March 22, 2005...
Problems, problems, problems. Lately I've had a string of problems since I switched from the Mack to this Freightliner. A few days ago I was going by the main company yard and I stopped to get an electrical system problem fixed. I ended up getting to spend a couple of nights at home. They dispatched me on a load that picked up at Noel, Missouri, but when I got to the yard to leave there were no empty trailers available. I finally got an empty trailer on Sunday. Yesterday I was near Lincoln, Nebraska when I had a trailer tire blow out. Normally that would be no big deal, except that it took the company over three hours to finally tell me where to go to get the tire fixed.
This afternoon I was just west of Omaha, Nebraska and a "low coolant" light flashed on my dash and the computer shut the engine down when I was going through a construction zone with narrow lanes. I barely made it to a place on the shoulder where I could pull off. A "motorist assist" van brought me some water and I was able to nurse the truck to a truck stop about 4 miles up the road. I ended up getting the coolant reservoir replaced.
So all of these problems have me wondering if it's time for me to think about changing trucking companies. It seems that the company I'm currently working for is starting to cut corners in order to reduce costs. The big thing was that seems like a huge red flag to me was with them replacing an aging used Mack with an aging used Freightliner that only has 150,000 miles less on it than the Mack did.
Anyway, I've got the coolant reservoir fixed and I'm about to head on east some more. This reservoir problem will likely push my delivery date out to Friday the 25th. Originally I was supposed to deliver in New Jersey on the 24th.