Today is a Lazy Day...with Pay!

Yesterday we drove from Chicago to Goshen, In to pick up a load going to Aurora, Nebraska. We were told that it was a hazmat load which is not a big deal, we do them all the time. Since the load was picking up on Friday and not delivering until Monday we are getting paid two days of layover pay in addition to our regular mileage pay. I love weekend loads like that! After we arrived at the shipper and got loaded, we received a message on the qualcomm telling us not to depart until we verified some information with dispatch. I called in and went over some things with them and then the dispatcher transferred me to safety to go over some info. This is not the usual way of doing things there, so I don't really know why I was being transferred to safety. Turns out that it opened up a can of worms. Safety immediately informed me that we are not allowed to sit on a hazmat load over a weekend. We weren't going to be allowed to do the load. I said, well, we're already loaded. He told me not to leave, he was going to get into contact with dispatch. Great! Now what? I sat and waited for about a half an hour and finally I called dispatch back. I said what is going on?

I've never heard of this policy before? I ended up talking with about 5 different people in dispatch and they all said they had never heard of that policy either. They kept telling me to sit and wait while they worked on a solution. Finally after about 3 hours they called and asked me if there was anyone available in shipping that they could talk to. I had been waiting in the truck so I walked back to the shipping office and discovered that the lights were off and everyone was gone home! This meant that there was no way they could take the load off our truck now. Dispatch was going to have to figure out a new solution. Another hour goes by and finally they called and said they found a hazmat certified cross dock in Lake Station, In. We had to drive there and have them unload our freight. It has to sit there until Sunday afternoon at which time we will go back there and pick it up and then we can finally be on our way to Nebraska. The good news in all this is that we are getting paid an additional $150 for layover for our troubles along with 2 hours detention time for sitting so long at the shipper while dispatch worked to correct their mistake. I needed a 34 hour restart anyway so it's all good!

After we unloaded at the cross dock we headed over to the TA down the road and parked the truck. We'll sit here till Sunday and get the reset on our hours. We have our bicycles with us now but this area isn't really bike friendly so I guess we won't be doing that. We've been to a lot of places that would be good areas for bike riding. We will be prepared next time we get back to those areas. One in particular is in Ripon, Ca. I really like that area. We'll also be able to use the bikes next week when we take our time off at my Mom and Dad's house. It will nice to get some exercise. I hate exercise unless it's in the form of swimming or biking.
Really looking forward to our time off. Turns out that pretty much all my family is going to be able to make it. They won't all be there for as long as me and John will, but that's okay. The additional time we are there will allow us to go visit some friends we haven't seen in awhile. I just hope it doesn't rain!!

It looks like we are going to need to replace our refrigerator in the truck. We'll do that when we take our time off. We are guessing that when we had our electrical problem with the truck that it somehow damaged the fridge. The fridge worked before the problem and not after so I would say it's safe to assume the problems are related. We'll just have to buy ice and use a cooler for our drinks for a week. These kinds of problems I can handle.

Busy busy. On the road again!

We ended up getting a load out of Los Indios TX delivering in Michigan. We were a little worried about driving even further south into Texas since we had no confidence in the repair work that was done to the truck. We did some Googling and found that there is an International shop in Pharr TX so we figured in worst case scenario we could go there if the truck gave us problems again. Fortunately the trip went smoothly and we had a nice drive to Michigan. It felt so good to get out of that ridiculous heat. In Michigan we could sleep with the windows open. No need for AC.

After we delivered we got another load right away picking up in Howell Michigan delivering in North Charleston South Carolina. We delivered and got a load picking up about a mile away delivering in Vance Alabama. On the way there we got another load picking up in Toone TN delivering in Bensenville Il. After that we took the day off to get some rest. We were pretty wore out. We did laundry and took showers. Caught up the paperwork. We watched Lebron and the Miami Heat finally win the championship.
Woke up this morning and right away got a load picking up in Goshen In delivering in Aurora Nebraska on Monday. Pays very nicely and we can take our time on it. Now we just need two more good loads to finish out next week and then time off for the holiday!

