Schneider Chat Room version 2.0

When I left in Jan of 2012, I was at 4 1/2 years current experience, all with SNI, in addition to eight more years before a three-year trucking break. I was at .385 when I left. Yeah, I felt the lack of appreciation as well.

 

I have been looking around on CL and Indeed but too many companies will promise one thing and change it up either when you get to orientation or a couple months down the road. This is what happened with my current company. Left SNI for a "guaranteed" dedicated run 640 miles round trip home everyday off on weekends bringing home $1000 week.. told me the run was permanent knowing it wasn't and it lasted three months!
I know what to expect from SNI from previously working for them and I know they aren't going to screw me over like a lot of companies do just to get you in a truck.

 

I completely agree with you. I started my driving career with sni, then after 2 years started looking for" better" paying work. I ended going to work for a local heavy haul company for a couple months. Was promised about 30% of what the truck made. Ended up only getting paid $17 an hour, never saw a %. I worked about 90 hours per week and made NO overtime, and no benefits. Most paychecks were late.

Now I'm back at sni, making more money, consistent miles, benefits, no pay issues, legal hours and loads, and I very rarely have t o talk to anyone above me.

 

Gotta love this load hubby got. Where's the packing materials?

 

He hauled loose recycling before but never loose gypsum.

 

During my time off, I kept seeing these "up to 63,000 per year, home weekly, off weekends, and only run 5 states" ads for the Salt Lake city OC. Asked my DBL, of course he knows nothing. Asked our recruiter and watch her hit the roof. Even though the ad mentioned her by name and gave her number, she knew nothing about it and admitted that SNI was being veey gratuitous with its ,"Up to". The only thing even close is the 7 on 2 off. She was going to make a phone call and talk with marketing or whomever deals with the ads.

I posted up on Schneider fb page when they had a similar ad like it and told them they were out of line with the finding and they deleted my post

 

So here's my adventure for the day. Please don't make fun of my lack of technical/mechanical knowledge...

On Friday evening when I was parking my truck to start my home time, I noticed a leak under my truck. When I opened the hood, I found two things. First, there was a hose that I never noticed before that was just hanging there profusely leaking what looked and smelled like diesel fuel. Second, I noticed that the reservoir for the fuel/water separator was about 1/2-2/3 full of straight diesel fuel - not diluted in any way. When I tried to drain the reservoir, the level inside didn't change at all. As for the hose, the tech that SEM had come to look at it said it was the coolant overflow hose (maybe it was, I don't know), and that I should just keep an eye on my coolant and make sure that I had extra on hand. He didn't say anything about the fuel/water separator.

Skip ahead to today. The first thing I do whenever I get back to my truck is start the engine so the air pressure will build up and so my Qualcomm can download messages, preassignments, etc. Anyway, after the engine had been running for a few minutes, I noticed that the water in fuel light was on. When I checked the fuel/water reservoir, it was full with undiluted fuel. I called SEM again and was told to take it to the shop about a mile down the road from the Louisville drop yard so they could replace the fuel filter. Well, I was there for about an hour. They changed the filter, and every time they had me start up the truck, things got worse. First, the truck didn't want to start at all, then every time I started it, it would take longer and longer to finally start. Also, not only did the water in fuel light stay on, but the yellow check engine light came on, and 2 fault codes related to water in fuel lit up on my display. The shop said it was fine (probably because they were supposed to close in like 5 minutes), so I drove back to the Louisville yard and called SEM again. This time, they told me to take the truck to a shop in Jeffersonville, IN, tomorrow morning, and the shop probably won't get to me until Thursday. I decided to just go back home and I'll take the truck in tomorrow as instructed. Now I'm gonna have to beg for a loaner truck so I can actually work this week. The fun never stops!

 

The fuel/water separator has a filter inside, as the filter becomes clogged the fuel level will rise up the filter to a cleaner area of the filter. Once the fuel level inside the glass housing reaches 3/4 or so of the way up the filter then its time for a filter change. The housing is supposed to have straight fuel in it. Every so often you need to drain the water out (nozzle at the bottom). Usually you only need to drain at the most is 1/4 cup. You never ever ever ever ever want to drain more then 1 cup of fuel out at once. If you drain too much fuel out you'll lose the prime which becomes a huge pain in the ads to regain, a giant pain in the ### if you have to take the injectors out to clear the air out of the system (not sure about Detroit's, never had to prime the fuel system in one.)

Don't know about the leaking hose but it sounds to me like you drained way too much fuel out of hour water separator and lost prime, that's why it's hard to start and probably, engine light is coming on. Someone at some point should have told you how a water separator works in orientation.