If you had to choose.....

Just wonderin'....

As a company driver, if said company "guarantees" X amount of miles, how do they actually back up that guarantee e.g. if they don't give you the opportunity for the miles, do they still pay you? I can put poo in a box and slap a guarantee on it, but it is still just poo in a box.

 

They pay you what your guaranteed miles would add up to. so if your guaranteed was 3,000 and you only got 2,300 that week, they would still pay you for 3,000.
it's a way of keeping up driver retention and insuring that you're not just sitting in the a box with another guy to find out how it feels to be in a north Vietcong prison camp

 

Buy 2 trucks, go broke twice as fast and be twice as happy!

 

To a point. If you don't take the time to properly maintain them, don't clean your DPF when it's due, don't change your DEF filters, piss or put diesel fuel in the DEF tank, then yes.. it's a nightmare. But, that being said, I personally wouldn't own one of these trucks without having a laptop and the software for that engine, and that's not really compatible with a lease purchase. I would check my fault codes - both active and inactive - daily, as that's the best way to troubleshoot and anticipate aftertreatment system problems. Of course, when you lease, it's the company's truck still, and that ECM will be password protected - and they're not going to give you that password. And yeah, you don't need the master password to check faults on some engines, but hooking up the computer still leaves a fingerprint of sorts, and if they find that going on outside of what they authorize, they'll likely terminate a contract for that, even if you don't change any of the speed, engine RPM, idle shutdown, etc. settings.

 

Will never ever ever ever ever drive team again in my lifetime. *shudder*

I'm not condoning your first option either, in fact I'd probably run from it. Just sharing my experience. Best of luck.

 

I'd give you 10 thanks, if I could.

I hear a lot of guys on here, A LOT, speaking about how awful it is having an emissions controlled engine and it drives me nuts. These guys are throwing DEF in their fuel, and fuel in their def, completely ignoring maintenance intervals and think of the thing as a wrench free stand alone system. It's not.

I will agree with them on one thing: `09-`11 engines suck ###. I've had a few, they're awful. '12-'13 seems to have most of the bugs ironed out of them.

(This huge battle against EGR is getting old. And it, as well as DPF systems, are necessary to reduce the emissions of heavy vehicles. Sorry guys, party's over.)

 

The company is not going to back up anything. They can guarantee all they want but but they are not bound by any laws. Unless you have a collective bargaining agreement (union), the company can say what they want but not follow thru. In OTR trucking, you are a right to work employee. Basically, they make you feel like they are the end all, be all company. Once you sign the dotted line, they can make up anything they want.

The recruiters can promise the sky and you can end up in dirt. You have no recourse.

Welcome to the world of junk OTR companies.