CRETE - A Year in Review

Mine was filling up fast for a while, it was in Feb. after I had purchased fuel in MN, where I have been told that the fuel is blended w/bio-diesel. It was also very cold then, so not sure. been fine lately.

 

After reading some of the posts here about mileage I feel fortunate for my meager average of 9260 miles per month so far this year. I have been with Crete for 1 1/2 years now and overall have been pleased with the company, my only complaint is with upper managements decision to maintain a fleet that is larger than the demand. A couple weeks ago while on forced vacation without pay in Texas I attended one of those weekly drivers meetings in Wilmer (I attended to get the free lunch ) and we were told the reason why they are keeping the fleet large is because they want to be in a better position than most other companies when the freight picks up. If you think about it the cost to have their trucks sitting in truck stops around the country is not much more than having the trucks sit empty on the yard in Lincoln, the trucks are paid for and they pay us zippo so basically they have some idle time to pay for. Now this makes sense to me from a business stand point but it does nothing for the drivers morale and it also tells me that Crete has no loyalty to its drivers and loyalty is a two way street. Anyway, this is just my opinion on why we are sitting so much as of late.

 

Well said. First of all the economy is not going to improve anytime soon. People who watch the DOW to see how the economy is doing are fooling themselves. The way I look at it is, if I am willing to stick with this company while a lot of others are bailing I should in one way or another be rewarded for that loyalty. I.E. let the driver pool shrink so that there are fewer drivers competing for freight. I used to be a staunch defender of this company. No more. IMHO I don't think Crete could care less what happens to us.

 

I couldnt agree more..took me to weeks to get home and on my travel date back they are calling me at the house to find out if im on the way back..maybe i should tell them the freight is slow at my house and find a place to sit til i get back....they worry about the idel time and i sit for around 36 hours between runs it seems...good thing my wife works...sprint is dropping my wireless service cuz i go over 5 gigs a month...where does this all end!

 

I'm confused about one thing. You drivers don't carry and replace your own fuel filters nowadays? What do you do, sit on the side of the road and wait for help?

 

In the old days, we use to carry the old metal 'hang under' filters. But with the new inverted clear 'off the frame - element only' type, it's a whole lot messier than it use to be. Before, if you were careful, you didn't spill much fuel to drop and replace. Now you have to drain the whole unit before removing the plastic cover to get to the filter element. Plus with the siphon resistant inserts in the fuel tanks, it makes it tough to get semi-clean fuel to refuel the thing once your back together.

Weazz... How in the world did you exceed 5 gig in one month???? Geeez, I have done a lot of online stuff the past few months with all the waiting for freight, even watching video's and software updates, my biggest month never exceeded 2 gig.

Trader...9200+ in one month....lucky you. Dec '08 - 8814, Jan '09 - 8786, Feb '09 - 6096, Mar '09 - 7045(but March was mostly my fault - can't blame Crete/freight) The last 'ET type' 10000+ mi month for me was the 'month of the meeting' up in Lincoln. Nov '08 was 10200.(the month of the meeting is AKA - snackbar 2.0. It was when I was updated to a more company friendly user interface)

As for me, I'm headed up into the blizzard region. Up to North Platte, NE with a light load. As of Sunday morning, the NE road report phone line had reported I-80 closed from Ogallala thru York because of snow and ice....Man I wish winter would get done. I am getting battle fatigue fighting mother nature.

 

The shop mgr. at one terminal said he didn't want us changing the filter. He said somedrivers were changing them too often, and they are costing the company money.

 

I've been sitting a lot the last 10 days or so, but otherwise not terrible considering. Last week was the worst, emptied the previous Thur, sat until Sun, got load of 500 miles that delivered Mon. Then sat until Thur, got 1100 mile load delivering Sun.
Last week's check will be a whopping 524 miles. "woo-hoo"
I've been stuck out east though, maybe better now, back in middle of country.

 

Couldn't be any worse anyway. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut sucked.

 

In my early days as a driver with Silver Eagle/Arnold, we use to have a separate water separator and fuel filters. The separator had a cleanable strainer and drain valve. I can't ever remember ever having to do a fuel filter change between services there(ever ever...did I say ever enough?). I did have to drain and clean the separator every great once in a while once we started using fuel from truck stops. It was sorta' like what we have now, but it didn't make one unit do two jobs. All it was meant to do was keep the filter from having to pull moisture and larger particles out of the system. I wish they still used that type of system now...made getting that occasional 'bad fuel' easier/cheaper to deal with.