Heartland Express is doing good

Thanks Truthin, Will keep in touch start 4 weeks on training on Monday. Your thread has given me good information. Have a good week. You continue to be safe also.

 

Have a good one Jae, and good luck with the new carrier. I hope it works out as well or better than expected.

I am just home from Vacation and now get to do the whole find a truck and get to a truck thing. Not my favorite thing to do.
I turned in a truck that had a few minor interior issues, that it had when I got it. And it took me several months to get all the emission issues fixed on it. But it had been running great for several months, and it had very low idle times.
Now I get to do the luck of the draw and hope I get lucky. Once they find me one.
Sitting at the house for now, waiting for a direction of travel. So they can find me a ride to wherever I need to go.

 

Thanks Chrome,
I know that feeling, had the same problem after I recovered a tractor in Louisville KY. Stopped in Iowa City for fuel, on Saturday Memorial Day weekend, and they took it away from me because of codes, which couldn't get rest.
The one they gave me only ran 60 MPH I couldn't make delivery in Lakeland FL.
They picked the load up from me in Valdosta GA, I B/T to Jacksonville, and then went to the dealer down there on Tuesday to "reset the idle", and fix the steering wheel which was "off center" couldn't read the gauges, while driving.
I found out it had 42 hrs. of idle time from the previous driver. 4460 "maxforce"
My point was it should have been "reset when it was in for service and the steering column re centered before it was issued to me ?
I lost a day cause they also forced me to log my time to the dealer for repairs which left me without time to move on my 14 hr. clock, with a load, when I returned to Jacksonville.
I told my fleet mgr. "if you expect me to make schedule, then I need equipment that's going to run". (The Safety Dept. made that call)
Seems the shop personal don't always follow up on what there suppose to do, and in the end you loose revenue going to the dealer for the repairs.
I share this with you, so you don't get in the same bind if the tractor idle isn't set right.
Make them get you into a dealer then hand you that story of "wait till you get to a service terminal".
My 1st day of field training, lots to learn in delivery of hydrogen at 460 degrees below zero...!
Good Luck, Keep Safe

 

Heartland:
Rarely any loads bigger than 350 miles. They are a medium haul company.
If you get a 700 mile load on your peoplenet, it will be changed after you accept the load so that it's routed to the nearest terminal.
All the time you spent scaling and balancing that load will be for the next guy.
Once you're at a terminal, you'll wait in line for 4 hours, to get inspected. You cannot just go to the break room. You have to stay in your truck and move up, every time another guy passes inspection. Tedius, unpaid, BS. Rather than wasting 20 drivers time, they should hire a yard-dog like every other terminal does, nope. You're the yard-dog. If you don't have an MT, you have to find any trailer on the lot, even a loaded one w/ a seal that's laying about, and pick it up, and inspect it for Heartland. Only after it's inspected may you then wash it (mandatory), then park it, then go driving around looking for an MT so you can start making some money.
If you're smart, you'll get in line early, right? No. Everyone gets in line early. You still have to wait.
You actually get routed to the terminal alot. You'll often pick up a short load, just to take it to the terminal. Then guess what? Wait in line.

Peoplenet uses cell-phone signals to communicate w/ the dispatcher. It never goes out of range, even in remote areas. The transmitter is located 3" under where you sleep at night.

Home-time never just takes you through your home, along the way. You always have to drive an extra... 30 or so miles, unpaid, to get home. You would think, with a K-mart account, you'd be able to get home pretty much directly. Incentive to not go home? That's what I hear.

Get this! No layover pay unless you sit for 8 hours!!! If you have a nice dispatcher, he may choose to give you a heartland cares pay to make up for it, but it's limited to about $40, or so. Some drivers never get it. Some dispatchers always give it, but they have to fight w/ management for it. Sound fair for being stuck at a yard for 7 hours? And most yards know this, so they will load you last. You'll actually spend many 5 hour load/unloads at yards, because the companies load fastest, those trucking companies that actually charge detention pay, & since Heartland doesn't, tough luck. This also makes you late to your other loads.

Often, when you have loads, it will be rushed & you won't have time to pee or eat. That truly sucks. I hate it when companies do that. It's OK every now & then, but dispatchers rush drivers to fill up their 14 hours.

That's another thing. You'll always work a full 14/13 hour day, and because of all the short runs, you'd be lucky to get in 420 miles. That's the average.
Now compare that with a company that actually gives you decent loads. 11 hours of driving, maybe a 40 minute break in between. Sure, the pay will be less, but that's more like 550 miles of driving and you're more likely to be able to sleep every night, at night.

