Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

This is for home

 

You're gonna hate this then...in Jackson, GA and, to use a Phil Collins album reference, No Jacket Required

 

Got to my delivery in McDonough on time. I took off as early as I could out of central KY, anticipating morning rush problems around Atlanta, but other than slowing down to get on and off the bypass, I kept it on the floor the whole time. In and out of customer without any problems, then to the truckstop with a little over 1.5 on my 70. Heading to Austel tomorrow to pick up a load to south FL that they want me to put on the train in Jacksonville...once I drop it in Jax, my butt is heading to da haus. Since I have only taken 1 day at home since before Thanksgiving, this has been a looooooong tour this time.

 

His HOA dues need to be paid somehow. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

 

I think my 40 day + tours of duty at Shaffer are gonna take a hiatus for bit. This truck idles more than any other. I was thinking that it was because I was in a lot if single digit and low teen temps. But it isn't. I started getting a 'chk engine' light a lot this week, and it stays idling with a fault code on the PN that only reads 'special instructions' and a SPN & FM code that has something to do with the ecm not shutting down properly. The reason I have decided that I am gonna go home more often, I got a message from the Deland Assistant FM earlier this week that, to me, sounded like I was being yelled at for my high idle time last week(professionally of course) and that I am expected to have idle time at or around the rest of the Deland fleet. I responded in a very typical snackbar way...pretty much how a bear would respond to being poked with a sharp stick. The gist of my reply was, ''were most of the Deland drivers in single digit temps with below 0 wind chill, and I don't choose when this truck idles, in order to run my bunk heater, it has to be on opti-idle, and in opti-idle it chooses when it wants to run or not...and if he'd like me to clean this truck out so he can put a noobie or a trained monkey in it, tell me by Friday because I am going home for some R&R after almost 2 months on the road, it would be a perfect time, because, unlike those of you who drive a desk here, a driver with 3+ million miles can pretty much find a job just like this any time, probably with more driver friendly equipment"...his reply was less intimidating, more along the lines of "I was just doing my job of bringing your idle time to your attention". Which gave me an opening to say that "I don't need to be updated, I know how to check my idle, my MPG, my own hours...all without anyone in the office doing a thing. And I know that there is a problem with this truck causing it to idle, along with a laundry list of other problems I've been dealing with but right now, making up for the unpaid week off when we swapped 2 trucks is a higher priority to me than sitting in a shop for non-DOT problems with another defective piece of equipment. And that, I left 7 yrs ago because of low miles, junk equipment, and excessive micromanaging...right now, the only improvement I've seen is my AM keeps me abundantly productive between breakdowns...the other 2 are as bad, if not worse than when I left the last time"...and this was all before the transmission manual shifting started giving me problems... I didn't hear another word the rest of the week from him...but I think he got the point that, other than miles, the snackbar campground isn't the best place to be right now.

 

I google searched off and on for the shifter problems I have had with both of these DT12's, and have come up empty. It has me thinking, perhaps it's a setting in the system for non-compliance. By that I mean, I don't comply with the nanny b.s. warning that pops up when it thinks you're getting too close to someone. Like every professional driver out here, I base my following distance on the usuals (traffic volume, road/weather conditions, weight of the load, type of vehicle I am following etc.) When approaching a line if cars, I usually start backing off well before the system does if I let it do it's thing because, unlike it, when it's smaller vehicles, I can see what the vehicles ahead of the rear car are doing and adjust to them. If I am behind a truck, I back off more simply because I can't see thru him. Yes, when following cars, I follow closer than the ##### box likes, but still well off the back vehicle, and I have 0 hard braking events in any of the vehicles I have been assigned to...which results in the 'distance warning' message popping up on the dash screen, which I clear with the go-back button...every 10 seconds, beep...clear...beep...clear. it's beep threshold is 250'. At 249' feet, it beeps, at 250' it doesn't. Any further back, and you may as well either put it in reverse and back up, or park it because, as we all have experienced, the more room you give, the more cars jump in front of you, then you have to keep backing off. Maybe, it keeps track of all the non-compliant warnings and turns off the forced up/down shift option. Sorta like Volvo had for MPG's where a company could set it up so if the driver got above a certain MPG that it would increase the governed speed of the whole truck or cruise. Maybe because I ignore it's #####ing, it's showing me who's boss and trying to force me to comply.