kind of just a rant about a few different things

Those pieces of #### are going to make you a better driver. Consider each one a penny of dues paying. In time you will be able to tell an 8 from a 9 or 10 by feel. Shifting will become second nature no matter the tranny or engine involved. This is how you gain real skill so don't knock it too much.

A real piece of crap like the one I started in got 2 gallons of water, a gallon or more of oil and 3 to 4 hours on a battery charger before starting. Every morning! A/C was a distant fantasy, power steering was by "armstrong" and suspension by "rock-hard". I have never missed air driven wipers. Ever. Others have had it much worse than I.

 

Nevertheless, I have to agree with BullGoose. Just think what a dream it wil lbe when you do get into a tractor that is newer! All these issues you are having now will help you appreciate those, and they are teaching you patience and flexibility, two of the key ingredients of a successful truck driver. So hang in there. What is "your company" that you are waiting to drive for?

 

Clutch free-play. You can learn how to adjust it yourself, but it doesn't sound like your in these trucks long enough to make it worth doing. A year from now you will have popeye forearms and a noticeably larger left thigh and right calf than their respective opposites. It does suck I realize, but truthfully, you will have gained a lot of good knowledge from all of this.

 

Those don't even sound like bad trucks. Thats what most trucks are like when they get a few miles on them. Those old trucks will make you a better driver than a new one would. Just keep your eyes and ears open because you will learn alot more on your own than any school showed you.

 

Your Job is exactly what I am looking for! No Really! It's been so long since I last drove a truck (1979) that to get that sort of experience with different trucks and transmissions would be a blessing to me.

I am Semi-Retired/Laid off/Downsized back in December this past year. Spent the last 8 months getting my house in order, paying off what I could and trying another career that was paying me only $12 an hour. I was making ends meet but I was also having to endure some BS catering to "entitled" customers. Decided in July to bail out of that. It was not going to change at all.

Take that experience and learn from it. You will be much further ahead because of it.

 

honestly, the fact that UPS bought out Overnite how many years ago and the fact that they still have large amounts of trucks that overnite owned, i can totally understand how they could be crappy trucks!

I drove trucks like that when i was in school, and you just have to deal with it unless youre going to take the effort to adjust the clutch. It IS possible to take off smoothly in these trucks, BARELY! Your instinct is that when youre letting it off the floor, and it feels like youre nowhere near it engaging, you keep speeding up and speeding up, and next thing you know, you just dumped the clutch! you just have to be slow and patient with it.

It seems like some of these companies just refuse to adjust the clutch, and just wait until it goes out to do anything to it. I once had a truck that had a sticky clutch...the first time it ever did, i was relaying a load at a rest area because i had a bad injector and was going to the shop, and i let the clutch out to pull out from under the trailer and the truck barely moved. I slammed the pedal to the floor fairly hard, and slowly let it out again, and it worked fine. It did this several times. I didn't have the truck long enough to get it fixed, but it scared me the first time it happened! i thought i was going to need a tow truck!