CRETE - A Year in Review

Ride on, by AC/DC, the trucker anthem, good choice.

 

Good luck man! I've held off applying, but that may change after a chat with wifey this weekend.

 

I only found out today that on the Prostar if you put the key in accessory and push the work light for 6 seconds, it starts an automatic cycle of all the lights for the pre-trip. I tried it and love it. Something I've heard but don't know if it's true is that there is some type of way to set the truck so when the battery AC dies, the truck starts up automatically (not talking about Opti-idle). Is this true? Thanks

 

They had that option on the 'pre-battery pack a/c' units. It was the same as opti-idle, but with Cummins it was called Icon. Once the battery packs were units were bought, they eliminated that option and just let us idle when we need to charge the batteries.

 

Does anyone know what the miles are you have to run in order to get a raise?

 

It is in the neighborhood of 121,000.

 

Snacky I just picked up a new Prostar + Eagle, 15L and am taking it to a dealer up in Canada. It is one beautiful truck and runs great. Sometimes I think the problems with them, and the other manufactureres is that the customer bogs them down so much that they cant run out like they should. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Crap, er Crete opened up the RPMs and set the trucks to 75...

 

I think you just got lucky unless it's a 13L issue. Mine will wind up higher than the old Century Detroits would. I have talked to many other Prostar drivers from other companies and from several dealerships that say that the stuttering issue is a common problem, and nobody knows how or why it does it let alone how to fix. The forced progressive shifting and the OnGuard is an option that Crete has chosen to have turned on, so those issues are Crete related(and other companies that choose those options have similar issues). Plus I still can't get the 'change engine oil' message to stay gone. I follow the procedure in the International PDF... Within 5 minutes, it's back. Even when an International dealer's Maxxforce mechanic tried with and without the laptop, it wouldn't stay gone. They also said that shortly after 100k expect the EGR cooler to go bad. The 13L's have major issues with those as well. It may be like the old 12.7 Series 60 Detroits...when they 1st added egr, nothing but problems. When they up'd the displacement to 14.1, most of the issues were solved...so maybe these little leafblower engines were doomed from the start. I am also starting to hear a new noise from the engine. Under mid-upper rpm, under full boost, I am hearing a high pitched wheeze. I can't tell if it is a bearing going in a turbo, or a leak in one of the pressure lines running from the turbo(s) to the A2A. Doesn't happen all the time, but has done it many times in the last 10 days. But this truck has seriously put me off ever owning, or avoiding driving another Maxxforce International. Give me a Freightliner 'Buttugly' any day.

 

Well, this week was a bit of a letdown after several decent weeks. If they don't find me a short same day delivery then I will end up with a little over 2300 for the week. And I heard those negative curse words a lot this week (we're xxx loads short for this area already). That was a real short burst of busy business. I'm trying to keep my hopes up for next week...I hope it wasn't just the carrot of hope being dangled before me so I fall off the cliff again. And brrrrrrrrrr. I stopped in Brooklyn, IA last night...49 degrees in mid August.

 

I'm at home until Tuesday. Stopped on Spartanburg yesterday to drop my empty trailer (I just don't have a good place to park one for that long) and bobtailed home.

However, before heading home, I had a nice conversation with Leeann at the S'burg terminal about the way things have gone of late for me, and she was very helpful in providing some background info to me...at least made me feel like I wasn't the only one going through what I was going through with the same cast of characters. In a nutshell, apparently my AM is still having a little trouble with the "planning at least a few days before" part of the job in general, not just with one or two drivers. Long story short, Leeann gave me a few pointers in dealing with this, specific to my set of circumstances and generally talked me off the cliff.
I'm really gonna miss her when they shut down that yard in a month or so....

I also re-ran my numbers for the first six months, and I'm not as far behind my goal as I thought I was...somehow I left out a week somewhere in my figuring. So, if I can keep running and minimize the breakdowns in the coming months, I should be OK.

Y'all have a safe weekend if you're out. I've got too much to do at home, but it still feels good to be here.