Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

My head is about to explode from all the locker room lawyers that have all the answers.

 

Knight"kiss your old 4th battery goodbye"transportation.I worked an year for them,menage to strike a 13.3 bridge in NJ,and when i left they put on my dac-exceptional driver lol.The latest text from them was 600$ for a 2 days orientation and a kindle fire.

 

Where was this?. Description sounds like the Distributor off 27 near Haines City.

 

You see what I mean, I now have brain matter all over the inside of my truck from it exploding.

 

That's the one.

 

Ok, so I just had the oddest phone call from my DM. Checking to see if all was ok with my truck since I got it out of the shop. I almost fell out of the bunk!
Backstory- I had put it in because it had few things needing to be done and gone home-things I had written up repeatedly BTW. I still have a no pulling power issue and shaking when trying to pull heavy loads. Had new steers put on. Now it kind of wanders (?) and you can feel the wheel (I don't even know how to describe it) sort of catching while driving, especially while BT. The wandering I figured was because the tires are new and you know they didn't do an alignment because I was told "it was completed Sunday." when I called to check on it. I trust Barry and Russell more than others on the weekends and they said the no power issue sounds like the DPF filter needs to be baked, the steer which had a cut in it (and I was told 2 weeks prior was ok) was cut down to the steel belts and was a recipe for a blowout, the coolant leak (again 2 weeks prior) wasn't the sensor, but the overflow reservoir, and they also put on a belt tensioner (ok, help me on this one. What does that even do?). They were going to try to put new(ER) drives on it because my inside drives are cupped something fierce from the uneven wear, but that didn't happen.
Like everyone else, I get tired of putting it in the shop and nothing being done, so on the no pulling power issue and shaking really bad if I do have a load more than say 25k on, I just quit asking. I also get frustrated when I try to explain to J Jr and I get talked down to. I have heard from several female drivers that he is the same way with them.

But the phone call this morning floored me. Another odd thing. I had a buddy needed a starter this weekend. At first he was told to just beat on it every time he needed to start it and limp it back to WM yard. WTH? Then he talked to Marlon and magically he was told to go and get it fixed. He couldn't just leave it running because he only has one key (who the heck only has one key!?!?). So maybe things are going to change for the better. Maybe the one in charge of the shop won't be in charge much longer. And maybe when we put a truck in for service it won't takes days and days and days and days. Who knows.

 

Knight-Swift Buys Trucker Abilene Motor Express
Purchase brings 400 trucks and signals the U.S. leader in truckload transport may be back in the market for more acquisitions

DAT Solutions said spot prices in Knight-Swift’s truckload freight market have increased by nearly a third from a year ago. PHOTO:ASSOCIATED PRESS
By
Paul Page
March 16, 2018 1:57 p.m. ET
1 COMMENTS
The biggest truckload carrier in the U.S. appears to be back in the market for acquisitions.
Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. KNX 0.75% said Friday it is acquiring Richmond, Va.-based Abilene Motor Express for an undisclosed sum, bringing more capacity under the company’s control as strong shipping demand in the U.S. is driving up freight rates and carrier earnings.
The buy in the first for Phoenix-based Knight-Swift since Knight Transportation completed its purchase of Swift Transportation last September, marking the biggest consolidation in several years in U.S. trucking. Before the purchase, Swift was the largest carrier in the truckload market, in which carriers haul full loads on trucks on long distances for a single customer, and Knight was No. 2.
The combined business now holds about 2% of the highly fragmented market, according to estimates by the SJ Consulting research group, which said the biggest 25 carriers by revenue split only 13% of the market.
Abilene brings Knight-Swift a business that includes 400 trucks and an estimated $100 million in annual revenue. Knight-Swift said in a securities filing that the business has an operating ratio “in the low 90s,” indicating its operations are profitable.
KeyBanc Capital Markets wrote in a research report Friday that the buy would add an estimated $0.02 to $0.03 per share to Knight-Swift earnings. It also signals, KeyBanc wrote, the carrier is potentially in the market “for additional tuck-in acquisitions.”
The trucking market has been growing rapidly as a robust U.S. economy has spurred shipping demand, leaving capacity for long-haul services tight and pushing companies to pay more to move goods.
DAT Solutions LLC said the national average spot market rate for vans, the most common type of truck transport, was $2.13 per mile, down 11 cents from January but about 52 cents per mile higher than it was a year ago.

 

The belt tensioner keeps the serpentine/fan belt in place on the pulleys. I had to have mine changed when the bearing inside it started squeaking.

 

We've seen this a few times now from different sources. They all just regurgitate the same article with the screwy headline "Trucker Abilene"?, and the same typo in the 3rd paragraph.

 

So it's not true?