 215,000 on mine so far but that def. sounds like it needs to see the shop. one you get used to the tight quarters you will love the KW. Mine is a very comfortable ride and lots of creature comforts.

 

I'm almost considering taking up my DM for a $900 bonus to run team through the holidays in order to get off this truck... gotta talk to the wife about that...

 

i like he t660 i had too. but the qc went out on it and dl didn't want me to wait that long. only negative i can say about is is its long turn radius. took abit to get use too.