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

My last PM went like this. Called ahead to a Loves that was on my route, verified they could take my truck in with no wait. Called breakdown and gave them the info for the loves. They call loves and set up the payment. Pulled our truck into the bay. Had a shower, and ate lunch at Mexican place next door. 3 hours later, back on the road.

They do not change your wiper blades or the cabin and fresh air filters. I get Michelin wiper blades at Wal-Mart now, and transflow them for repayment. Put attention safety on it.

 

It's hard to understand the shop! Last year my truck needed a PM I told them; they said keep going ( Driving) you will be ok.... 300 miles over the computer kept giving me warnings "service needed " and what happened... It kept shutting down my truck! It's just incredible!

 

I tried that, got to the yard, went to the window and told them not to send me a load as the truck was going in the shop for a PM. I was told they had loads to run so PM would have to be done some other time.

 

Rolled into the yard this morning circa 9:30 after a weekend of hometime. I had put my truck in the shop for an oil leak Thursday night before I left. The oil leak was a known quanity, and the last time I had it in the shop (a few weeks back), they said they needed to order some parts. So just roll with the leak and they'd fix it the next time I was back in the yard. Okay, no problem. Wrote that on the ticket Thursday night: "You ordered parts for it and said you'd fix it next time I brought it in. Welp, here it is!"

Bitter experience has conferred upon me the routine of calling the shop before making the 20-minute drive to work if I have put the truck in the shop prior to taking hometime. But they said it was indeed ready, so I rolled in.

Got my load assignment after an hour. Trip to Oregon. Neat! I've only been to Oregon once, so that's a cool trip. Find the trailer and it's in the dock. Hook up to it and the bald guy with the accent came up with the paperwork and told me it was a two-stopper, but he only had the paperwork for first stop in Utah. Welp, okay, let me update dispatch and my fleet manager that the one-stop load assignment they sent me was now a two-stopper. Groovy. Time for a pre-trip and then I'm out.

Oh, but wait. Front clearance lights on the trailer are both out. Odd. Welp, that's a DOT violation waiting to happen, so I rolled the trailer back to the trailer repair bay and put in a ticket. They jacked with the lights for an hour before having me unhook from the trailer to jack with the electrical system. Within minutes of me unhooking from the trailer, they informed me that the trailer wasn't the problem, because they had hooked up their little portable battery thingy and the trailer lit up like a Christmas tree. Including the front clearance lights. Soon as I hooked up to the trailer again and plugged in the pigtail, the clearance lights no longer worked.

Oh, but wait. While they were putzing around with the trailer, they noticed that the trailer was overdue for a PM. So they decided to go ahead and do that now since I had it already there and everything.

Hour-and-a-half rolls by before they finally finish putting a high sheen on all the rivets or whatever it was they were doing back there. So now I'm ready to...roll the truck over to the truck shop so they can check the assorted electrical bits. Which they do, and turns out there appears to be something flaky with my entire electrical harness. But while they were fiddling around with the fusebox under the hood, I noticed that the radiator fan was blowing coolant everywhere. Apparently because the coolant reservoir is leaking.

By this time, it's 2:15pm and they tell me to just drop the trailer and park the truck and they'll get to it when they can, because this clearly isn't going to be a "fix it and go" job on the side of the repair bay.

And so I am now back home. The two-stopper to Utah and Oregon will go to some other lucky driver. Will call in the AM to see if the exorcism was successful. If not, I'll be flying a loaner for a few days.

 

####, that sucks. Put in for breakdown pay, you should get $300.

 

As I understand it we don't get breakdown pay if the truck is at the yard.

 

My power steering still has issues despite being "fixed" twice. I don't believe in luck and third time being the charm so I am not going to waste any more time writing it up again.

This new thing about having to go to Loves for oil changes is just another strike against the shop.

 

Put the truck in the shop for an airleak,mechanic says you have an airleak but I cant find it,so they pull it out of the shop,an mark it up as not having one lol.

 

Exorcism still has not fully taken hold.

Called shop this morning, shop said truck was ready. Groovy. Rolled in, had a load assignment waiting on me, little trip to central Illinois. Looked under the hood, nice shiny new coolant reservoir to replace the one with a leak. Sweet!

Roll down the road, get just a bit past the Gordonsville/Palmyra exit on I-64, when the truck tells me I'm critically low on coolant. Pull over, pop the hood, discover that one of the hoses has popped off the new reservoir and has sprayed almost all of the coolant all over the engine compartment. Very little coolant left in the reservoir.

Figured there was still enough in there to get me back to the Gordonsville Shell, so I limped 15 miles back in the wrong direction to see if they had truck-rated coolant.

They don't.

So here I sit waiting for the breakdown truck to come put coolant in my truck. I probably could've rolled down to the Pilot at exit 213 on I-81, but the truck derated while the coolant warning was up so I was really poking along any time I went uphill. And Afton is between me and the next Pilot. Plus, I didn't want to spend an hour and change having to hear the beeping of the coolant warning (or having to clear it every 10 seconds).

As long as I'm back on the road by 2:00pm, I'll make my delivery appointment on time. If not, I'm gonna be late.

 

Last PM we had done in Richmond took 26 hours, they broke something. Wrote it up as breakdown, got $600. Team.