Stuck in Laredo....SOS!

We finally got the truck back yesterday. I am so sickened and discouraged by all the events related to this whole incident that it is making it really hard for me to even continue on in this profession. Not only is the dealership in Laredo unprofessional, they have now proven to be nothing more than common crooks in my opinion. What else would you call it when they blatantly try to charge you for services and parts that you didn't get or they didn't provide?

I called them yesterday morning and they informed me that our part had finally arrived. This was at 11:30 and our motel checkout time was noon. I went down to the front desk to see if we could get a late checkout and was told no. They were expecting a lot of new arrivals and wanted everyone out of their rooms so they could get them ready for the new guests. After being there for over a week I can't believe they didn't even want to allow us one extra hour. We packed up and called a taxi and headed over to the dealership. We found our truck and saw that it was still being worked on. I talked to the service manager and he said the mechanics were at lunch so we would have to wait till they came back to find out what the status was. Finally after about 2 hours they told us it was ready.

The service guy started to print out our invoice and I was looking at it on the screen. I could see that they were charging us $12002 for the towing bill. When I asked why it was $200 higher than the towing company told us it would be, the guy had the nerve to tell me that they have to mark it up just like all their other services. But, I said, you didn't tow us. Yes, but as a service to you, we are paying the towing company and collecting from you. Excuse me? I can pay the towing company just as easily as I can pay you. And at a savings of $200 that is what I want to do. Then he says, well, we may have already paid them, so you're going to have to pay us. I said, please give me the phone number for the towing company. I called them up and asked if they had already been paid. No, the charge was still pending. Good. Can you accept my credit card as payment over the phone? Sure, no problem. I paid the bill and then let the service manager confirm with the tow company that they wouldn't be charged for the bill. How is it possibly acceptable to mark up a towing bill $200? And not even give us the option or all the information we need to make an informed decision?

This is criminal to me. But...they weren't done screwing with us yet. Now the guy is upset with me over the towing charge so he disappears for awhile. We waited him out and he finally comes back with our invoice. He briefly flashed it in front of us and then told us to go to the cashier and pay it. I said, I need to look at that bill. He lays it down and again tries to blow me off by saying a few things as if there's nothing there for me to be looking at. I ignore him and continue to study the bill. I see that we are being charged for 2 circuit breakers at $45 each. I say to him, how many circuit breakers were put on our truck? He asked the guy behind him and is told one. Okay, so why are you charging us for 2? Lots of Spanish being spoken between them and no good answer is given. I said fine. If we are paying for 2 then we want the other one to keep as a spare. They had to go on a hunt to find the other one, but finally it was given to us. Again, the nerve of these people!! So much corruption. Is it because of their location on the Mexican border? Is that just how business is done there? I don't know, but I do know that I will not go back there unless there is absolutely no other option available to me. I hope to goodness that we are never in that situation. I have to wonder how much they inflated their labor costs on the job, because unfortunately I don't know of any way of proving how many hours they actually worked on the truck. I'm sure we paid more than we should have. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that they actually fixed the truck. If it does break down, hopefully it will be far enough up the road so that we can go somewhere else for repairs.

The whole time we were in the motel waiting to get the truck back, our carrier called us nearly every day with a load hoping that we would be able to take it. I jokingly told John that just watch and see, when we get our truck back, they won't have any loads for us. We went back on the board last night and got a call this morning from a dispatcher with a load offer. It all sounded great till he got to the part about the discounted rate. They wanted us to do the load for about 17 cents a mile cheaper than our normal rate. I told him no thanks. We'll wait . I thought we were going to get lucky. They sent us another load which was even better, about 100 more total miles and paid our full rate. We happily accepted it. It was picking up tonight at 11 pm and delivering on Monday morning. Of course, I should've known better. They just called a little while ago and said the customer changed the load and doubled the weight so now it won't fit on our truck. Load cancelled.

