Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

The BIT inspection finally got updated into the fmcsa system. My ISS score dropped from 59 to 50, but I still have no safety rating (need a 3rd inspection for that to happen).

I also got an email yesterday from Pacific Financial regarding my claim against the out of business broker:

If they pay out by date of load, I'm unlikely to get anything from the bond (the bond was exhausted 2 weeks after I hauled -- 2 weeks before I could file). If they pay out on a pro-rated basis, my payment is likely to be a tiny fraction of the $4750 owed. Because of the broker's larger size, I'm thinking hundreds of dollars -- maybe even tens -- despite the new $75,000 bond being in place (it only takes 16 loads like mine to exhaust that bond & McKay Transcold was doing that volume in an afternoon at just one of their locations).

At least it is nice to know that they not only accepted my claim, but also stated I should have a valid claim against the shipper. I already mailed the shipper a demand letter -- if they don't respond in a month I'll take them to small claims court where I'll probably win a judgement but still run into hurdles collecting. We'll see...

 

Thanks, fixed...

I would imagine that you could sue the bonding agent for the full amount of the claim and use the discovery process to see how much of the bond they paid to whom.

I've since heard a number of bad things about Pacific Financial -- to the point where I use extra care when using a broker relying on them.

 

Good question. The singles (at 75% tread) are nearly indentical in height to the 50% worn deep lug lp22.5's that came off. Odometer is less than 1% off -- which is what it was before. I haven't used GPS mileage nor do I bother to correct for that <1%. GPS would work best, except I spend a lot of my time rolling putting in different waypoints and forcing it to recalculate routes so I'm sure it misses miles. It also tends to freeze when you look at it wrong. Both are reasons why I still use my odometer for IFTA...

That said, no I haven't noticed an improvement in mpg's yet -- they've actually gone down for a multitude of reasons:

1) Probably the biggest factor is that I wound up moving the terrible rolling resistance lugged recaps to my trailer, replacing the 2-4/32" ribbed tires that were about as low a rr as you could expect... At best the swap was a wash, but it may have actually raised the overall RR. Original plan was the install low Rr tires on the trailer too, but with fuel prices this low it hasn't been a priority and now I'm leaning towards just buying a new trailer this spring.

2) The weather went from lows in the 50's to lows nearly in the negative 50's. I'm not exaggerating:
Cold, dense air is bad for aerodynamics, winter blend fuel has up to 5% less energy, roads are more often wet or slushy (increasing rolling resistance), & I haven't shut the truck off in 4 days (I may have idled 40 hours total in the last 6 months -- done that again in just the last 4 days).

3) I've done a number of expedited loads where I had to drive 62+ vs my normal 55...


Excuses aside, I'm still confident I'll see real results in the spring once the weather breaks & I have a new trailer.


I will say that I have noticed a marked reduction in traction. I'm used to it; at Con-Way Truckload we ran these same drive tires but with only 1 powered axle (tag setup). Still, after being on "normal" tires for ~6 months, I forgot how much you have to pussyfoot with these Xone Energy D's... You notice it when spinning slightly when sliding tandems, when having to feather throttle accelerating up a wet on-ramp, and when clawing for traction up snowy grades.

It may be that low rr dual tires are just as bad. I do know that when I had Xone XDN singles at conway, they were actually pretty good in the wet/snow (but at 140 RR vs 89 for my Xone energy d's).