When I last posted, we were on our way to Laredo and I was hoping that we wouldn't break down and have to go back to the International Dealer there. Happily, we did not. We delivered and went back to the truckstop and was about ready to head in for a shower when we were dispatched on our next load which went to the Los Angeles area of California. We were really upset that we didn't even have time to take a shower, but couldn't pass up the good paying load, so we figured we would just deal with it.
We headed off to California and since the load was delivering Friday evening, we assumed that we would sit in Cali till Monday which would have been great with us. We desperately needed showers, rest and wanted Sunday evening off for our fantasy football draft. About 50 miles into our load, dispatch called and offered us a load picking up in Cali on Saturday and delivering in Ohio on Monday. We turned it down because they couldn't give us the weight and piece count and I told him that I wasn't going to disrupt my weekend plans if I didn't know for sure the load would definitely fit on our truck. He wasn't happy about it, and we weren't either really. It was a lot of money, but whatever.
The next morning we got another call from dispatch for another load offer. This time picking up as soon as we could get to it after making the delivery of the load we were on. Only problem was that it was going to Canada, which we no longer do, so they wanted us to take it to a crossdock in Michigan on Sunday night. I told the dispatcher that we already had plans for Sunday night and could not be driving at that time so they worked it out that we could deliver the load to a crossdock in Indiana on Sunday morning instead. That was perfect. Right. Funny how things never go according to plan.
We delivered the load we were on and it was a nightmare dealing with rush hour LA traffic. We immediately headed to the next pick up which was next to the LA airport. More nightmare...Anyway, we got there, got loaded and headed out. Still in rush hour traffic. I fought my way out of it and eventually things settled down. All seemed to be going well except for the fact that due to the traffic we were now not going to be able to deliver until around noon on Sunday. Still not a problem. Right...
John and I took turns driving and I took over again in New Mexico. I drove about 100 miles and it was about 100 degrees outside. I had just passed thru Santa Rosa and was climbing up and down the hills. I was keeping a close eye on the temp guage because we are obsessive about trying to make sure our truck never overheats so that we don't damage the motor. We want it to last as long as it possibly can. Everything was running perfectly when all of a sudden the temp guage starts climbing. It went up to 200. I was listening for the fan to kick in but didn't hear anything. It went up to 205, still no fan. I start worrying. Temp goes up to 210, no fan and I know somethings wrong. I look ahead and see an exit coming up so I pulled over on the exit and stopped. The temp had made it up to 217 but then came back down to 210 after I stopped. I got out and pulled the hood open and saw our coolant leaking all over the ground. I opened the truck back up and yelled at John to come look. He immediately saw a hole in the hose. I shut the truck off and thought okay, no big deal, we'll just call roadside repair and they can fix it. I got the cell phone out and tried to call, and got a message on the phone saying no mobile network service. Emergency calls only. What?? Thinking that maybe it was just my phone acting retarded, I got John's phone out and tried it. Same result. I continued trying to call over and over on both phones and finally gave up.
I told John that maybe a cop would come along or some kind of highway helper and they could call repair for us. I waited about 10 minutes (still no patience) and finally decided I was going to call 911. Sure enough the call went right through. I explained our situation to the 911 dispatcher and he helped us out by calling the TA RoadSquad. However, due to TA's policy, they ended up taking about 5 hours to show up because they couldn't call us to verify how we were going to pay. Fortunately, I was able to send a message over the qualcomm to our carrier and they contacted the TA and reassured them they would get paid.
The problem started at 5PM. The repair guy showed up at 10:15 PM. We didn't get out of there until 12:45 AM. He did do a good job repairing the hose. Just took him awhile because he was working by flashlight and it was a tight squeeze for him to get his hand into. He filled us back up with 7 gallons of coolant and we paid him $370. Not too bad considering that included 7 gals of coolant. While he was fixing the hose, he pointed out to us that we had a diesel fuel leak. He said he wasn't authorized to repair it but it should be okay till we could get somewhere to fix it. Great!! Not what we wanted to hear.
Off we went. I was so upset because now our load was going to be late. Up to this point, we have never been late. Our fantasy draft was up in the air. Were we going to have drop out? We now had our sleep schedules messed up. To say it nicely, we were both getting a little cranky. There was nothing we could do but continue on and hope we made it to our delivery without any further problems.
