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

Make sure you get that ArriveCan app and follow the steps for an exempt traveller. It only takes a few minutes to do it. It’s really not a big deal. Once you set it up you don’t have to do it again unless you change something. Also, the toll booths only accept plastic.

 

I cross the border five days a week. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

 

Thankful WM was able to get a new fridge for my truck and install it this morning. Sucked eating fast food and drinking warm water, lol! Off to Reno for a Tuesday delivery.

 

Pu a Byhalia to York,Pa.Suppose to be a new lane,drop this tommorrow,than head a hr over to pu coming to the yard.

With any luck I'll beat that storm back.

 

Woke up yesterday morning in Columbus, OH.

Went to bed last night in Columbus, OH.

In between, I put in 614 miles and 10hrs 45min worth of driving.

Load assignment right before completing my delivery to Target in West Jefferson was to pick up a 2-stop Boar's Head load and haul it to Orlando, due Sunday morning.

Made that pick-up this morning and hit the road. Long about Wytheville I noticed that the indicator light for the reefer was in alarm. Pulled into a truck stop, discovered that the unit wouldn't start. And the interior temp for the reefer was 38.5F. If the product goes above 40F, we lose the load. Which is a very spendy thing to happen, to say nothing of the wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments which would accompany losing a whole trailer full of lunchmeat that deli suppliers in Florida are waiting for.

Called Breakdown. Explained the urgency of my situation. Was told that I had to take it to the closest Thermo King dealership, which was located 78 miles away.

Explained that if I did that, we would lose the load because the trailer wouldn't stay below 40F that long.

Was told to take the trailer to Complete Truck Service in Wytheville, which is kinda-sorta-but-not-really Abilene's shop in Wytheville. They're half a mile away from our Wytheville yard, and they do a lot of work for us since the Wytheville yard doesn't have a shop of its own.

Got there, discovered they were closed. Apparently everybody that works there has COVID.

Discussed things with Breakdown again. Mentioned that there was a Speedco just a bit further down the road. First words out of the dude's mouth (and I am becoming accustomed to hearing this from Knight breakdown) were "I don't think they can fix that."

Like dude, we're about to lose a trailer full of product. How about we give it a freakin' shot?

I convinced him to give it a freakin' shot, and posted up at the Speedco service desk explaining my situation. They shrugged and said "Sure, why not? We can at least try to jump start it. But if it's anything that requires an actual repair, we won't be able to do anything." And they indicated that I should pull into Bay 3.

And while they were back there pressing buttons and attaching the battery charger to the unit, my phone rang. It was someone from the Abilene shop. Apparently Breakdown had called Joe at the shop and explained that I was at Speedco and also explained that Speedco couldn't fix it. So the shop was calling me to tell me to cancel whatever it was that Speedco was doing and just get to Thermo King as quickly as possible. Okay, whatever.

And as I stood at the service desk waiting for the guy in front of me to finish his business so I could convey the cancellation to Speedco, I heard the reefer fire up. They'd managed to jump start it.

We cleverly set it to continuous, so that it wouldn't shut off and thus run the risk of not starting again. Temps started going down towards the set point and away from the danger zone. And I rolled out and headed towards the Thermo King dealership in Roanoke so they could effect more permanent repairs. Reefer was operational the entire way.

Arrived at 5:03. Discovered that they shut and bar the doors at 5:00. A swarm of cars and pick-up trucks was flying past me out of the driveway as I pulled in. Service guy had to call one of 'em and tell 'em to turn around and come back. Then he informed me that because it was after 5:00pm, they would have to charge me the additional fee for an emergency call. Since I am not at all bothered by spending Abilene's money, I told 'em that was fine. Not that I have any actual say in the matter, but it's almost certainly cheaper than losing that whole trailer full of product.

Turned out to be a bad battery.

And now we'll see if I can make on-time delivery on Sunday from here behind the 8-ball.

 

I can't fault the guy on the other end of the Breakdown phone in this case. He took it seriously and was trying to find a solution.

Problem is (and I've run into this before): He will literally get in trouble, possibly even written up, if he sends me to someplace that charges Knight money for a diagnostic but can't actually fix the issue. I blame the chucklef**ks who came up with that policy, not the dude answering the phone.

Fortunately for him, Speedco said they weren't gonna charge me to jumpstart the reefer.

Was a lot better back in the old days before Knight bought us. We called our breakdown, they found the nearest shop that could fix whatever it was that needed fixing, and sent us over there (or sometimes sent them over to us). They weren't limited to official dealerships and Business Partners. Miss those days. Of all the things that have occurred since we got bought, this is the one I like the least.