The Heyl Truck Lines Experience

Reverend and Luzon, I would contact recruiting. I do know there were some drivers hired for the tropicana account. There was a requirement you had to live in Bradenton. As far as allergies are concerned, I am sure you would not have a problem getting a freightliner. Some of the driver's like the freightliners and others like the volvo's.

 

I can't believe it has been three weeks since my last posting of life here on the road. The past weeks have been busy.

I made my delivery in Houston. From there I picked up in Waco headed for Michigan. Made the delivery in Michigan and was given a load of meat in Logansport, IN going to Oakland, CA. After delivering in Oakland I picked up a load ice cream headed back to Florida for home time. I racked up some good miles this time out. For my fuel bonus I averaged 7.3 mpg which translated into two cents per mile and almost $190.

Since I have been with the company for over three months it was also time for the 2nd installment of my sign on bonus which is $300. That also meant that I had to go and see the safety director/terminal manager for my quarterly review. Part of the review process is an audit of your logbooks. In addition, your driver manager is contacted and has input into the meeting. My DM was satisfied with my performance. I had a few minor log violations but nothing major such as violating the 11/14 or 70 hour rule.

At the end of the meeting I was asked how my truck was running and how many miles it had on it. I told him the truck was running great sans the apu. A few moments later he handed me the keys to a different truck and told me to switch my gear.

I am now driving a 2008 volvo with 290k miles on it. It has a carrier apu and the cummins isx engine. The sleeper is larger than the freightliner, however, there were some tradeoffs. The volvo does not have an external storage box for the chains nor does it have the amount of under bunk storage the freightliner had. It does have a table that folds into a bed. I leave the table up and just use the top bunk. The other thing I like about this truck is the driver information panel on the dash. I am now able to get the fuel economy of the truck in real time.

 

I don't know if they hire out of the Pittsburgh area.

As far as the volvo is concerned, it is much more comfortable than the freightliner. The apu works great and I like the table. It is like a miniature office.

On the road the truck has been a different story. It drives and rides great. I am having issues with my fuel mileage. I was having great difficulty getting this thing even close to 7 mpg. The best I have been able to do so far has been 6.7. I thought I was going to get higher mileage with this truck because the requirements for the fuel bonus are higher and it has the cummins engine.

With that being said I think I may have discovered what has been causing the low fuel numbers. I have found that the speedometer is off by about 4 mph. When my speedo is showing 55 mph my gps says I am actually doing 59. To confirm this I put the cruise on at 56 mph. I used a stopwatch and timed a mile. One minute. That meant the truck was actually going 60 mph. The same held true for higher speeds. When the speedo read 65 (governed speed), the truck was actually going 69 mph.

Since the speedometer has been off it has also correlated to the odometer not reflecting the most accurate miles. As an example, a few days ago I traveled 557 miles by my gps. The odometer only read 513 miles. A 44 mile difference is a huge difference. The following day the gps and the odometer had a 34 mile difference. This means that I am burning the fuel for the extra miles, however, the computer on the truck is not accounting for it.

I have a load taking me back to Florida so the shop can take a look at the truck and get the problem corrected.

 

I made it back to the terminal to get the truck looked at. I was informed there was a problem, however, it was not able to be immediately fixed. The engine odometer was off by over 3k miles from the odometer. I was told there were no problems with the speedometer but I don't believe that. When I come back to the terminal next time the truck will be sent to the volvo dealer so it can be determined if the problem lies with the instrument cluster or the ecm.

Yesterday the speedometer was accurate for about 200 miles. When it was accurate my fuel mileage increased. Once this bug is worked out my computer generated mpg should increase.