21 year old in need help finding a GOOD company to drive for

Yep, sit down and talk with the man. Tell him you are very happy with the company, but the APU thing bothers you. He's human, he'll talk with you and listen. He probably is old school and doesn't understand the apu 100%. I would tell him about the extreme heat and the need to be comfortable. I would explain to him that an apu only uses about 1 gallon every 8 hours. The whole purpose of him buying apu's is to cut down on idling and improve the drivers comfort. I've seen Tripac's with 15,000 hours on them and still running strong. They are a very durable piece of equipment to be penny pinching.

Your fuel mileage depends on you and what engine/freight/lanes you have. Like others say, be easy on the throttle. You don't have to be wide open on acceleration. When your mpg's are being watched, be light on the downshifting. there's no need to be downshifting all the way to 2nd when approaching a light. Sure it's harder on the brakes but they ain't watching them. You have no reason to be taching above 1600 unless you have an extreme downgrade and even at that you can slow down enough there.

If it's a fast truck, screw it, do 62-65mph and watch the mpg's grow. 10 mph equals about 1 mpg. Older trucks were fuel hogs. Newer trucks it's easy to get close to 7.0 if not better. My last mpg was 7.2. You'll get better with experience. Just remember every little thing you do adds up.

It's important that you don't job hop alot. It sounds like you have a decent job. Stick it out and get some experience. The old man probably wants to see how tough you are. They don't like wimps. Show him you can do the job well and watch things get better.

 

The way you drive has alot to do with your MPG. Like others have said, sit down and have a good honest face to face. Could you have misunderstood him Re; the 10 hrs on the APU? Do you shut the truck down EVERY TIME you stop? Do you keep up on tire pressure? Speaking of tires, have they been replaced lately? Ifso he could be comparing virgin rubber whith a low rolling resistance to a retread with a high resistance (easy 1mpg) 5.5 is horrible mpg for a long term average and 7 is not out of sight, do you track it on paper tank to tank or just take the ECM readout? There's alot to think about good luck

 

11 year old truck , with what was never known as a ECONOMY engine , pulling 80,000 your not going to see 7 MPG , maybe 6.5 in all perfect conditions.

 

When you haul oversized loads it isn't uncommon to lose some mpg's. If you consistently do over sized loads, it will be difficult to get 7 mpg. I have some experience with International pulling oversized loads. My trucks have CAT engines, but the International averages over 6 mpg.

 

Been in this area several times. Ask your boss to show you the paperwork, i.e. the qualcomm or logs and do the math. Sounds to me he is tell you a big fat fib. Need to find a better boss. How much idling do you do? Do you use jake brakes alot? these have negative effect on MPG.

 

If you want OTR and Flat Bedding, We (Watkins Shepard) have 3 terminals in WA state......we have a dry van and a flatbed devision.....Give them a call




American Trucker

 

I've found the biggest thing to getting better mpg is how you accelerate. After seeing or riding with other drivers who get lower mpg I notice they all accelerate faster than I do, but not necessarily driving like madmen or anything either.

Now most people only think about acceleration from the standpoint of driving around the city or from stops. There are a lot of other times you accelerate that you can back off of it though. Say you finally just got to the top of a grade that you crawled up, or you had to slow down for traffic or whatever, you can slowly accelerate back to your chosen travelling speed rather than mashing it to get up there. This is where I notice a lot of people don't think about their acceleration practices.

Also, many people will just push resume on the cruise control after losing speed for whatever reason. Most trucks will go at full power as if you had the pedal to the floor until it reaches that resumed speed. If you manually accelerate slowly back up to your resumed speed than resume you will save some fuel.

I've constantly been in the top 10 in fuel mileage since I started with my company and have never pulled less than 7.5 mpg in a 2010 Cascadia during a month, with my top being 7.8. 80% of our Cascadia drivers have never hit 7.0 mpg so it really does make a big difference how you drive.

As someone else said, a 1.5 mpg gap might be him just trying to push you to do better. So many other variables affect it as well that others have mentioned. If it's a month here or there problem it might be due to some of those things, but if you're constantly running lower you might have to check your driving practices. On top of that, maybe someone did run better with your truck before, but there could be mechanical problems affecting you now that weren't before.

 

Most good companies want you to be 25.