Comments By PJ

I service it twice a year. I’m not in the truck everyday. I think thermoking says every 600 hrs. Mine is quite, inside the truck anyway. It doesn’t vibrate.

AC I went through Roehl many years ago. I think they pay something now while in school, not sure. Call their recruting number and ask for Kim Calhoun. She is awesome and will give you straight info.

McElroy does their own training in Cuba Al.

I have an older thermoking tripac apu. I love it. I have almost 20k hours on it. I keep it serviced and it is awesome.

I’ve known folks who have used cheaper brands and had nothing but trouble from them.

Carrier makes one also, but they have less service centers for them. Any thermoking dealer works on apu’s, not so for carrier.

No your not crazy at all. Actually your putting alot of thought into this rather than jumping in head first. That in itself puts you ahead of alot of folks.

Thank you for your service in both sectors. I was Navy and went LE and retired with a nice pension. Neither are easy on a family life. Congrats to you!!

Both Maverick and TMC are good companies, but not the only ones. Roehl has a flatbed division and outstanding training. McElroy is flatbed only with great training. There are several others as well.

TMC can be kinda quirky and seem to have to tarp alot more than some others.

With flatbed you will have 2 seperate and distinct learning curves. Driving in general and proper load securement. Spread axle trailers turn quite different than tandem axle trailers.

I’ve pulled general chemical tankers which is different but doable. Fuel tankers are even yet more diversified. Get your initial experience then go for what you want.

Put your mind to it and you should be able to accomplish it.

Some folks think I’m nuts for what I do, but it works for me. I haul spread axle flatbeds and/or 3 & 4 axle lowboys in/out of cemetaries. We are not all the same. Each of us have our own wants, needs, and desires.

Wishing you the very best at whatever you choose!!

Sorry to hear your issues, but alot of us have been there, done that, and came out the other side better off. Sounds like you did too, congrats.

Being new I would stay away from anything with dollar in the name. Take a look at those store setups. Mostly, not all are not built to get tractor trailers into. Very challenging backing and alot of time in the dark. Many a driver has started that way and killed their career in very short order.

Alot of the experienced drivers won’t do those, why do you think recruiters are hot on them. Werner only cares about covering their loads. They will give new drivers a shot in a heartbeat, and fire them in a heartbeat if they hit stuff or damage equipment.

There have been a few success stories, but many more failure stories over the years.

The choice is yours, I just hope you make a wise one for your career, not a few dollars more.

I have run into it in the past a couple of times. I asked to speak with the duty manager and pointed out they sold a service and now were refusing to provide that service. That is fraud and also the people in paid spots without paying were committing theft of services.

Both are misdeamoner crimes in most states. I then asked if I should call local law enforcement to file a criminal complaint against them.

That changed their attitude pretty quick and both times they still refused to kick out the non paying customers, but did block off a fuel pump and allowed me to park there.

I have noticied more checking there paid spots after 1600 and keeping it cleaned out. Some I’ve even seen armed security guards.

Brett I haven’t been on the road like that trip in awhile, but the amount of drivers I encountered out there and back that were not english proficient was staggering to me.

I had 3 drivers that approached me in rest areas trying to ask questions. They used some app on their phone to show me what they were asking. All 3 were hauling oversize loads.

That is scary!!!

Rates have been in the toilet for 3 years and if they go much lower more companies will go out of business.

Even the mega carriers have consistently been reporting losses in quarterly earnings calls.

Every month I read articles where trucking companies and brokers are going out of business, but yet capacity is still excessive.

I follow the stats every week on rates and capacity and it has not been good in a long time. These are reported off the spot market.

This is going to be a very mixed bag I think. In May I took a permitted load from Ga to Salem Or. As such I met alot of DOT officers across 12 states. I’ll share a couple interactions I had. 3 days were during blitz week.

AL on I20 at the scale house I saw alot of state and US DOT officers. They were lined up pulling trucks over to the side. A state officer looked at my permit and the load and told me to be safe. This took about 30 seconds. Before I started moving 2 young federal officers walked over and were looking at the load and pointing. They didn’t really approach me, but out of caution I got out and asked them if they needed something. One said no he was using my load to point out a few things to the other officer with him for training. We spoke briefly and another truck had pulled in close to us and it was quickly noticable the driver didn’t speak English. They said things would be changing alot starting June 25. They told me there would be more field agents working with state officers.

AR: I had to stand in line at the scale house on I40 at the TN line. There were 3 drivers ahead of me and I just stood there listening and all 3 drivers at best were struggling with understanding the officers. Finally one asked me what I needed. I told him I was the oversize and I held up my permit. He had the driver at his window stand aside while he looked at my permit. He asked a couple questions handed me back my permit, thanked me, and sent me on my way. I really still don’t know what he thanked me for, but I’m guessing for having my act together and not creating them any issues.

WY: I-80 port of entry w/b. I was behind about a dozen drivers. All of which spoke with heavy accents and spoke to each other in a different language. There were 3 other oversize loads in the lot. An older officer saw me at the end of the line standing quietly. I was dressed well with clean jeans, boots, and a company shirt. He asked if I was the brown peterbilt with the 4 axle trailer. I said yes sir. He came out and walked me outside. He looked at my permit and then said I had a low tire on my trailer according to their heat sensor. We walked to my truck I got a tire guage out and I did have one tire a little low. It wasn’t flat just low on air. He told me I was ok to continue but needed to get some air. I aired it up on the spot. He seemed amazed I had an air hose and air guage. We talked while I did this and he smoked a few cigarettes. He told me the other 3 oversize loads were not going anywhere. 2 didn’t have permits and the other the trailer brakes were in disrepair. He said they get this type of stuff everyday. He did mention they had already been told they were NOT to enforce the english profficiency when it comes june 25. I thought that was odd, and he said they have become much more liberal the last several years.

I think based on some of those contacts I had on that trip states are gearing up to either enforce the rule or ignore it. So in the end I guess it will be wait and see how it all shakes out.

With that size company a mechanic or office person probably has a cdl for as needed situations. Pretty common and if they have a cdl and are on the insurance is reported on the mcs-150.

Small fleets like that can either be great or a complete disaster. All depends on how well they run it.

They are big enough to get some contracts with larger shippers and yet small enough to not be micro-managers.

OR

They aren’t highly motivated and take what they can get and ignore maintance issues until breakdowns occur.

I would have a sit down with management as well as look over the equipment and talk with the shop.

Then make a decision.

To the best of my knowledge TSA handles all the official fingerprinting for gov’t agencies.