It's too soon to know if we made the right choice in buying a truck of our own. We bought the truck in April and began making improvements and repairs. We had to redo the sleeper to make it acceptable for us. That turned out to be the the least expensive thing we have done.
We had a coolant leak, leaks in the trailer, the trailer doors had to be resealed, we had to have a new dot bumper put on, have our hinges welded to be acceptable for DOD loads and still none of that was a drop in the bucket compared to the repair we just had to do.
Having made only one payment and trying to get caught up on repairs that the prior owner had neglected we haven't had a chance to build up much funds. It's very unfortunate timing that we have suffered a major repair so early on in our ownership.
We had a nice long run out to Middleton, Idaho. The truck ran great out there and we were on a high enjoying our truck and loving our job. After our delivery we were deadheading back east to position ourselves for our next freight opportunity. The truck never really ran poorly, it just so happened that as I was driving down the interstate, I noticed in the passenger side mirror what I thought was dirt blowing around. I kept watching and eventually realized that it was black smoke that I was seeing.
I pulled over the first chance I got and we did a check of what we could. I called an International dealership that was nearby and they said to keep an eye on the guages and if there okay, go ahead and drive it to them. We were only about 30 miles away.
I kept going and we finally got there. We were told they were backlogged and we would have to wait before they could take a look at it. The night went on and they closed. They told us to come back in the morning. We drove to a nearby truckstop and parked for the night. We both had an awful feeling about things and neither one of us could sleep that night.
In the morning we headed back over and at that point the truck started acting up. We weren't sure we were going to make it, but we did. We parked and waited again. Eventually they brought us into a bay and hooked us up to the computer. Their initial assessment was that we had a bad fuel injector. I was happy about that because all 6 injectors had recently been replaced. This would be covered under warranty.
The work wouldn't be done until the next day so they drove us to a local motel for the night. The next day they came and picked us up and we were excited to get back on the road. As we walked back to the truck which was still in a bay we noticed that the hood was open and the engine was tore apart. The manager came over to us and told us he had bad news. He said that a retainer had broken and the cam shaft was messed up. They were going to have to tear into the motor and see how far metal had gotten into the engine. Only then would he be able to give us an accurate estimate but he said to prepare ourselves for a bill of about $7000.00.
I believe that is probably one of the worst moments of my life. We had only made one payment on this truck. Now we were going to owe $7000 for a repair? Wow. The manager was very patient with us as we didn't understand the repairs that he was telling us we were going to need. I think he felt sorry for us and knew it was a shock for us.
Eventually we did the only thing we could and that was to gather up our stuff and go back to the motel. We checked in and I had a good cry. I was in deep depression. Of course we were questioning our decision to buy the truck and thinking that we should have stayed driving a truck for someone else.
This went on from the 7th till we finally picked the truck up on the 21st. We were in Grand Island, Nebraska. We thought about renting a car and driving to Indiana to visit family but truthfully we were in no mood to be good company for anybody. We decided to just stay where we were and not make anyone else suffer from our bad moods.
Thankfully we did have access to enough money to pay for the repairs when they were finally completed. The final bill was just over $7200.00. We decided to cancel our family vacation that we had planned on taking in July and stay out on the road until we can get our savings built back up.
I really hope it gets better.