It turned out that John was going to be driving the last leg of the trip which freed me up to be able to do our football draft. It was horrible. It was pouring down rain the last 300 miles of the trip, road construction, it was dark outside, the roads were so bumpy and again, we were both grouchy. I had to work two laptops to do my draft and John's draft and it was all I could do to keep track of things. John arrived at our crossdock right about midnight and I was almost done with the draft. Problem was, our crossdock was closed and they had the entire parking lot roped off because they had repaved their parking lot. We parked across the street and called in to dispatch and let them know the situation. About an hour later they called back and said, change of plans, you need to take the load to the crossdock in Michigan. Another 260 miles!! We were furious! We had already made plans to get more repair work done on our truck in Indiana. Now we had to drive another 260 miles away from where we wanted to be, not to mention the fact that we were both exhausted! I had stayed up doing to the draft thinking that our trip was done and I wouldn't need to drive. It was a disaster. We split the 260 miles in half. John drove the first half while I slept. Then I finished the drive. It was all I could do to get it done. We got there, unloaded, parked and slept till 2:30 PM.
We got up, showered, ate, filled the truck up and headed back to Indiana to get the work done on the generator that we had been wanting done. After that we were going to go down to Lafayette to the International Dealer there to get the fuel leak fixed along with having our AC repaired. AGAIN!! It started having problems on the way to our delivery. Not happy about that at all since we had just spent almost $2000 and three days getting it worked on in El Paso back in May.
As if all that wasn't bad enough, there was more to come. John only made it about 15 miles when he called me up front and said we had a problem with the truck. You could feel the engine cutting out like it wasn't getting fuel. It would run okay, and then cut in and out. We pulled over at the next truckstop and looked under the hood. We couldn't see any problems. We sat there and let it idle. It seemed okay. I called a couple of the closest International shops and both said they were swamped and couldn't look at it right away. We debated on what to do and finally agreed to give it another try. John took off again and went about 20 more miles but we decided to stop because it was running really rough. We parked for the night and in the morning I called the International in Toledo and he said he could take us in and if it wasn't anything major, he could fix it that morning. We headed over and the truck ran like crap but it made it.
They replaced the fuel line and showed us the old one that was worn out. I asked them if they thought that was the problem making the truck run rough and they said it could be if it was letting air in the suction side or something like that. Okay, whatever. $150 for that repair. We started the truck up, it seemed to run fine. Off we went. Again. The first 50 miles were great. No problems. Nice and smooth. Then, it started acting up again. Just a little at first, then a little worse. I just kept on driving and at that point, we decided to just keep going and if it quit, we would get towed. We finally made it to Remington, In which is where we were getting the work done on the generator. The truck had ran bad off and on but the last 20 miles it ran great. We had no idea what was going on with it.
We couldn't get in to the Chrome Shop for 2 days so the next day we spent visiting with our sons who were still there and then visiting some of our friends who live in the area. We took the truck in to the Chrome Shop on Thursday and they raised the generator up several inches. Thank goodness!! No more worrying if we were going to tear it off going over rr tracks or speed bumps. Cost of repair, $350. The next morning we got up and drove the truck about 40 miles down to Lafayette. It started out running great but the last 10 miles it acted up again and by the time we took the exit ramp it was a nightmare. The truck was bucking like a bronco. Acting like it was going to die. But it made it. Barely....We gave them the keys and a list of the repairs we wanted done. Called Enterprise for a rental car. They came and picked us up and we headed down to southern Indiana to visit family. Figured we might as well treat this as vacation time since we were in the area of all our family.
