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

Sitting on the side of I-270, between Frederick, MD and DC, with my 5th trailer tire blowout of the year.

Trailer tire blowouts in the first 8 years of me driving for Abilene: 2
Trailer tire blowouts in the calendar year of 2025: 5

Not a fan of our new "retread only" policy for trailer tires.

This load is gonna be late now, too. Hopefully the "retread only" policy is worth it.

 

Their retreads are low quality..my company uses retreads and i can’t remember the last time i blew one…knight being super cheap isn’t cheap at all when road svc calls are nonstop

 

After my 34 was up I picked up a paper load in West Point to Chattanooga which I delivered this morning and was a little late since I got pulled in for a level three at the scale in Tn on I81. He said he passed me cuz I was able to send my logs without him having to do it himself, lol! Deadheaded me to Volvo for a York which Ill drop Sat. Betting they setting me up with that OBX load again since everybody else seems to end up in the ditch there. Definitely a dumpster fire here lately….

 

After I got my trailer tire replaced, I headed to Wegman's in Ashland to drop the trailer. It was an hour and change late, but they didn't seem too put out by it. Didn't figure they would be.

Follow-up assignment was to grab an empty off of Wegman's lot, drive just a few miles down the road to the paper mill in Ashland, pick up a load of paper stock, to be delivered in Ruffs Dale, PA.

Unfortunately, my day of dealing with trailer problems had not ended with the repair of my blowout on the side of the road in Maryland. The only empty trailer they had available was missing both mudflaps.

So I schlepped the trailer back to the yard to have them replace the mudflaps, whereupon we discovered that there was more wrong on the trailer than just the mudflaps. I was so focused on the obvious problems that I missed the fact that the front axle was missing the TIS machinery. Steady stream of air coming out of both hubs.

Red-tagged the trailer, miraculously found another empty on the yard, schlepped it back to Ashland, arrived an hour late for pick-up, didn't get loaded for another two hours, and then spent the night at the TA in Ashland.

Got up a couple hours early this morning to make on-time delivery in Ruffs Dale. Only loads they had available to keep me rolling today had 11:00pm pick-up times, which I was uninterested in doing given that it would mean me staying awake for 20+ hours. So they put a PetSmart load on me for tomorrow. Preloaded trailer, picks up in Bethel, PA. Due to be ready at 5:00pm. Will swing by early to see if they have it ready sooner than anticipated. If not, will spend the night at the PFJ the next exit down, and pick it up in the morning. Delivers Monday morning at 7:00. I will be there Sunday afternoon sometime but, having learned my lesson about how they do not want us actually delivering a day early, I will just sit there silently in their dock until Monday morning.

But hey, if they notice that I'm there a day early and they volunteer to unload me early, I ain't gonna say no...

 

Trailer tire blowout #6. That is all.

 

That is more than enough...

 

Being cheap always costs more.. knight can’t figure that out..

 

I keep wondering if there's something I'm doing to cause this. But I'm not doing anything different than what I did the past 8 years. I always check the tires on every trailer I pick up. Thump 'em, look for worn treads, the whole bit.

Maybe my TIS system is inflating 'em too much. I dunno. This just seems really, really odd. Especially since it doesn't seem to be happening to Jarhead or Finfan.

 

Saw an Abilene truck pulling a Knight trailer today up on 80 near Gary Chitcagoland

 

Retreads and heat definitely don’t match. One summer waaaaayyyyyy back in the early aughts I lost 10 in 3 months.

Boss was blaming me, I told him to put virgin rubber on my trailer and he would see the issue and that he was wrong.


He apologized to me. Heat will kill them retreads, I’m not sure if there is a way to adjust the auto inflation system or not tbh.