Crete Carrier - A Year In Review - Fall 2013 Going Forward

I have a delivery in Stamford CT in the morning. Any suggestions for parking would be appreciated. Currently at the Truck rest area on 287, a little put off by the used syringes on the ground.

 

My battery powered "APU" in my Cascadia has been flawless since new batteries were installed over 100k miles ago. Like the rest of the fleet, it's hit and miss. My Prostar APU woes were well-documented in 2012. After the fifth failure, I got my present truck.

 

My heater smokes badly on start up then works great! But only for six to eight hours😠

 

I saw one last week...don't recall the trucking company....but I swear, I was sitting in the driver's seat doing some QC work, looked up and saw just about the entire tractor engulfed in smoke. I was getting ready to sound the alarm before I realized it was just the heater.....thank goodness we're not polluting with that awful diesel exhaust!

 

You havent seen the new prostars they are handing out? Mid-roof, drivecam, still the #### onguard, maxxfarce engine, and very little useable storage in the sleeper, unless you want to haul around 500 cans of soup? The stupid overhead bins are like the ones in an airliner, but divided into shelves. No room to put a large suitcase, nothing. The space the fridge usually goes in, under the TV thing is filled with a couple of cargo net covered shelves...you can't put your fridge there.
The genius who specs these trucks has never spent any time in one.

The maxxfarce pulls ok, but we'll see how it holds up. This one takes DEF.
Still has the battery APU. This one has an auto start/stop thing. Not optimised idle, but will start the truck to keep the batteries charged, and maybe the coolant warm. (don't mind it so far...tired of these jerks whining about idle percentage. I hit the #### button every time i park)

 

Kansas City had a bunch of new ProStars with Cummins engines lined up the last time I was there.

Oh and #### DriveCam. I heard that already at least one person's been fired for not wearing a seatbelt while setting the tandems, because when he hit the rear stop bar, it set off the DriveCam and they saw he didn't have the seat belt on. Worse yet, when somebody turns in a truck that isn't ready to be traded yet, DriveCam now gets installed in it. So from here on out, if you get into another truck, new or not, it's gonna have DriveCam in it.

***NOBODY*** wears their seat belt while setting the tandems. NOBODY. I have never seen a driver do that. They're going to have to back-pedal on that one real quick. Who knows, it could be just another driver tale ("How do you tell when a truck driver's lyin'? When his lips are movin'.) but I really think it might be time to come up with an exit strategy. I'm thankful to have gotten my start here, as opposed to some bottom feeder like Werner/Swift, but I think it's time to move on. I've thought about Poly, but I'm afraid my pre-trucking employment gap and the stupid little preventable I had right after I started (bent a fender on a tanker and did nothing to my truck/trailer) will prevent me from being hired by them.

 

haha that's what mine looks like.

Sitting at KC waiting to get truck into the shop but they won't T-call the load so I hope they get me out or don't start on it till tomorrow.

 

The netted bins below the slide out drawer will come out. Plus I took the drawer out so my Cooler fits in there nicely.

Plus my ol' trainer said the guy that ordered all of the condo Cascadias with no air ride on the passenger side is no longer with the company.

 

I delivered my 334 mile load. Only 5 and a half hours to get unloaded and got a 271 miler with a 15 mile deadhead.
I won't get a raise running this crap, so I guess I might as well relax and ignore preplans

 

same as mine, when it sheds I lose the ac and the heat, but the fan works. I wedge a broom handle from the seat to. The fuel pedal to keep it idling.