I don't know what I've done to be earning all this bad luck, but I really hope it turns around soon! If not, we are going to have to go back to regular jobs. And we really  do not want to do that.....

Truck held hostage

Not sure if we are ever going to get our truck back. I am amazed at the complete lack of professionalism that we keep running into when dealing with repair shops.

The first day they got our truck they said it would be next day before they could look at it. Then again we were told no it would be another day. We got to Friday and they said they would look at it that afternoon. I waited till 5 and called to check on it. They said they hadn't found the problem yet. Saturday morning I called again. I was told they still hadn't found the problem. I asked what the computer codes said. I was put on hold and then told the service manager would be calling me soon.

At that point I had had enough. I called and got a rental car and me and John headed over to the shop. The truck hadn't moved. They hadn't put the drive shaft back in. I went into service dept and asked what was going on. The guy says oh they found the problem. They need to order parts for Monday. It was the ground wire shorted in two. I said OK. I want them to show us the wire. He walked into the shop then came back and said the mechanics were out to lunch. I said fine. We will come back in an hour then. Then I asked him exactly what parts were they ordering? He disappeared into an office. When he came back he had another story. They think they can fix it without parts. Okay. So are you fixing it today? No. They would be closing soon. Maybe Monday. Fine. We will be there Monday and we won't be nice!

I have no confidence in this place but also no other options. I feel like once they get your truck in there its held hostage till they feel like getting around to it.

I'm sure they give priority to the large companies they service. One of the down sides to being a one truck shop.

At least we have a car now. We made a trip to Walmart and can eat other places besides the Golden Corral.

It is so freaking hot here we can't even take walks. I don't know how people live here!

When life gives you lemons...grrrrr!!

Yeah, yeah, make lemonade. Right. Easier said than done sometimes. We took the load to Laredo and got there on Sunday night. We didn't deliver until 11 AM on Monday, so we parked at the TA, had a good meal and a good nights sleep. We got up the next morning and I drove the mile to the consignee. This place, like most all places on the Mexican border has extremely tight docks. The first dock they told us to back into was too narrow to even get into. I ended up having to move over two slots to get one wide enough to squeeze in. And a tight squeeze it was! While I was working on backing in, the truck at one point acted like it was going to die. It was just a quick thing that was over as fast as it started. After we made the delivery and were driving to the Speedco to get the oil change, I mentioned it to John. We didn't really think too much about it because the truck had been and still seemed to be running perfectly fine.

We got over to the Speedco, got the oil changed, thought about getting a truck wash, but with the way the wind was blowing the sand around, we decided against it. We headed back to the truckstop, this time the Flying J hoping to get a better internet signal (didn't happen). We had put ourselves available on a 34 hour restart coming back into service the next day at 4 PM. We were getting low on hours and figured that Laredo would be a good spot to do a restart in. We had a good meal and got back to the truck. Dispatch called and wanted us to do a load that was picking up that night at midnight in Eagle Pass, about 130 miles to the north of Laredo. We told them we were doing a restart, but they really needed us to do the load because it was hazmat. We were number 7 on the board, so apparently none of the six trucks ahead of us had their hazmat endorsements. It was just a load of air bag modules, but they are classified as hazmat. After going back and forth with dispatch, we agreed to take the load which delivered in Smyrna, Tennessee. My thinking was that it would be nice to get out of Laredo where the heat was about 102 degrees and the wind was blowing the sand around which is nasty. We would do our restart in Tn. They set everything up and around 8 PM John headed out to Eagle Pass.

