if the truck is a freightliner cascadia then the engine brake needs to be off when shifting. it evens states that in the owners manual as it can make the engine stall. the cascadia uses a exhaust brake if its a detroit dd15 engine. it would say detroit dd15 on the door
Ok, Just got off of mentor #3's truck yesterday. The truck could probably not pass inspection. There were water leaks and electronics shorting out. Plus it needed new steer tires. Like if it rained I was soaked in the drivers seat. Didn't help in the ice conditions, with the junk running down the inside of the windshield. Get this, I started having to pay to fix the truck to keep running. At that point on this o/o's truck I said enough. Then there was the fact that I was driving on ice up on i80 last week, of which she slept the whole time. I luckily didn't follow any trucks into the ditch. I also just stopped one night due to the black ice. She kept telling me to keep going "I've driven on worse". There were like dozens of vehicles that lost control and a lot of trucks in the ditches too. I decided the hell with her and I'm stopping because, just because I can make it through, it's too risky getting hit by someone else even. Also I was pulling 10-11 hours driving everyday(why I hadn't been posting, 12-14 everyday working) She tried to talk me into falsifying my logs too, but I refused, because I was getting too worn out. That was due to her switching to the 747 division I think apparently while I was on the truck. There was no time for showers really unless I got lucky on one of the rolling reset's. Plus she would complain how she wasn't making enough, and I was running like crazy. I couldn't handle the stress of her. She kept trying to run me out of fuel too. Tried to bribe me to take her little swift o/o test too. I would make the executive decision to put fuel in when it was under 20ºF to idle since there was no wabasto, and the opti idle was broke. So if we got stuck we could stay warm. I still have like 60-70 hours left. and 25 backs. Most of my backs so far are the ones mentors didn't want to do. IE: blindside, night backs. I was told that to finish I may be put on a local target dedicated, which to me sounds kind of cool since I used to work for target. I just hope it goes ok. I got dropped off in kansas city yesterday, and drove back to dallas over night, on my own dime, just because I hadn't been home in a while and didn't want to wait for a bus ticket to send me home monday and get me on a truck on tuesday. I'm going to call tomorrow though and see what I can get lined up with the new mentor.
Yeah that was the combination that the truck before had. Sorry about my late responses though as I was running real hard and had absolutely no time. I guess I could ask what is that 747 division more specifically?
Blue, you might as well face it she is at Swift to stay. Unfortunately every company that trains has bad finishers/trainers/mentors.
I do have to say I like my driver services, and I think he does all that he can. So that's part of why I stay. Plus driving is a dream of mine. I will do what ever it takes. Plus I kind of look forward to getting trained on the refer now. I've really gotten a good grasp on the industry from all these mentors.
I'm sorry to hear about the issues. It's good you're not giving up with swift yet it shows them you actually want to stay with them. Just remember the grass isn't always greener on the otherside. I really hope swift starts cracking down on the bad mentors. I had a good mentor so I'm teaching what he taught me when I have a student on my truck. I can't get a hold of my dm ever because he picked up alot of new drivers that weren't taught anyhting from their mentors. it bugs me because i have legitimit reasons to call him but hes got drivers calling him asking about how do you fill out macro2 and what hours to put for pta. this happens every day it seems like. Just keep at it and hopefully 4th time is the charm.
