Basic truck care

Ive only had one truck that was overridden, i took a extendable snow brush, and put the scraper on the go pedal, and the brush on the underside of the steering wheel. Just long enough to kick it up a few hundred.... there is more than one way to skin a computer

 

Haha! Yes, there is!
Unfortunately , Fedex has thought of all of them, they wiped out every possible scenario. If the tractor was not in motion, the clock started ticking down. The only way to override it is to bump the throttle every 60-90 seconds (they have a 2 minute idle time). At one point while I was still there , they tried to implement a 1 minute idle time. They got enough heat from the drivers that they backed off to the 2 minutes.

 

All our new trucks came with the cruise control overide, each one somehow came back from its first scheduled maintenance suddenly able to set the cruise and it wont shut down?!? Hmmmm... (wink wink)

Boss said, keep your times down in summer, and i will tell corporate to f off during the winter. This in mn after all..

 

I'm trying to remember specifics, but keep in mind I left them 3 years ago:
Their city tractors did not have the ability to do so, but their line rigs did: if the temperature dropped below freezing, the idle shutdown was overridden automatically. A driver stuck on a pass somewhere could idle to his hearts content to stay warm. Same thing applied in the summertime. If the temperature was over 80 degrees, it was also overridden so that the driver could continue to run the A/C.

 

Simply performing your PTI daily will keep you out of most trouble. After a while, you can trim it down by skipping the 'daily' portion on some items that you get to know are solid, shift them to 'weekly' - and focus more on the rest. Check your air pressures with an air guage - not just a thumper.

Buy a CB -keep it on and squelched back when you're driving, that way if you have issues going down the road like a dodgy pigtail or a low tire or dragging air lines - somebody can tell you.

Don't thrash your equipment! Trucks last a long time if you simply operate them smoothly.

Good on you for asking.

 

Best advice ever. Kicking tires or thumping them with a rubber mallet or a stupid self defense wooden bat is pointless. Your tires could be 20 pounds under pressure and not realize it. Under inflation is no joke. Tire blow outs suck. Big Time

 

Yes. But running tires low certainly does increase the probability of it happening.

 

They don't pay me enough to get out and stab those stupid tires every day. And with the amount of trailer switching I do, who cares? I may stab the tractor tires once a week but that's it