This guy was courteous

Awsome

 

Wait, the wheels are supposed to TURN!!!???

 

^^^ THIS ^^^

Even when I was a company driver at a mega I fixed what I could myself. It still amazes me the conversations I had with fellow drivers in the lounge at a Swift terminal.

"What you have your truck in the shop for?"

"Adjust the headlights".



That's not the end of it. It was the THIRD time he had it in shop to adjust the headlights!

 

I had a Freightliner Century company truck and the halogen headlight bulb got loose and melted the housing, our shop at
Marietta, GA gave me the "it'll be 2 days" nonsense, I had the parts man give me the headlight assembly,
It was in the 20's in Georgia so it was cold, less than half an hour and I had it swapped out, aimed it against the building and the first night driving I did I asked a truck passing me if my lights were aimed ok.
Depends on my mood, some days I'd wait and let them fix it

 

My mood can change if there's a good ribeye nearby that can be paired with a microbrew and tequila.

 

If you go into the TA shop I think it is, they even have a line item price for changing out windshield wipers. I just have to shake my head at that. In order for them to take the time out to line item price something like that, there has to be a pretty good demand for it. Which. Is. Embarrassing.

 

That mentality can reallllllllly hurt your paycheck, even as a company driver. When you take a truck to the shop, it takes what...6 hours on average, to get through. And a road service call takes even longer. They're not going to pay breakdown pay for stuff like flat tires and whatnot. That's a huge chunk of time that you could be productive, but you're sitting and wasting.

If you're pre tripping a trailer and you hear an air leak, the vast majority of the time, an air line has slipped out of a compression fitting. EASY fix. You can have it fixed before you can get through to your travel agent on the phone.

"But Six, they don't pay me to work n their trucks and so I'm not going to do it. I don't want them to start expecting me to turn wrenches."

Understood. But I am looking at tomorrow,not just today. Over a year, your sitting around waiting for simple repairs will cost you probably as much as $10000-15000 annually in lost income. That's 1/4 to 1/3 of your annual income! But you're right, they are not paying you to repair their truck.

 

@TripleSix gets it. The faster you can get back rolling, the quicker you can get back to making $$$$! The company may not pay you directly for fixing the trucks, the payoff comes from getting back on the road sooner. There's no such thing as a truck that doesn't break down. They all will and that's just the nature of the job.

 

Case in point when I was with Swift: my T680 lost power in January '15 in Wyoming with temperatures hovering around -15°F. The fuel filter has glass sides and it was obvious the filter was clogged. The check engine code was for "fuel rail pressure".

Well "duh!" If you can't get fuel through the filter the fuel rail pressure might suffer just a little.

Unfortunately Swift doesn't allow company drivers to carry a spare fuel filter or filter wrench. I lost 8 days income getting towed, waiting in a hotel, then finally getting Swift to get me a rental car and go pick up another truck.

Another time I picked up a trailer with the running lights out. Sure, I could have called mommy and had road service come fix it and wait for hours. Instead I got out my wire stripper and spliced the ground wire. On the road in 10 minutes.

 

Ever have to make a little jumper wire for your pigtail? Like if your tailights are working, but the little center marker lights aren't. Make a jumper, put it in the pigtail and it will get you through until you can drop the trailer at a shop.