I called later in the day to see if they had figured out the problem and was told no, that their senior mechanic wouldn't be back until Tuesday due to the Labor Day Holiday so I called and extended my rental car. The good news was that the rental car was only $17 a day. We didn't have to pay for a motel since we were staying in my parents camper. We had a great visit with our families and get rested up. The truck was finally done on Thursday. The problem turned out to be the wiring for the IPR valve. (Injector Pressure Regulator). Apparently when we had our fuel leak which is right next to the IPR wiring, the fuel got into the wiring and caused damage. So, we got that replaced, a new air horn, (when John hit the wild hog, it broke our horn), added an extension onto our air hose inside the cab so it would reach into the back of the sleeper for easier cleaning, replaced a couple of marker lights, and fixed a problem with our air compressor. The pop off valves weren't working properly and were allowing air to leak causing the compressor to run pretty much all the time. Oh yeah, they fixed the AC. Again. After all that, the total bill was $2100. No charge for the AC since it was still under warranty. So....to sum up, we have spent about $2900 on repairs in the last two weeks. Not including rental car and lost wages. It's hard to believe, but we somehow still have money in the bank.
After picking up the truck and returning the rental car, we stopped in at Meijers to stock up the truck with all the necessities. Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Coke Zero, snacks, paper towels, baby wipes, etc. There was a Steak and Shake next door so we had lunch. After that we were discussing which direction to head to wait for a load when dispatch called. Surprising since we weren't back in service yet. They had a load offer for us which we accepted. It picked up the next morning in Southern Indiana and delivered in San Diego, Ca on Monday morning. That one load paid enough to cover all the repairs we had done, plus put a little extra in our pocket. The deadhead to the pickup was 150 miles which was great. We wanted to give the truck a good test drive before actually picking up a load to see if everything seemed to be running properly. It ran fine, but I was so anxious the entire drive listening and seeing if I could feel anything that didn't seem right. This truck is driving me crazy and making me so paranoid.
We got the load picked up and headed off to San Diego. We had about 30 extra hours on the load so I actually had to come up with a trip plan. The load was a military load which only allowed us to stop for 3 hours and 30 minutes at a time. After that time, you must start moving again. In addition to that, one person must remain with the truck at all times, be awake and in the cab of the truck, not the sleeper berth. It's a pain, but it paid well. With so much time on the load, we only drove a max of 200 miles before stopping to take a 3 hour break. This continued all the way from Indiana to Ca. 2100 miles. You would think that you would get a lot of rest with so much extra time, but you actually get less rest due to the security requirements of having one person in the cab at all times. The person in the sleeper can't really get rested due to all the stopping. Im not going to complain too much because the truck made it here, on time, with no repairs needed and lately that is saying A LOT!!!
We headed off to California and since the load was delivering Friday evening, we assumed that we would sit in Cali till Monday which would have been great with us. We desperately needed showers, rest and wanted Sunday evening off for our fantasy football draft. About 50 miles into our load, dispatch called and offered us a load picking up in Cali on Saturday and delivering in Ohio on Monday. We turned it down because they couldn't give us the weight and piece count and I told him that I wasn't going to disrupt my weekend plans if I didn't know for sure the load would definitely fit on our truck. He wasn't happy about it, and we weren't either really. It was a lot of money, but whatever.
The next morning we got another call from dispatch for another load offer. This time picking up as soon as we could get to it after making the delivery of the load we were on. Only problem was that it was going to Canada, which we no longer do, so they wanted us to take it to a crossdock in Michigan on Sunday night. I told the dispatcher that we already had plans for Sunday night and could not be driving at that time so they worked it out that we could deliver the load to a crossdock in Indiana on Sunday morning instead. That was perfect. Right. Funny how things never go according to plan.
We delivered the load we were on and it was a nightmare dealing with rush hour LA traffic. We immediately headed to the next pick up which was next to the LA airport. More nightmare...Anyway, we got there, got loaded and headed out. Still in rush hour traffic. I fought my way out of it and eventually things settled down. All seemed to be going well except for the fact that due to the traffic we were now not going to be able to deliver until around noon on Sunday. Still not a problem. Right...
