A Rookie Truck Driver's First Week

Bucket your reply is EXACTLY why I am so grateful to be a part of the Trucking Truth family! To know that there are people out there who know exactly what I am going through and truly care makes the stress and anxiety easier to bear. So THANK YOU for being so kind!

I called my regular DM this morning to get my advance for the hotel room. She offered to send me out to recover a truck to get some miles. I turned this down for a couple of reasons. First I have to be home on the 2nd for my husband to take care of Doctor stuff (this has already been approved). I don't know how long they would have me in the recovered truck and when I would be able to get back to Teddy. Second, my husband is with me. Obviously TA isn't going to pay for him to get a bus or plane ticket with me to get to the recovery truck and I can't afford to leave him in the motel in OK. Plus Teddy is supposed to be done tomorrow so it's not too much longer. There is also a selfish reason... I have heard horror stories about recovering trucks. Nasty nasty nasty! Plus sleeping in a bed someone has been doing god knows what in?!? I'd never be able to sleep! (Teddy had brand new mattresses).

Now if Teddy was going to be down any longer than a couple days I would probably do the recovery. Maybe. I am going to be getting breakdown pay for this time and the company is paying for the hotel room. It's just a a minor setback.

BUT! Once the fan clutch is fixed Teddy should be ready to run hard! I'm still wondering if this is something service should have caught, especially since they had to fix the check engine light before I left...

Still waiting... And waiting...

We decided to wait until the truck was done and then bobtail to Walmart for groceries. I did call the public transportation this morning but they didn't have anything as all their buses were being used for a field trip today.

The bad news? There is going to be a very severe storm system moving into the area tomorrow. High winds, damaging hail, and the possibility of tornadoes! Geez... It would really suck if Teddy was all fixed up and ready to roll then got his windshield smashed by hail. Ugh...

Think positive, Teddy is about ready, get that next load, and hit the road. Storms should be late tommorow afternoon. You should be in Louisiana before then! Then its "On the Road Again ".

TEDDY IS DONE!! Just waiting on some paperwork and then we are ready to roll. We have to go pick up a trailer and then we are getting the heck out of Oklahoma! We are going to be heading north west which will put us out of range of the storms. Thank goodness!

Now I'm starting to wonder if Teddy is a lemon. My APU won't run now... And there isn't a Thermoking shop nearby.

Dispatch is trying to find me a load that will take me near a shop. I was supposed to go to Dodge City KS and get it worked on which was were my load picked up, but they can't change the time on the load. So I lost that load to Columbus.

Is this ever going to end??

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

I'd say the heck with the APU for now and just run with it. You don't need it. You can just idle the truck until you get a chance to get it fixed.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

Brett I would love to be able to do that but I have a 5 minute idle timer on the truck. I couldn't idle even if I wanted too.

It doesn't let you bump the idle up to keep it running? There should be some way to override the shut-off so that it will keep running.

Tell the shop you're sick of sitting around waiting on this thing and you need a way to get it to idle until you can get it fixed.

The only important thing I need my APU for is my bunk a/c in hot weather.. my bunk heater is separate and doesn't require an APU. Incidentally, my truck will only idle for 5 mins if I'm lucky, before it automatically shuts down. A tap on the service brake will prevent a shutdown, but every 5 mins? Nope, I sure cant idle my truck.. how about you, Chickie?

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

I agree with Brett--if you can idle, just do that until for a week or so until you can more conveniently get by a shop. My truck shuts down every 5 minutes too but there is an override. On Freightliner you turn on cruise control and set it while the truck is idling. Not sure what it is on a KW. But if TransAm has the override disabled, can you at least just go by a Walmart and get a12-volt electric blanket or something? My truck doesn't have an APU and I can run my fridge all night with the truck off and start it up fine in the morning, so I wouldn't think something like that would be much worse.

Or can they route you through a terminal so you could swap trucks or something?

Sorry if my ideas are ridiculous--it would just suck to have to sit more without getting any miles for the week.

Terminal:

A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.