CRETE - A Year in Review

I park in battle ground, cost 65 a month but its secure and ten mins from the house, how long you been living up there?

 

You guys that live in the Or Wa area..do you have any problems in getting home or out?

 

It can be tough at times but have to communicate with ops, I know I can get home from Utah, California, Georgia. Other places are hit and miss, comming out not usually a big deal, pick up paper most times, sometimes acoustic tile.

 

Does Crete allow inverters in the trucks? If so, how big? Are you able to run a microwave of fridg.? I understand that here are no APU's anymore.

 

You can have up to a 400 watt invertor. This isnt big enough to run a microwave. You can get a 1000 watt invertor for a microwave with a Drs note and the cost is $1,000 for install...dont know if that includes the price of the invertor.

 

I pm'd you about that.

 

My extensive one year experience has been excellent when I have wanted to be home. Haven't had to be home exactly at a given moment. Fact is I asked for before Christmas, but they missed and I was home for Christmas. Oh well, thank my luck stars. Seriously, very satisfied.

 

Does Crete still have any APU's on the trucks? Do they allow inverters in the tractors? If not, how do you power you fridge or microwave?

 

there are a few old century class Freightliners still out there w/apu's... Only 1 year of Freightliners had them. From that point on, we have been opt-idled Cascadias for a short period, then we have gone to all battery powered hvac(no idle needed). You are only allowed to have a 400 watt max inverter(the biggest that can plug in - no direct wired inverters). The only exception is if you have a 'doctor perscribed' special dietary need, then you must pay Crete's shop to install a hard wired inverter into your truck so you are able to use a microwave/fridge. They WON'T just allow anyone to pay to have one installed, it has to be a 'medically required diet' specially ordered by a doctor before they will do it. The only fridges you can have are any that plug into a 12v outlet, which are usually just a thermo-electric type like a cooler, not a compressor type unless you can afford a $400+ 12v type that they have advertised in the various trucking mag's. The average driver here isn't allowed to have an inverter large enough to power a small 'dorm size' fridge or microwave. This is where the hypicriticle part of my opinion comes from. This place forces drivers that are over a certain weight to go thru sleep apnea testing, but if the average driver would like to do what they can to eat healthy and lose weight without breaking the bank by eating food prepared in his/her truck...then they won't allow the necessary appliances to be installed so they can do that. Sure they love their drivers...(the rest of the phrase isn't publicly advertised, but must go like 'we love our drivers...to get in, sit down, shut up and only do what we tell them to, and to ONLY do it how we tell them to do it)

 

This sounds like almost ALL the big companies out there. It's the only reason I would consider a lease.