To get to Eagle Pass, you have to take highways. It was a nasty drive because it started storming and the wind was really blowing the dirt around. It rained, but not enough to help. It just made things worse. We got to the shipper an hour early. John pulled the truck up in front of the docks and set the brakes. He ran inside to see if they were ready for us or if they wanted us to park out of the way somewhere. Right before he came back to the truck, the truck died. I got such a bad feeling and immediately thought about the incident that morning at the consignee when the truck almost died. John came to the truck and said, good news, they're ready for us. I said, bad news, the truck died! We tried to restart it, but it wouldn't do anything. Didn't crank or anything. The check electric system light came on the dash. Our first thought was that if we sat there a little bit and let it cool off, maybe it would start. Nope, not happening. John pulled the battery cover off and looked at the connections and the new fuse harness that we just had put on two weeks ago. No sign of any problems.

I went into the sleeper to turn on the apu to get some ac running and that's when I noticed that the apu wasn't getting any power. We decided we better call our carrier and let them know that we probably weren't going to be able to take the load. They started calling around trying to find road service to come out and look at the truck and had no luck. There was not one single place that would answer their phone. There were no name brand shops within 120 miles. Nothing. This was such a bad feeling. Finally, one of the guys who worked at the shipper came over to check on us and we told him what was going on. He knew a couple of people who did road service. We called them and none of them were willing to work with an electrical problem. We realized that we weren't going to get any help until in the morning. The shipper then informed us that they were closing and that we would have to leave and go to a motel. The worker that checked on us said he would drive us to a motel. By now, it was about 3 AM. We packed a bag  and he drove us to a La Quinta Inn, which was the only place in town that would accept pets. We have a small Maltese dog that rides with us. I was exhausted, hot and frustrated!

He dropped us at the motel, we checked in and in my opinion got overcharged for a room. $119 for the night and we were only going to be there for a few hours! What are you going to do? We got in the room, turned on the ac, and nothing happened. I called the front desk and told them the ac wasn't working. She had us come back to the desk, and switched us to a different room. She apologized for the inconvenience, but we told her that was just the way our day was going. We got into the new room and thankfully, the ac worked! John fell asleep right away, but of course, I laid there awake until about 7 AM when I got up, took a shower, then gave the dog a bath. John got up, took a shower, and I called a taxi to take us back to the truck. We got to the truck and I thought maybe we would get lucky and the truck would start. Again, nope. I started going through the list of truck repair places and had no luck. I finally called the International dealer in San Antonio and they said it would be sometime next week before they could even look at it. Seriously?! He told me the only other International dealer would be in Laredo. Great! Back where we started. I called them and they said they could probably look at it the next day and they gave me the name of a towing company that would tow us there. I knew the tow bill was going to be outrageous. They charge you for the miles to you and the miles that you actually get towed. It ended up being $1055.

On the bright side, our tow truck driver was a really nice guy named Jesse. He was great at his job, and his ac worked in his tow truck. What more can you ask for? Maybe one thing, 2 seats for passengers? Unfortunately, his truck didn't have a sleeper and only one passenger seat. He had a 5 gallon bucket between the seats so I got two pillows out of the truck and sat on one and put one behind my back. 130 miles on a bucket. Actually it wasn't as bad of a ride as I had feared. But it's not one I want to do again. Jesse was a great tour guide on the drive back to Laredo. He pointed out the new oil wells that are being drilled. These natural gas deposits were recently found and are a booming business in this area. The pipeline workers are from other areas and are living in RV parks that are springing up in the area to accomodate the workers because there aren't any other places for them to live. Also on the drive, we drove through swarms of butterflys. Jesse said every year at this time they come out of the fields. Not sure how long that will last, but they were incredible. Makes a terrible mess to the windshield and front of the truck though. Jesse also pointed out George Strait's (country singer) ranch. We drove right past it, and if someone didn't point it out to you, you would never even notice it. It sits back pretty far off the road and you can mostly just see the roof from the road. Jesse is retiring on Friday. We congratulated him and wished him well. He got us and our truck safe and sound to the International shop in Laredo.

