The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

Looks like we got things worked out and will be staying for awhile longer here lol. but did get called into marshfield office over "looking" lol

 

Blew a Leveling valve today on the truck, that was fun running on 4 flat air bags lol... limped to lebo,ks to get fixed, got lucky and got in at the TA pretty fast.. $215.49 later back rolling sitting in Medicine Lodge,KS for 0700 delivery tomorrow.

 

Anyone (maybe Preacher Man) know what it cost to get a "PM Service" done on the APU at ThermoKing?

 

What did I miss? I knew they didn't like the fact you were taking extra time at home, but I didn't realize things had gotten to the point you were looking to leave.

Tomorrow I get my fourth new dispatcher in less than a year. I know I can be difficult and don't play well with others, but either I'm worse than I thought or the other 29+ on this board are just as difficult and we are sending grown men screaming out of the room.

Let's face it there will always be stress especially as owner/operators. They see us as glorified company drivers and we see them as freight brokers. They want us to shut up and take whatever load they send out, but often those loads won't make money for us. My load out of the house was barely enough miles to meet my daily standard so I approved the preplan. Then I get the load and find out it is a driver unload. The load was a cubed out load of twelve foot insulated pipe. It would have taken hours to unload, the first hour is unpaid and in the heat I would have been done when unloaded. So a 450 in one day becomes a 225 over two days. It became a money loser and I told them to go back to the drawing board. For me a big problem has been they are wasting my first day out.

 

Yea, they dont like that at all lol. but the two times i had to stay later I or my wife was sick and/or in the hospital. they can cry me a river for all i care on that, its just a inconvenience to them, its my life to me. anyways, I think we got worked through some issues, and all i was doing was talking to other companies, but they contacted Roehl so they got me into marshfield to ask about it. no biggie though. I just always like to know what is out there and where i stand.

4th one, you are gonna run out of them soon... who do you have now? I still have my original one, we both bump heads at times but overall he keeps me moving and we make money. he's a good guy. i know i can be a pain in the ##### and yet we are still working together lol.

that load was crap you mentioned. man, only times i ever get something i might have to handle is a Hon load. but thats usually it and i seldom have to help then. I would have been mad too over that one. that should have been in the load comments and/or a FM call stating such.

 

Who exactly asked you about looking elsewhere? That is your choice to look. They gonna make your deal better? Lol.
Preacher, I'm on my fourth or fifth or sixth but one was orientation and then I had group management while running flatbed. Lol.

 

The hand unload was in the comments so I turned it down and told them why. It just would have been nice to have been told about it when I was still at the house and before I told him I would take it. A couple of days later and two more bad loads I let my fm know that if things didn't improve I would have to look at making some changes. Suddenly, after some grumbling and trying to blame me for lousy miles I start getting better loads. As for dispatchers, they have run out. The new guy is Scott Geise and is coming over from Schneider.

A pm on the apu is going to set you back about $250 to $300. The filter kit is half the price. They won't be able to service the underbunk heater because it's a different brand than what they sell and service. They told me don't get it done at less than a thousand hours of use. Basically if you get it done before summer and winter you should be fine.

 

They just wanted to hear it from me i guess they asked " so your looking for another job"? i was delivering in marshfield so FM asked me to come in, they just wanted to know why i was looking etc.. so we went over it all. but yea 2 companies i talked too called roehl i suppose cause they knew all about it lmao..

 

Thanks for the heads up on that, yea im at 560 hrs on mine now, just figured the oil and filters might need to be changed and cause sometimes when it first starts up when the a/c first kicks on it will "bogg" down and puff out black smoke for a minute then catch back up and run fine. but for $300 bucks ill wait till I'm a little closer on the 1000 hrs lol.

 

Hey Preach I have a Tri-Pak and I had speedco do it. They have all the filters, fuel, air and oil and it was less than $200 for the service.