Western Pacific Truck School Centralia WA--Just passing on my experience

My experience with them has been a pretty good one. DVR paid my tuition so I didn't have to worry about dealing with that but I know they paid $4,700 tuition, $125 for med certificate and drug testing, plus $289 for my license & permit *from their book*.

My instructor was awesome. She has 30 years of experience logging, reefer, dry van, tanker, hazmat, Alaska logging, etc. She took us out and taught us to drive in different conditions even though most of it was pretend. We learned to use the jake brake and how to crawl up/down hills. She took us on a 14% grade. We had a blast learning from her and everyone in her class *there were 3 of us total--6 between both classes* passed the dol testing and got our CDL's first try.

The only bad part was the constant break downs due to air leaks. They had us down for 2 days due to air leaks then when we came back the truck was still leaking air. It was still leaking during the dol testing but the third party tester amazingly let it go. I'm hoping it was because it was a small leak even though it could still be heard. It was hard to concentrate on learning while constantly watching/checking for air leaks and waiting for them to be fixed.

If it weren't for my instructor and the fact that someone else was paying I probably would have checked into switching to the other school that I was checking out. A truck school should have good equipment for their students to learn on (there was more wrong with the truck I drove than just the air leaks). I understand that being students we cause more harm than good *I personally killed the truck twice on the first day and once the second* but still they need to be on top of their trucks.

All in all for my instructor and the fact that they did get us through the testing I would recommend them as long as you don't mind a few mechanical issues.

 

Yeah that's what my instructor told us too. That they taught us to pass the test and that was about it. However, she did teach us more. The other class didn't even have a clue about the jake brake until the last 2 days when they had a different instructor who was more like ours. Our truck ran pretty good engine wise except those darn air leaks and other minor things like the dash lights being out, the heater/ac only pumping out hot air, etc.

We hunted the air leaks down and told the "bosses" but they got to the point that they just kept telling us it was air usage not air leakage even though we could hear the air leaking. Finally they allowed a nearby shop to check things over and that mechanic agreed with us and got the part that was broken replaced and the air line fixed.

I think the concern was the worst part of it. The air compressor wasn't keeping up for the most part but we never dropped to far below 90 psi. Before that last mechanic fixed the worst part of the leak we were losing 10-15 psi each "air supply system leak test". When we were driving sometimes we would lost 20+ psi just stopping at a stop sign and sitting.

Thankfully after that last mechanic things did get much better but the valve would leak after moving the truck for a short time while the trailer was on because it wasn't adjusted properly for the trailer. It was overlooked and a big concern for us on test day but the tester let it slide which was nice for us because we had no clue how to drive the other truck they had which apparently shifted much differently than ours. The one guy from the other class who drove our truck once kept saying he wish they could take the test in our truck because it shifted so much better.

I don't know why our trucks weren't kept up on as well as the other places but still a good experience thanks to our instructor.