What things are the driver responsible for replacing/fixing?

I was at a shipper about three years ago, they had truck parking there. A young guy came limping over and parked next to me. His trailer had two blown out tires and bent rims. He had hit the curb or something coming out of the dock. it was on a chicken farm. Nasty place. Got to chatting with him and he was asking me what to do. He was only three months in on the job and he thought he was going to get fired. I probably didn’t help but I told him two tires and two rims probably gonna be about 1500 bucks or more. He got on the phone and found a tire shop and they came out replaced the two rims with a couple of good used rims and new tires. I think it set them back about $1100. He paid for it on his credit card. At first he didn’t tell anybody and then he asked me if he should report it. I told him if his trucking company found out even though he paid to replace it and he didn’t report it, they might fire him. That was the best advice I could give him at the time.

The next morning I get up and I’m ready to leave and he’s still there getting ready to leave himself. Tells me he reported it to a safety manager, but told him he already took care of it. Had the tires and rims changed. He said the safety manager thanked him for taking care of the problem, told him that the company gives each driver one rookie mistake as long as it’s not too bad and that was his, and since he reported it and didn’t try to cover it up To just learn from it and try not to let it happen again, and they would just pretend it didn’t happen since he had paid for it. I’m sure it would not have probably turned out that way if he had the company pay for those two tires and two rims.

 

hope they reimbursed him the $1100.

I've never had to pay for any repairs and have been reimbursed for all minor parts I've had to buy, if I bothered to turn in the bill.

almost got fired for fixing a truck once. company policy "no driver to work on truck".

 

I don't think we've ever charged a driver for something that got broken, especially if it broke from use in the normal amount of time.
This is not to say that it isn't tempting sometimes, especially when it's not really broken, just lost somewhere.
Every truck carries a "care package" with tape, hose clamps, lights, air line splices and other goodies. It's up to the driver to get the stuff he needs out of the parts room.

 

We have that as a kind of an unwritten rule...if you're dumb enough to back over your mudflaps don't write it up for the mechanics to change. Change it your self. All of our trucks and off road trailers have hooks on the flap hangar to tuck the mudflap out of the way. That takes less time than changing the flap.

 

This is a topic that has always fascinated me. Being the son of a Trucker who carried a large toolbox with him I learned early about fixing things. My Father taught me how to change a truck tire on the side of the road. I mean breaking it down and changing the thing. Back then they had no cell phones or Qcoms to get help. Doing it yourself could save chucks of hours. Even during my career, I had no issues with changing a windshield wiper or lights I could reach. The thing is during my father's career almost all of mine was before CSA-2010. Most carriers today want the driver to drive and let them take care of repairs. One thing a driver can do though is to start watching out for problems as they develop. I almost always looked inside my fuel tanks with a small flashlight I kept in my pocket. Looking for the telltale signs of an injector going bad. I had an injector on a new tractor go bad about 2 weeks after I started driving it. Look for signs of abnormal tire wear. The main thing is to learn your rig.

 

If you rip a flap off or curb a tire you should be the one to replace it, but ultimately it falls on the owner

 

Last fall I was in Ohio in the middle of the night during a major rainstorm, and one of my windshield wipers broke. The rivet where it hooks to the arm just snapped, and the entire blade was just flopping around.

Going by the book, I should've called my dispatch who would've contacted Ryder(All of our equipment is leased through Ryder) then I wait on the side of the road for a repair truck to bring me a new windshield wiper. What I ended up doing was going up the road two exits to a truckstop buy two new windshield wipers and change them myself. I turned the receipt into my company and they reimbursed me.

But then when my company went to Ryder for reimbursement, Ryder refused it because it was all supposed to be done through their road call system. I don't know who ended up winning that battle but my company had no problem with me spending 15 minutes with my own work as opposed to waiting two hours for a road call.

 

.... guy was broke down up by cortez (O/O) , blew a injector or turbo ( one of those two ) anyways he ordered a replcement and fedex delieverd it and he did the repair right there. Anyways i went by him coming and going for about 3 days and checked on him and he was old school plus a mech and had a very cool toolbox on board to fix just about anything that would break on his truck.
.... anyways , moral of the story is be prepared .... i carry bulbs , fuses , lights and gladhand rubbers and tools to fix stuff i can handle.
Like the man said above , your the boss of the truck - if you want to wait to fix a light , cool , if you can do it and keep rolling thats cool too.

 

I'd bet more than half of the drivers today couldn't even tell you what size wrench you need to tighten a slack adjuster....