Van Wyk Inc.

It's just dumb man, i hate calling Doug for stuff, that's why whenever i need my truck wash and i got the money i pay for it myself.... I just don't see how Truck batteries would go dead on a 30 degree night while running the bunk heater.. The only thing i can think of is early in the night while i was parked on the side at Burris i left my marker lights on, that was for about 40 mins, after that i turned them off. Also i didnt have my fridge on. And then 3 hours later i drove down the road to the truck stop. *Sigh* this a great company for the most part and i know things aren't suppose to be perfect, but man it's things like this that just get my blood boiling. My main focus outside of decent loads is the upkeep on my truck.

Well I guess i see what this week brings, i'm going to charge the batteries one night and see how that goes for running the bunk heater the night after without the low-voltage alarm coming on. When i charged the batteries trying to jump start it, it somewhat charged them for the good it looks like. The voltage gauge going down the road would just be below 14, now its right about 14, so i guess i'll experiment, But still just ###### inconvenience all the way around. Have a good week boys

 

Hang in there Hawk. I have asked about apu's was told it was too much $$. I can live without it especially if it came down to them or idle bonus. I will take that cold hard cash . I been running the AC all day here in pa almost 70. Have a good week everyone.

 

I guess I would rather have cash than an APU that is until some Bear decides to give me a ticket for idling when its a billion degrees outside....(I think most don't really care until you piss them off)......

My bunk heaters been wonky lately...It really needs servicing...I have had to blow air in the exhaust pipe twice so far this week so it will run...it probably just needs a good cleaning and it will work...

as far as truck batteries are concerned...I had a bad set I could maybe get one good start out of them....that was if the truck just kicked off or something....otherwise I had to run a jumper wire from the reefer to the hotpost to keep enough charge to turn her over when it was time to roll....I got her in for service between loads and lo and behold I had 4 bad batteries...they were all swollen and just plain shot (swelling comes from when the cells are shot the battery builds up gas and the case expands....kinda like a cellphone battery when it goes bad)....so they gave me 4 new batteries and have been good since....but if I know I am going to sit for more than 10 hours I hook my jumper line up to the reefer so when it starts it charges my batteries for me and keeps them charged up....plus when its really cold out it keeps the batteries warmer to give better starting capablility....

In other news I am in the first service plaza in ohio coming out of PA (okay the first open one)...pulled in with 2 minutes left to spare...and had to circle around a couple of times before I found a LEGAL spot....(which I had to back in....piece of cake...considering I have put her in tighter places).....I forgot the first plaza coming out of PA is closed for rennevations...so it was a nail biter to get here....I won't divulge how I did it though....I'll just say I know how to make the qualcomm work for me when necessary...LOL....

 

That why i dislike having to deal with doug and andy half the time, usually i have to dial 0 and have the receptionist page them, and half the time if you leave a message, they wont respond. The worst of the two is andy, and the last time i dealt with him i just about wanted to strangle him over the phone. Usually if i need something fixed i try to get it get and valley fleet. Its a small shop, but they do a lot better job than those idiots at eddie's.

 

Just got out of the house spent my day off doing some "spyder hunting", going to pickup going to manassas, then hopefully back into waynesboro to move back into 704...i miss my stereo, ######!!

 

I'm going to bat for Andy on this one. If you had to deal with the knot head screwups some of these yahoos do to these trucks you'd be a little surly too. Sadly it carries over to some of the guys who have just freak breakdowns. I'd much rather deal with people one on one like we do rather than some mega carrier that requires you to send in a QC macro and they'll get to you when they can. If you have any issues with your bunk heaters talk to Dave in the first bay by the stairs. He's kind of the resident guru for that stuff and he can usually have it rebuilt in a few hours. Now that winter is getting close it probably wouldn't be bad to have a little stockpile of antigel in your side box, once we have the first deep cold snap that stuff is in really short supply. Some of our smaller fuel stops are getting the #1 Diesel supply in now too. I was in Worthington yesterday and the Shell where we fuel has it, Shoemakers in Lincoln & Sparky's in Storm Lake is good to go too. Not sure if they covered it in Winter meetings but make sure to treat the fuel in the reefer as well. Common sense stuff I know but you'd be surprised how often we have to send out a service truck to one of our drop accounts to get a reefer started.

 

I have been with a big carrier...and I will tell you what I have spent days trying to get something fixed and just sat around looking at the windows....hell to get a tire fixed on the road it took over 4 hours cause they wanted to argue about price and try to get it as cheap as possible.......I will take Andy and Doug anyday over some of the trained monkeys I had to deal with in a big carrier...uggg

 

Disregard..

 

The thing is find out what the problem is first then be an wise ### about it.. Every time i call Doug with a problem he cuts me off while i'm explaining it to him. I don't like that, don't like that at all. Let me finish and go on, i don't care if you no what's wrong or not, if you hear a break in my voice, then cut in and tell me what's wrong.

But i believe that's the Sheldon thing out there, Til this day I promise i will never call Mike phone with an Problem again after the way he had talked to me 1 A.M. in the morning one time. Never again.

But pardon me i'm just a young man that's based on respect, that's just me tho. Better yet it was how i was raised.

And you know what the sad thing is, I might have to call him again tomorrow if my fifth wheel starts acting stupid again, had to ask another drive to help me unhook earlier today. I'm going to stay hook to the trailer tonight but try and drop it in the morning, if it won't unhook then back to the KW dealer in the morning in Albany. Hopefully it was just acting stupid because I had one of the brand new trailers, hopefully!!