Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

This truck is making a liar out of me. Since I emptied out late Wed afternoon, I have turned 2110 miles. I am currently sitting in Rawlins, WY at the J. (1346 of that in the last 2 days)...and it looks like I will indeed be able to turn over 4025 miles in 8 days in this thing. I have been doing a lot of forced downshifting to make it pull better, but my fuel MPG's have dropped from 7.6 to 7.1. So much for the advantages of an aero truck for improved mileage, I was getting better than this at Wy-Moore in my brick shaped Mack pulling an open deck glass trailer(With the help of an APU)

 

Yesterday, I felt like a slacker after only turning 639 miles. (After the previous 2 days were 678 and 683 miles). Made it to Ontario, OR from Halifax, NC in 4 days. The change from letting this truck do the thinking to not letting this truck think for itself on delayed downshifting and not downshifting on every down grade has made a difference in my average mph. Now a 34, and a 7.5 hr hop to the other side of OR, and I will have done what I thought wasn't possible...4000+ miles in a 65 mph under powered truck in 8 days (actually in 6.5 days considering 1.5 days of the 8 is me doing a restart). On one hand, it will make my DM happy that he doesn't have to repower or reschedule the delivery, on the other, it proves him wrong about his opinion about running recap hours being the most productive way to run. This 8 day stretch, with loading time, fueling time, inspection time and drive time will have taken around 74-75 hours. So, without a reset, it would have been Wednesday before I made it.

 

Found something new on this truck yesterday. Auto-dimming high beams. When I 1st used my brights a few days ago, I noticed I had 2 blue high beam indicators. One was the normal blue, the other was just a blue outline and had an 'A' in the middle... At the time, I guessed that meant those were the a-hole lights that seat warmers flash you with when you pass them. But really, it really means automatic. I tried to use them coming across WY yesterday. And when a vehicle approached from the other direction, before I could dim them myself, it dimmed them automatically. Of course, it dimmed them automatically when I approached an illuminated overhead sign, and when I approached one of the illuminated variable speed limit sign...and when I was miles away from those 200' tall area lights at some of the interchanges, and there is no way to disable it. Basically, Freightliner has screwed up the ability to use your high beams unless the truck deems it necessary. If I were a trucking company owner, Freightliner would be the last truck brand I would ever buy, they have moved to the top of my 'worst truck ever' list, surpassing the Maxxfarce powered Prostar. The last model Cascadia was called the Evolution. This model should be called the Epic - Model F (for Epic Fail)

 

This is what the new trucks make me feel like