Once at the shop, we checked in, and were told that they would likely get to our truck the next day. We called a taxi and were taken to the Motel 6 North. We have a pool here. There is a Golden Corral next door. We walked about a mile yesterday down to the Walmart and got a few things. We spent about an hour at the pool and did our laundry. We are getting caught up on sleep and unfortunately, International did not look at our truck yesterday and when I called today, I was told that it would probably be around 2 today before they got to it. I still haven't heard from them, and won't be surprised if I don't hear anything until tomorrow. Our carrier has a nice load that they would like for us to that picks up on Friday afternoon, but of course we can't accept it not knowing how long our truck is going to be out of commission.
I had such high hopes for this year, but it isn't going at all like I had hoped. Thank goodness we only have two more truck payments and then the truck is paid for and is ours. We have most of the work done on it that we wanted to get done. We have one more big job to do, which is having the frame sanded and painted with undercoating. If we can just survive these bad times we've been going through lately, we'll be in good shape.

Oh yeah, one other silver lining to this mess. Our truck is broke down during the annual safety blitz. There is a 72 hour period each year that commercial trucks and buses are inspected by dot and other officials at a much higher rate than normal. During our ride in the tow truck, we witnessed several inspection sites in full swing. They were pulling in every single truck. Of course that was on a highway, so they could get every truck. On the interstates, it's hit and miss. I've heard some crazy stories about how many trucks are being put out of service for violations. The craziest story I read about is that in New Jersey, they are actually diverting trucks into a football stadium for inspection and there was up to a 6 hour delay for drivers. This seems to me like it should be illegal for our government to do such a thing, but what do I know? I'm just a lowly truck driver...

Heading back to.....Laredo!

Thankfully we are finally getting some steady miles. We completed the load from Laredo to Ohio. Then drove to Michigan and picked up and delivered that to Georgia. During that drive we received multiple load offers and accepted the longest one which was picking up in South Carolina and delivering in Laredo. We picked up on Saturday and deliver on Monday so we have an extra day on the load and we can get rested up while making some money. Once we get down to Laredo we are also going to need to get a pm (preventive maintenance) done on the truck. We almost exclusively use Speedco for that. They are fast and pretty good although John watches over them like a hawk to make sure they are doing their job properly. A simple oil change when done  improperly can really cause major damage to a motor.

Our very first experience getting a pm done in the first truck we drove was a good example. We went to a TA and they twisted off the oil plug. It was a Mercedes motor and from what I understand, the metal used on those is not as strong as most others. This was the second time that had happened on that particular oil pan and since it had already been tapped out, it wasn't possible to do it again. As an intermediate fix, they put a knob thing on it, looked like a water spigot. That held until we could get it to a shop to have a new oil pan installed which cost about $1600. Overpriced because it was a Mercedes motor. Of course the Ta blamed the prior company that did the oil change and that place said no, they didn't do it, it must have been the Ta. So the owner ended up having to pay out of pocket for the damage. That's the main reason we stick with one company to get the oil changes done. This way, if someone screws up, they can't point the finger at anyone else.

It's really sad how repair shops take advantage of truck drivers. It's one thing to need to get work done on your truck. It's another to know that you are depending on that shop to treat you fairly and to do the job properly. Our sons recently had a problem with their truck. Their check engine light kept going off and on. They took it to an International shop in South Carolina. That shop took all week to work on it and their diagnosis was a faulty fuel sensor. They changed it and I forget the exact amount of the charge but it was more than I thought it should be. They left the shop, took the next load offer and the check engine came on. They ended up taking it to the International shop in Ocala, Fl which is the one we seem to have the best luck with. That shop diagnosed it as a faulty oil temperature sensor. I believe it was around $400 this time for the repair. The good news is that they actually fixed the problem.

From what I have seen, when you take your truck in with a problem, the "mechanic" will hook it up to the computer and if that computer doesn't tell them what the problem is, they start guessing and you may end up paying out a lot of money on parts that weren't really bad. Sometimes if you get a young mechanic and he can't find the problem, he'll go and get an older more experienced mechanic and they usually know immediately what the problem is. Too bad there isn't more of the older ones available.

Ohio to Michigan to Georgia