John and I took turns driving and I took over again in New Mexico. I drove about 100 miles and it was about 100 degrees outside. I had just passed thru Santa Rosa and was climbing up and down the hills. I was keeping a close eye on the temp guage because we are obsessive about trying to make sure our truck never overheats so that we don't damage the motor. We want it to last as long as it possibly can. Everything was running perfectly when all of a sudden the temp guage starts climbing. It went up to 200. I was listening for the fan to kick in but didn't hear anything. It went up to 205, still no fan. I start worrying. Temp goes up to 210, no fan and I know somethings wrong. I look ahead and see an exit coming up so I pulled over on the exit and stopped. The temp had made it up to 217 but then came back down to 210 after I stopped. I got out and pulled the hood open and saw our coolant leaking all over the ground. I opened the truck back up and yelled at John to come look. He immediately saw a hole in the hose. I shut the truck off and thought okay, no big deal, we'll just call roadside repair and they can fix it. I got the cell phone out and tried to call, and got a message on the phone saying no mobile network service. Emergency calls only. What?? Thinking that maybe it was just my phone acting retarded, I got John's phone out and tried it. Same result. I continued trying to call over and over on both phones and finally gave up.
I told John that maybe a cop would come along or some kind of highway helper and they could call repair for us. I waited about 10 minutes (still no patience) and finally decided I was going to call 911. Sure enough the call went right through. I explained our situation to the 911 dispatcher and he helped us out by calling the TA RoadSquad. However, due to TA's policy, they ended up taking about 5 hours to show up because they couldn't call us to verify how we were going to pay. Fortunately, I was able to send a message over the qualcomm to our carrier and they contacted the TA and reassured them they would get paid.
The problem started at 5PM. The repair guy showed up at 10:15 PM. We didn't get out of there until 12:45 AM. He did do a good job repairing the hose. Just took him awhile because he was working by flashlight and it was a tight squeeze for him to get his hand into. He filled us back up with 7 gallons of coolant and we paid him $370. Not too bad considering that included 7 gals of coolant. While he was fixing the hose, he pointed out to us that we had a diesel fuel leak. He said he wasn't authorized to repair it but it should be okay till we could get somewhere to fix it. Great!! Not what we wanted to hear.
Off we went. I was so upset because now our load was going to be late. Up to this point, we have never been late. Our fantasy draft was up in the air. Were we going to have drop out? We now had our sleep schedules messed up. To say it nicely, we were both getting a little cranky. There was nothing we could do but continue on and hope we made it to our delivery without any further problems.
It turned out that John was going to be driving the last leg of the trip which freed me up to be able to do our football draft. It was horrible. It was pouring down rain the last 300 miles of the trip, road construction, it was dark outside, the roads were so bumpy and again, we were both grouchy. I had to work two laptops to do my draft and John's draft and it was all I could do to keep track of things. John arrived at our crossdock right about midnight and I was almost done with the draft. Problem was, our crossdock was closed and they had the entire parking lot roped off because they had repaved their parking lot. We parked across the street and called in to dispatch and let them know the situation. About an hour later they called back and said, change of plans, you need to take the load to the crossdock in Michigan. Another 260 miles!! We were furious! We had already made plans to get more repair work done on our truck in Indiana. Now we had to drive another 260 miles away from where we wanted to be, not to mention the fact that we were both exhausted! I had stayed up doing to the draft thinking that our trip was done and I wouldn't need to drive. It was a disaster. We split the 260 miles in half. John drove the first half while I slept. Then I finished the drive. It was all I could do to get it done. We got there, unloaded, parked and slept till 2:30 PM.
We got up, showered, ate, filled the truck up and headed back to Indiana to get the work done on the generator that we had been wanting done. After that we were going to go down to Lafayette to the International Dealer there to get the fuel leak fixed along with having our AC repaired. AGAIN!! It started having problems on the way to our delivery. Not happy about that at all since we had just spent almost $2000 and three days getting it worked on in El Paso back in May.
As if all that wasn't bad enough, there was more to come. John only made it about 15 miles when he called me up front and said we had a problem with the truck. You could feel the engine cutting out like it wasn't getting fuel. It would run okay, and then cut in and out. We pulled over at the next truckstop and looked under the hood. We couldn't see any problems. We sat there and let it idle. It seemed okay. I called a couple of the closest International shops and both said they were swamped and couldn't look at it right away. We debated on what to do and finally agreed to give it another try. John took off again and went about 20 more miles but we decided to stop because it was running really rough. We parked for the night and in the morning I called the International in Toledo and he said he could take us in and if it wasn't anything major, he could fix it that morning. We headed over and the truck ran like crap but it made it.
