Team starting out with US Xpress

Running across Nebraska last night just past North Platte I got an amber engine light. Not flashing and no info on the computer. Then about 15 minutes later another warning light came on and this one said "Check Engine" so I pulled off in Ogallala at the TA and ran an engine diagnostic on the computer and I had two different fault codes. I call breakdown and they were great, he determined it was the regen system that was not operating and we tried to reset it two times to no avail. He told me I needed to get it fixed or the truck would shut down when it got to a stage 4 alert. He set up repair in North Platte at a dealer. I sent a message to my fleet manager to arrange for a repower and then I called Fedex to let them know the load was going to be delayed. Got a message back on the Driver Tech that due to our location, a repower would likely take some time. We went to sleep and I called in this morning. My FM was not in today and the guy who answered was losing it. No way to really describe accurately but he needs to relax or he will have a stroke. He was not a jerk, just a drama queen. Had not read messages from last night so had no idea about the repower and nothing had been done. He found a team in Colorado that was heading to Budweiser in Fort Collins and redirected them to us. They arrived ahead of schedule and grabbed the trailer at 1:30 in the afternoon. So we made new friends today. Tim and Amy are another husband/wife team and they have been with USX for three years. They have a 2011 Cascadia with the 10 speed also and love it. It gave us a chance to see how they have it set up and I think hanging the microwave and refrigerator under the upper bunk with straps was a pretty creative solution. We had a VERY lazy morning. I called the dealer for the repair and they told me Friday was the first they could get it in. Breakdown was going to have us towed back to North Platte but I suggested I try to drive it since we were not yet experiencing any performance issues. No problem with the drive at all so we stopped at Walmart to restock the pantry and then swung by the dealer to confirm the appointment. They told me they will get it in Thursday afternoon (much better) so we headed out to the Flying J for the evening. Talked to a Mike and Peggy who are a team we met at Tunnel Hill with 17 years under their belt (Mike is the one who "helped" us get the new truck since he knows everybody). They were on I-80 and going past North Platte in about an hour. We just had a great dinner with them at a steak house in town (having a bobtail opens up restaurant possibilities) and sent them on their way to Sacramento. Would rather be making money but I am still loving my job, specially the people we are meeting.

 

Cannot wait until it is done. Sitting in a hotel hoping tomorrow will mean we can be back on the road,

 

It was only towed 2 miles down a secondary road

 

Just called Nebraska Truck Center and they are putting my truck back together. Called my FM, took a shower and we are checking out of the hotel to go pick her up. Ready to make some money. Now they just need to find us a load. I suspect we will be bobtailing in the snow. Not fun.

 

Thank you for caring. Freeway looks pretty good right now. They are a tad slippery. About 1/3 of my training time was on snow with Super Singles. Can get a little scary. Waiting on a load right now.