Running with JCT, Part Deux

Of course, that's a personal choice for your own reasons, but consider this:
1. Where reefer fuel is concerned, there is no "settlement" difference involved, but there is monetary value at hand. An extra 2¢ per gallon on a fuel card ads up.

2. I cannot achieve 1500 gallons per month to maintain the Diamond status. My truck gets too good of fuel mileage. That and I don't run that hard, mileage wise. Pilot/Flying J had no minimum requirement to get the 6 points. Besides, $6.00 - $14.00 versus $4.00 - $10.00 per fuel purchase for in-store use is a selling point for me

 

Stile, have you had an ECM report pulled on your truck to see your overall MPG?

 

stile so going pretty much out of route is the best way, instead of i40, take i 10. is it a big difference in miles to pass thru el paso going to cail

 

That depends entirely upon where you loaded and where you're going. If you start in OK or AR going to central California, you wouldn't take I-10.

Never go too far out of route for a personal venture. If you suddenly run into an hours issue and can't make delivery, you just got a service failure. If JCT had to swap you out due to poor judgement, that can affect your contract.
Bottom line, be smart about it. If you want to run through a specific area of the country, ask for a load that'll accommodate that.
Lastly, Stile never mentioned going out of route.
If you run teams, you will go through El Paso 45+ times a year. If you are solo, you can expect to run through there 12 - 15 or more times a year.

 

No, I want to get 6 months in on this truck before I do that.

 

Before i started trucking, I used to leave my house to go to work 10 minutes before I had to clock in, and get there with 1-2 minutes to spare.

That all changed when I got in my trainer's truck back in '03. He instilled in me the motto, "Early is on time, on time is late." A valuable lesson, in this industry.

Sometimes I wonder what is taking so long when I'm left sitting at a shipper for hours, waiting for the loading to start. At this shipper, I got my answer.

My loading window was 0700 - 1600 so I started my day later than usual, allowing myself 3 hours for the 2 hour drive instead of the typical 4 hours early, because in my experience nobody is usually at work at these produce places before sunrise.

I arrived at 0630 (stopped to top off my tanks for an empty weight) and grabbed a piece of real estate to wait for folks to show up for work, and after a few minutes of waiting the manager comes out and gives me the rundown on what to expect.

After our hellos, he said that he was surprised to see a JCT truck here so early, and that the product hadn't arrived yet. I had to wait for carrots to come in out of the field & be processed before they could get loaded on the truck.

 

Found out that the DED metering valve went bad. It wasn't detecting air pressure and wasn't sending DEF to the DPF. Waiting for nre valve from Freightliner.

 

Good post, I do have one point of contention though.

DEF allowed for the dialing back on the amount of EGR used. Since the more EGR used the worse the fuel mileage DEF in essence increases fuel mileage.

 

Truck is fixed. Got a load to go to Phoenix. I go hook to the trailer here at the yard only to find two bad tires

 

Oh yea, the bad tire issue. For a while there every trailer I hooked to had at least one bad one.