They replaced the fuel line and showed us the old one that was worn out. I asked them if they thought that was the problem making the truck run rough and they said it could be if it was letting air in the suction side or something like that. Okay, whatever. $150 for that repair. We started the truck up, it seemed to run fine. Off we went. Again. The first 50 miles were great. No problems. Nice and smooth. Then, it started acting up again. Just a little at first, then a little worse. I just kept on driving and at that point, we decided to just keep going and if it quit, we would get towed. We finally made it to Remington, In which is where we were getting the work done on the generator. The truck had ran bad off and on but the last 20 miles it ran great. We had no idea what was going on with it.
We couldn't get in to the Chrome Shop for 2 days so the next day we spent visiting with our sons who were still there and then visiting some of our friends who live in the area. We took the truck in to the Chrome Shop on Thursday and they raised the generator up several inches. Thank goodness!! No more worrying if we were going to tear it off going over rr tracks or speed bumps. Cost of repair, $350. The next morning we got up and drove the truck about 40 miles down to Lafayette. It started out running great but the last 10 miles it acted up again and by the time we took the exit ramp it was a nightmare. The truck was bucking like a bronco. Acting like it was going to die. But it made it. Barely....We gave them the keys and a list of the repairs we wanted done. Called Enterprise for a rental car. They came and picked us up and we headed down to southern Indiana to visit family. Figured we might as well treat this as vacation time since we were in the area of all our family.
I called later in the day to see if they had figured out the problem and was told no, that their senior mechanic wouldn't be back until Tuesday due to the Labor Day Holiday so I called and extended my rental car. The good news was that the rental car was only $17 a day. We didn't have to pay for a motel since we were staying in my parents camper. We had a great visit with our families and get rested up. The truck was finally done on Thursday. The problem turned out to be the wiring for the IPR valve. (Injector Pressure Regulator). Apparently when we had our fuel leak which is right next to the IPR wiring, the fuel got into the wiring and caused damage. So, we got that replaced, a new air horn, (when John hit the wild hog, it broke our horn), added an extension onto our air hose inside the cab so it would reach into the back of the sleeper for easier cleaning, replaced a couple of marker lights, and fixed a problem with our air compressor. The pop off valves weren't working properly and were allowing air to leak causing the compressor to run pretty much all the time. Oh yeah, they fixed the AC. Again. After all that, the total bill was $2100. No charge for the AC since it was still under warranty. So....to sum up, we have spent about $2900 on repairs in the last two weeks. Not including rental car and lost wages. It's hard to believe, but we somehow still have money in the bank.
After picking up the truck and returning the rental car, we stopped in at Meijers to stock up the truck with all the necessities. Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr. Pepper, Coke Zero, snacks, paper towels, baby wipes, etc. There was a Steak and Shake next door so we had lunch. After that we were discussing which direction to head to wait for a load when dispatch called. Surprising since we weren't back in service yet. They had a load offer for us which we accepted. It picked up the next morning in Southern Indiana and delivered in San Diego, Ca on Monday morning. That one load paid enough to cover all the repairs we had done, plus put a little extra in our pocket. The deadhead to the pickup was 150 miles which was great. We wanted to give the truck a good test drive before actually picking up a load to see if everything seemed to be running properly. It ran fine, but I was so anxious the entire drive listening and seeing if I could feel anything that didn't seem right. This truck is driving me crazy and making me so paranoid.
We got the load picked up and headed off to San Diego. We had about 30 extra hours on the load so I actually had to come up with a trip plan. The load was a military load which only allowed us to stop for 3 hours and 30 minutes at a time. After that time, you must start moving again. In addition to that, one person must remain with the truck at all times, be awake and in the cab of the truck, not the sleeper berth. It's a pain, but it paid well. With so much time on the load, we only drove a max of 200 miles before stopping to take a 3 hour break. This continued all the way from Indiana to Ca. 2100 miles. You would think that you would get a lot of rest with so much extra time, but you actually get less rest due to the security requirements of having one person in the cab at all times. The person in the sleeper can't really get rested due to all the stopping. Im not going to complain too much because the truck made it here, on time, with no repairs needed and lately that is saying A LOT!!!
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