My journey at Landstar

Truck was done at Pittsburgh Power Wednesday morning about 10am, I purposely booked a heavy load of skidded steel coils out of Butler, Pa. 44500lbs in the box going to Bland, Va.. Ran across I79, US19, and I77, normally that heavy across there I would drop three gears pulling those hills, I just dropped into 9th and had plenty of power, totally different truck. The fuel economy seems to be still pretty decent, the next week or two will give me some better numbers.

I had them also do a MD alignment since I just put 8 new drives on, and will be putting new steers on within the month. They did a pressure test and found two boost leaks, overhead, and the diesel force cleaning.

 

Everything I had done cost me just North of $6000.00. When I made the appointment I was quoted $5500.00, but I had an alignment added, repaired a couple boost leaks they found during the pressure test, and fixed a small air leak I found that morning during my pre trip.

 

Lumpers are usually reimbursed or paid with a com check. Agents have agreed to reimburse me if I sent them a receipt if a paid with a credit card or cash.

 

So the infamous part shortages that’s affecting different parts of our economy has hit me. I was driving across US23 yesterday out of Virginia when my DEF system started acting up and throwing codes. I managed to make it to Louisa, Kentucky before it started derating the engine.

I had just been reading a thread on TTR the other day about this nationwide back order on these DEF level sensors.

As luck would have it there was a dealership that services all makes and models, I pulled in and they hooked the laptop up, sure enough the DEF level sensor is the culprit. The average wait time for this $172.00 part is 3 to 4 WEEKS. So after calling around to several dealerships trying to locate the part to no avail, and being told by Rush truck centers that in their dealership network alone they have 1034 trucks sitting waiting on this same part.

I decided to rent a car (which in itself, isn’t easy as before, the rental fleets sold off huge numbers of their fleets last year when no one was traveling) so I booked a car out of Huntington, WVa for tomorrow, and will head home and wait for this part to show up.

After researching the issue with this part, what appears to be causing these failures is the way the heater control valve is sticking open, basically cooking these sensors in the warmer months. The dealership in Kentucky has the part on critical back order along with my dealer in Charlotte. From this point forward I will keep an extra DEF sensor in the truck.