Do you know how to work on your truck?

I’ve done my fair share of turning my own wrenches on the road, at home late at night etc, it’s to point now that I toss a coin if I should do it or my mechanic/shop after being in this business 45 years plus. I have that small reserve for such things.

 

I got way more out of my training at Deere and CAT than I ever would’ve tech school. But I had the desire to learn. Case in point the dealer I worked at at Deere sent a guy to Ag tech 2 years of 100 percent John Deere only school. Dumb as a bag of hammers. Granted the principal or theory of operation is all he was sent there to learn. There is no replacement for hands on experience once you have the how it works basics in your head. But what do I know I’m just a simpleton in a 1 bay shop that was trucking full time till February. Maybe that’s why I have CATs from Alberta coming to Arkansas

 

Hey now,don't be hating on us hammer mechanics. LMFAO

 

I hate dealer training with a passion. Most of it is irrelevant crap. I don't care what the model number denotes or any of that sales fluff. I usually forget most of what's in the class by the next week. Give me the service manual and I'll get it fixed or if no manual I'll still figure it out.

 

Lol, was in South Dakota if that explains it.

 

There’s only a couple places to get rock and a couple places to get sand. Every concrete plant and every road construction project is fed from those places. They can gross 200k on 20 axles.

 

Must be soft ground out there?

 

A lot of dirt and not much to hold it all together.

 

Hi El, I think you are giving the modern driver a bit more credit than need be. Trucks, and cars, for that matter, have gotten have gotten to the point, a driver doesn't need to have anything but a working cell phone. Thanks to someone, yeah, 40 years, not 30. Everybody then worked on their trucks. It was an occupation that catered to the monkey wrench, almost a pride thing, I can get it back to the yard, and the accolades for doing so. Most bosses were grateful they didn't have to call a service truck, and you actually had to use your noggin to figure out how. If a repair needed a tool, you went and got one. Like I say, it was one step up from a farm tractor. Well, farmer Brown is pumping septic tanks now, and practically anyone, as shown, will be able to operate a truck. If it fails, that CDL crap you were supposedly supposed to memorize, does little, if any good.I truly believe, on vehicles in the future, there will be no hood release, windshield washer inside, ( like the old days) and a sticker "For service, see dealer, you have no business under the hood". Probably void a warranty opening it. It's a different time, pal, and I drive a 1991 Jeep Wrangler, as kind of a middle finger to the industry.

 

True it’s a different time, but trucks are still trucks. Farm tractors in a lot ways have way more technology than trucks at this point. Same with construction equipment. Yet people still manage to fix them. Often in the field.

I love old trucks. I can sit and look and talk about them all day. But let’s be honest they were less dependable and required more maintenance. Even when they were new. Technology isn’t all bad. The guys who really talk #### about new trucks do it because they don’t understand the technology and they are afraid of it. It’s a machine built by man. With proper knowledge and tools it can be fixed by man.

The part of trucking that hasn’t changed is that if you rely on road service, and farming all your work out everyone else will make money except you. I’m not here to feed everyone else’s kids