With a 14 hour work schedule, aint happening. It doesn't really matter though, cause what HL does is run you till your 70 is up, and never do a 36 hour reset OTR. Once that's up, you almost always have to wake up at midnight and do some short run, & then you have to sleep in the day with no idle, in the heat. It was once 98 degrees inside my truck, and the truck still wouldn't idle. I tried all the tricks. I know them all. Their new prostars will NOT let you idle for more than about 5 minutes, then it shuts off. You cannot sleep in daylight like that. They schedule you so you have to sleep in the day, all the time, but you cannot idle in the day, so you're going to be driving tired a lot. Many nights in a row of that, and you're an accident waiting to happen. Plus it's unhealthy. That's just sick if you ask me. Screw Heartland for that BS, but that's not all.

Do you like driving through DC, & NJ & through the boroughs? You'll get plenty of time up there w/ Heartland. They will send you straight to NY long Island and keep you there, sometimes. You'll get plenty of time stuck in that dead-end traffic up there. They will give you appointment times that put you in those areas in rush-hour. No compensation. They don't give a crap. Then, once you've brought your short load through the other end of the traffic nightmare areas, then they will relay your load onto another driver, so he can get the good miles, and send you back. Why? Who knows, you had plenty of time to deliver the load on time.

Oh, how about when you break down? If you have a blown tire, or are broke down for any reason, you have to call their understaffed breakdown dept. You will be put on hold for at least 15 mins. Sometimes an hour. Sometimes several hours with repeated call backs. Sometimes they put you on hold & wait 20 mins & then just hang up on you. Repeat. Think I'm joking. No. Then you complain to the dispatcher that they aren't answering & dispatcher tells you that you have to call them back & take care of it. Unpaid. kiss your cell phone minutes goodbye. They require you to call your dispatcher often, so you can get a verbal dispatch. Then you have to call another guy about the same load. You have to call 2 people just to accept a lousy 250 mile load. This happens a lot. Count on it happening about every day. It might not be so bad, except for the fact that as soon as you call him, you get put on hold. Maybe 15 minutes later he will answer, or someone else will answer, only to put you on hold again! This is heartland. I swear I'm not making that crap up. He could have just sent you the load info over peoplenet, but... IDK, to save money perhaps, he wants you to CALL HIM instead.

Sound good yet?

That being said, if you're still interested, you'll probably make $1000 every week for the first month. That's your training period. An auditor will call you every week or so & ask how you're doing. You dispatcher doesn't want to get a bad review, so you get good miles for the first month. Then, when your training period is up, you get to sit like most of the other HL drivers. When the heartland drivers complain about sitting, & you have no idea what their talking about, just wait.. give it time. Once your training period is up, you'll know

All that being said, they are probably one of the best companies to work for. The pay is good when they give you miles & it's almost worth it if you don't mind being stuck in rush-hour traffic that much. Almost worth it ---- nahh.

 

"All that being said, they are probably one of the best companies to work for"............

green....no offense, but it sure doesn't sound like one of the best companies!
I think I'll pass on HEARTLAND!

 

I sit in inspection lines when I need service. Or when the line is short. Most of the time that I get to a terminal I will be staying for a break anyway, and will be gone before the bays open.
As for swapping loads out after you put all the work into it. Maybe you need to talk to your dispatcher. Since this rarely happened to me when I was regional. And almost never does now. Sounds to me like you had personal issues with dispatch.

My miles have been fairly consistent for the past 2.5 years. I did get more when I was full regional. But I was also out more often for the weekend. Now I am home every weekend.
The antenna for your people net is in the overhead compartment area on the older prostars. Not sure where they stuck it on the new ones. Have not bothered to look.
I never have connection issues. So this must be a western thing.

On the use of your 14 hours. I prefer to work out my days. I am home weekends. So I get my restarts in. So I plan my days to get the most driving in every day that I possibly can. My dispatcher knows this and does his best to keep me going. I do not sit often. When I have to I know in advance and plan for it. This is normally on one particular auto load.
Breakdown can be a pain. And some loads they have you call to confirm. That really depends on what contract it is. And the region. The only verbals I ever have to give are for auto loads.


Oh. I got my truck. Not too bad. It is one of the newer ones. But just had all the emission crap replaced. So should be good to go for a while.
The last driver idled allot. But the one before that must not have. It is still going 64. And it has been hot the past 2 days. So I am having to idle for my breaks.
And yes. The new trucks will idle. Mine I do not even have to wait for the light and push the clutch for bypass. It is automatic. When the temp is high it does not shut down.
So the issue that you had was with your particular truck. Not with the fleet. So get the darn thing fixed.
It is pretty bad that the government has made these trucks so bad though. With all this emission crap. They break all the time. If you get 150k on a truck without an emission system issue then count your stars. And be ready. It is on it's way. No way in hell I would ever want to own one of these things.