Central Triage ...

If I were an O/O I would consider alternatives to the oil they supply as well.

On an interesting side note as a company driver I recently had a B service done on our truck. I asked the mechanic if they ever take an oil sample for analysis. They don't. To me that would be an absolutely essential part of any truck maintenance program, tracking the "health" of the oil in my truck. Nor do they believe in doing dyne testing, which I think would be extremely helpful for identifying issues with the engine (rather than relying on the computer analysis and get you out the door ... repeatedly ... without ever identifying what the real problem is).

 

We (as L/O) made it a personal company policy to get no work done on OUR truck at ANY terminal... We stuck with that until the other day (more fool us!). There was a foreign object showing in our left steer tire. Pulled into Denver term and waited in line for the 'tire guy'... Mentioned the FO and he promptly pulled the valve core, and popped the tire off the rim... Hadn't even pulled the FO out to see if the tire was leaking! It turned out to be a bolt type piece of metal that went in at a 45* angle and never even came close to puncturing the tire... But he was going to go 'patch' it... Mumble grumble as he replaces the tire on the rim and out we go... Now less that one week later... About 4000 miles later... Our left steer blew!! Middle of Birmingham, AL! On I-20... Evening rush hour! I was farting foam for quite a while after that...

So after $1400 for the road call, tire, rim, labor AND the $600 in fender repairs we will be doing at home... Was it worth going into a company shop? Where they make THEIR money by working on trucks paid for by L/O, and might not be as careful with things as they would be if they had to worry about return customers. Coincidence?? Maybe... But then if it hadn't been popped off the rim and roughly put back on, would it have blown?

 

On the oil samples. They lease all of the new trucks now. So as they see it that is a waste of money. The trucks are all on 4 year rotation type deal. So ideally the trucks are always under warranty. On top of that that is why they try to do the warranty work in house if they can because they get the money from the warranty work. The mechanics are a expense in their eyes. They don't generate any revenue working on company owned trucks. They make revenue working on leased trucks. Lol this is probably pointless to this thread but, after being a mechanic for a dealership it opens your eyes.

 

Sorry... I guess I did kinda get off the subject... :/

Back to the normally scheduled program

 

Some of our trailers use straps. They're called etrack trailers, and the bulk of them are rails, the higher numbered ones (13, 14, 15). We had a small batch of OTR trailers with the etracks in them, but only a few, and I haven't seen them in a long time.

 

Okay, that macro 10. Supposed to be in by 6am, but really, send when you get in your truck. It constantly spits back to me that my hours are incorrect. I pull up my elog, I find the actual hours it says I worked, I put it in, I send it. It gets spit back to me. Occasionally I get a message "please send hours for" and then several days. What am I doing wrong?

 

You need to round off your hours to the quarter. If you worked 10:20 then enter 10:15, if you worked 10:24 then enter 10:30, etc. It will always spit back at you like an angry camel if you try to enter anything but quarter hours.

 

Two of our stops are drop-hook's.
We use two minimum and some times three in each trailer.
We get 40 to 50 load locks dropped at our office and we pay for them as we us them.
In the past we just send the invoice in with paper work and our payroll clerk reimburses us.
Now with Swift we don't have an assigned payroll clerk, so even if the invoice is there they don't seem to do anything with it unless we call.

So here is what I'm thinking we try. Do a mac28 for the amount of two load locks, write a Comcheck and then send in the invoice with the bills. Then us the Comcheck to pay for them...

 

To add to lepton's useful post, those messages you get asking you to send hours for "insert date here" are for hours that you haven't sent in for those dates, however, I have got that message for dates that I have sent in before so just resend the hours for the requested dates and you should be good.

 

Those are the metal tent poles we use to hold up one end of the "blue tarp" when we are having BBQ's at the truck stops while waiting for loads.... lol....

(not kidding either... I carry a tarp, 2 camp chairs and a gas BBQ... Just incase... We have been known to get to our #90 extra early and break them out too.)