Running with JCT, Part Deux

Winslow was where I fueled ...

 

Well, today was surprisingly productive. Started in Vernon, Tx made it to consignee in Grand Prairie, TX with no traffic. They took me an hour and half early. Only took an hour for unload. Went and got the trailer washed and a bite to eat. Arrived at shipper in Dallas 3 hours early. They took me in and had me loaded in 2 hours. They were still picking product for my load when i showed up. They had most of it and they loaded that while the rest if it was gotten ready. Even made it out DFW with no traffic via I-30. Now I'm headin out west to California.

 

Buy a lottery ticket. Today's your day.

 

Congrats and sort of jealous while enjoying my non busy situation.

Unloaded in Tracy on 11/7/17 appointment 0500 out by 0830. DH to Salinas, CA. Check in at noon, loaded by 1630 pm or so. Head to the corner we all know and finished my break. Took off at midnight to a load that delivers on Saturday night 11/11 at 2359 in fort worth. Drove out my hours, drove out my hours again, sitting at a hotel in Moriarty enjoying KFC and stuff while doing a 34 and will make otd on Sat midnight with 400 in the bank after fixed expenses, 5 days to make more money on this pay period, and, most importantly, refreshed, showered, relaxed, and ready to roll.

I hope we all enjoy are work.

 

I'm at my hotel in commerce ca. Get up at 5am head to San Diego the home. I love this new local thing lol

 

I've beenin no big rush myself lately. Just cruising around at 60mph.

 

Yeah I'm debating on if I want to try to get this next load off me on Sunday for this period or just be content with 1992 miles for this week and be set up for a larger than normal Thanksgiving settlement while I'm off. Its 6 one way half a dozen the other. I reaaaaaallly didn't want to come up to the Northwest but it hasent been too bad. Got a D&H in Richland for tonight to Pryor OK. Back to back 2000 mile loads.

 

@DarrylJCT Since we are talking about removing or reducing some of the costs of being an operator, can we open a discussion about the service intervals for the truck, specifically the DPF filter service interval?

Currently the shop has the interval for DPF cleaning set for 200K miles. According to every bit of information available from Freightliner about the '17 Evolutions, the interval should be around 550K. I have spoken with multiple dealerships across the country any time I'm in for Warranty work about the shortened interval that is demanded of JCT and they each laughed and gave the same answer: If you want to waste your money doing it that early, at least do it here with us!

There is nothing in any of the warranty paperwork, both standard and extended, that says we need to be doing it this early. If the truck is designed to be paid off in a certain amount of miles, JCT would be calling for 3 services, nearly 4, when only 1 service is required. Nearly 2 million miles worth of service in well under a million.

I know most of us don't idle, as we all have APUs and knows what idling does to the DPF, and I know most if not all of us are over 7mpg, which puts our trucks in the "Ultra efficient" category for service intervals. If most, like myself, are planning on keeping this truck to payoff, shouldn't we have at least some kind of say in the interval of such a touchy emissions system? The old adage of "if it aint broke, don't fix it" should apply here. With the new oil formulations released this year with even less ash content, the filters should go past 550K soon.

I say this because my truck is at 234K miles, not even half the rated life of the filter, and I'm now nervous about going to dealerships or the terminal because I could be forced to spend nearly 2K dollars to replace a filter that doesn't need to be touched for nearly another 2 years. I spoke with another driver the other day that took his truck to Freightliner for a PM in his hometown and was FORCED to do a DPF service before he could get his truck out by JCT. The dealership told him his DPF was barley at 40% capacity.

I understand with truck turnover with drivers this expensive servicing needs to be done but this seems very excessive. Especially for possibly the most expensive servicing on the schedule. If there is no logical reason for this service to be done at half intervals other than JCT wanting it done, then JCT should cover half of the costs. If not, then the intervals should be extended to match Freightliners recommendations. They match the recommendations for PMs at 50K up from 35K of the previous generation of DD15s (New recommendations are now 75K), why did the DPF interval drop from 300K to 200K? Even Severe Duty for the DD15 calls for 500K miles. The truck even tells you when its time to service the DPF...



"If it aint broke, don't fix it" should apply, as any time the emissions system in my truck gets touched, I get nervous. And currently, I have zero problems. Why invite them?

 

This is a great question. Even on the 15 Cascadias the DPF filter is 500k. You will probably get a faster response if you sent this to the driver services email JCT has set up. That email goes to several people at the home office.

 

Weighed my load yesterday and another JCT (fairly new to the company) asked me if I was going to slide my tandems. I said nope, that's 40ft for California. Then he said i just move my fifth wheel. I said, "Why? It's legal. Opening the gap between truck and trailer will offset any benefit to balancing the weight." He then suggests I go back and have it reworked. I busted out laughing. Sad part is he didn't see the humor in what I said. So, I had to explain that a shipper wasn't going to rework a legal load.