We again made our way into and out of Canada with no major issues. Just the usual hassles by border patrol coming back into the US. Kind of getting used to it by now.
While in Smiths Falls, we received a load offer of about 2200 loaded miles for a load that would be delivering in Laredo Texas. We were excited about the load because we haven't had the pleasure of visiting that area yet and it would be a nice change from all the Canada runs we've been doing. However, I made the rookie mistake of asking dispatch if there would be enough time on the load for us to stop and get a pm (preventive maintenance) done on the truck. We were due for an oil change. The owner of the truck has stated and it is in our contract with her that maintenance will be done every 10,000 miles. We are at that point now and if we took the long run down to Laredo, we would be over that mileage quite a bit.
Dispatch informed me that they have a policy against trucks getting maintenance done while under a load. Therefore, they said they would offer the load to someone else. I called our owner and told her about it and asked her how I should have handled the situation. She said to never tell the carrier if you plan to stop and get maintenance done. They will not like it, but it's common practice to do it, just don't tell them. She said if there's time on the load, go ahead and take the load and get the maintenance done.
I felt bad about losing a good paying load, but I'm learning. Right after that, dispatch called with another load offer, this time picking up in North Syracuse, NY and delivering in Schenectady, NY. We decided to take it and the pickup and delivery all went routinely.
After the delivery, we knew we needed to get the maintenance done. This was our first time to do maintenance on the truck so we weren't sure what to expect. We asked the owner of the truck where she wanted it done, and she said she usually used Speedco, but there wasn't any in our area. She said we could also go to a TA. We headed off to the TA and went into the shop and got the work order set up.
We pulled the truck into the shop and while they were working on it, we went into the restaurant to eat a good hot meal. We were about halfway through our meal when John's cell phone rang. It was the shop saying that there was a problem and needed him to come back over. John went to the shop and I stayed at the table and waited for him to come back so he could finish his meal. About 10 minutes later he returned and said that the mechanic said whoever did the last oil change had twisted off the drain plug on the oil pan.
Since I didn't know what a drain plug was, this meant nothing to me. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal. We had to call the owner of the truck and see how she wanted to handle the problem. She in turn called the shop and talked to the mechanic and the end result was that they were going to wait until the next day when one of the more qualified mechanics came in to assess the situation.
Luckily, the TA we were at had a motel attached to it, so we ended up getting a room for the night. The next day, the "more qualified" mechanic came in and said he could provide a workaround solution to get us by until we could get the truck into a repair shop. He put on a petcock, which to me looks like an outdoor water faucet handle. He completed the maintenance and we were good to do.
The owner told us that this was the second time the oil plug had been twisted off of this oil pan so it had already been tapped out and a bigger oil plug put in, so it wasn't going to be able to be done again, this time it was going to require a new oil pan. The truck has a Mercedes motor and apparently the metal that they used for the oil pan is weaker than used by some other manufacturers. She had already replaced the oil pan before, so this seemed like an ongoing problem.
She contacted Speedco who had done the prior oil change and it became a he said she said finger pointing session between them and the TA. They both blamed the problem on each other and the end result was that Speedco sent her a gift card for $200 for her troubles.
Lesson learned from this situation is that John says from now on when we are getting the maintenance done, he will stand right there and supervise the whole process to try and prevent another incident. That's about all you can do, you're really at their mercy.
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