Stepping Out With My Own Numbers

I said, within the past few months, that by May things would dramatically improve. COVID19 has ruined that. The initial surge is over to refill shelves and volumes are dropping, rates along with it. I think things will become further depressed until next Spring. All indicators point towards another global recession. I think it’s about to get a lot harder to make money. However, a lot of capacity will be removed from the market and next spring we might see a situation like 2017 and 2018 where you could name your price and people would pay it. Again, cash is king, do whatever you can to increase your cash and avoiding making large cash expenditures.

 

I had my first real breakdown Tuesday afternoon. My EGR valve went out. The EGR valve itself was completely clean, no carbon build up. It was a mechanical failure of the valve itself. I had just picked up the load and the broker was losing his mind. Apparently this load was already a day behind and now I was down. He wanted me to take it back to the shipper. I still had some power, so I took it back 10 miles.
Luckily, there was a dealer that could actually work on it. They diagnosed and ordered the part Tuesday, pulled me in as soon as they opened Wednesday, and I was done by 1700. To do the EGR valve they have to take apart the dash, remove the dog house, and remove the passenger seat. Since they had everything apart anyway, I had them do the valve adjustment. It’s due for it and I was going to do it when I get home. May as well do it now and save me a bunch of labor hours. They’d have to disassemble the interior all over again.
In addition to the EGR valve face being clean, the inside of the valve cover and top end had no sludge or varnish buildup, it still looks clean in there. The A26 is running really clean. 302,300 on the engine.