Tools that are good to have

Tools, what tools? I'm a local driver paid hourly. I'm not a mechanic, I will sit on the side of the road and collect my overtime pay waiting for roadside repair......

 

lol,Love this guy

Not only that, While your broke down,Have your dispatch order you a sub from jimmy Johns deliver it to you, THEN take a nap with a piece of board across the seats,While you are getting $41.00 per hour, Waiting on service

Then later on when you are punched out at 430 pm..Go Home, Have the wife rub you down from heads to toe and make the kids get you a beer

Then,When its time for family get-togethers ,Let everyone know about the $84,000 salary with FULL benefits including low cost medical,($13 per week) and 100% vesting pension after you hit 55 years old ALONG with a company contributed severance if you ever became disabled

Not too shabby huh? Love It don't ya? I Do AMERICA WORKS BEST WHEN WE SAY UNION YES






Unbelievable

 

Warranty issues, and other issues. Some drivers are mechanically inclined... others, not so much. Don't even get me started on the "custom" wiring jobs I've seen.
Drivers who ask me to borrow tools... if I have some sort of rapport with you, or someone whose been in the shop longer than me can vouch for you, I usually don't have a problem with it, so long as it's not something I need right at that moment... but when they get to asking for specific, niche tools, I tend to tell them to hold up and ask exactly what they're doing... if they're company drivers, we actually appreciate it when they can change out air lines, glad hands, lights, etc. but there are things we don't want them doing, naturally. O/Os, it's their truck, their business.. if I know them well enough, fine.. if not, okay, but I'll need to hold their CDL while they have that tool/those tools in their possession (talking about high $$$ stuff, not wrenches and screwdrivers).
One "piddly" task I'll often take on even it's simple enough for drivers to do is windshield wipers, because parts can be weird about giving them out to drivers.. they'll want to ask 20 questions, get a life history, maybe a DNA swab... as a mechanic, I tell them I need a set of windshield wipers, and they don't question it. Because #### that... if a driver says they need wipers, that's one thing I'm never going to question them on, period.

 

Joseph 1135

 

Duct tape. Fly swatter. Hose clamps. Porn for waiting for the hook.

 

All good stuff here and other posts.

Throw in some stiff bailing wire to tie stuff up with and the usual duct tape and a couple fuses for your radio. Maybe even a fuse holder for it. I've had 2 cheapies break from vibration.

Another poster mention squeezing off an air line. Carry a couple feet of 3/4" heater hose. Use a few inches to go around that line before you pinch it.

Always have a couple paper clips and toothpicks!!

And some mouthwash so you don't kill anyone!!

 

Best tool to have? The one you need.
Tool you're most likely to need? The one you left at home.
In any case, if you don't have a good working knowledge about the different components on the truck that are likely to break, you probably shouldn't be wrenching on the truck unsupervised.

Most companies don't want "drivers" wrenching on the trucks, because most "drivers" don't know what they are doing. Sure, they can rattle off the list of parts and pieces that they are supposed to check if it is "cracked, broken, or missing" during their pretrip...but ask 'em what the part does, how it works, or in a lot of cases what it even looks like, and they're lost. Warranty issues are less of a concern than a driver turning a minor $100 roadside repair into a $5000+ tow/parts/labor expense with a day or two of downtime trying to fix the driver's "repair" before they can start looking for the original problem that needed attention.

 

Do a search on this site. The question has been asked before and there was a rather large list created.

 

All good answers....I'll just add, that I found Gorilla Tape a few years back, and will never buy a roll of generic duct tape again! That stuff grips like nobody's business and lasts far longer than the cheap stuff.....JMHO