Profile For Pothole

This is the 3rd or 4th time it’s happened in about 6 months.

This morning I sat down in the driver’s seat and the seatbelt was locked up.

The spool inside the plastic body panel from which pays out or winds the slack in the belt is stuck. Also, since the seatbelt is attached to the seat it won’t go up or down either.

The first time or two the spool would eventually release itself and I’d be able to pull the belt out and attach to the latch as normal.

However the last time this happened about a month ago it wouldn’t release after a day so I stopped at a KW dealership and two of the service writers managed to get it released. One guy lifted the seat to take some tension off the belt and the other guy kept yanking on the belt until it finally released.

That time it happened I had dropped my trailer at a customer site. The next morning when I left the truck stop the seat belt was locked up. I went about a mile and lost secondary air pressure. I pulled over on the shoulder ant let my pressure build then went and hooked up to the trailer.

About a week ago I had the terminal mechanic service the truck. He told me that he swapped the pressure sensor. I made a 3000 mile round trip and got back to the yard yesterday.

I bobtailed around the terminal yesterday. I lost pressure but it built right back as before. Told the mechanic and he said the truck would need to go to the dealer at some point. So I hooked up to a trailer and picked up a load.

After getting loaded I shut down on the shoulder in front of the customer site. This morning the seatbelt was locked up.

When I lose my secondary air pressure it drops from around 125 to 50 in about 1-2 seconds and the transmission won’t shift. Less than a minute later the pressure climbs back to 125 in about 1-2 seconds. However I don’t think I’m actually losing pressure in my tanks because I don’t hear any air bleed off. If I was really losing pressure that quickly there should be a loud blow off. But there isn’t one.

Since the seat is air ride I’m thinking the two may be related.

Any ideas what’s causing this?

Chris,

Going to see a therapist is a great step forward. Even though the crash wasn’t your fault it is causing you a great deal of guilt laden stress. A therapist can help you work through this.

Don’t make any career decisions at the moment. Wait and see how you respond therapy. Then with the help of your therapist make the decision that is best for you and don’t look back whatever the decision.

Certainly not an expert, but IMHO CDL schools are nothing but certificate mills. I learned very little in 4 weeks.

There were 4 students per instructor. We spent one week in the class and 2.5 weeks in the yard.

The yard time was broken into two shifts. During one shift we drove on the roads. Each day we each got one turn that lasted about 30-35 minutes. The instructor pretty much said very little while we drove.

The other yard shift was spent backing up. You did one straight backup, one offset backup and one alley backup. If lucky we got 4 turns per day depending on proficiency of others in your group. Many times you only got 3 turns per day.

I didn’t really learn anything until I got with my trainer. My employer required me to ride with a trainer for 60 days. It sucked being with a trainer that long, but I did learn quite a bit more than if that training time would have been shorter.

FWIW, I live in Louisiana, but work out of California. I let my driver manager know when and where I want home time. He gets me a load there.

If I take it where I live I park my truck at either a Walmart or a Pilot. If I take it somewhere else I park at the nearest truck stop.

When home time is over he gets me a load near my where I am. I pick it up and off I go.

I’m assuming you’re talking about the Tyson - IBP beef plant. There is a CAT scale due south of that plant at I-40.

When you pull out from the guard shack make a left. Then make the next left which is Masterson Road. Take Masterson about 4 miles where you will find a small Chisum truck stop with a CAT scale on the corner of Masterson and the I-40 service road.

I want to say it’s at I-40 exit 80-something but don’t quote me.

Today I picked up a load at the Tyson plant northeast of Amarillo, headed east on I40 towards the Texas/Oklahoma state line. The load is heavy, over 43,000 pounds, so I definitely needed to weigh it before I reached the state weigh stations in Texas and then again just after crossing into Oklahoma. No problem, I was going to weigh out at exit 96 on I40, at the Loves truck stop. But there isn’t a CAT scale there. Back on I40, eastbound, I didn’t find any scales (unless I missed one). Fortunately for me, both weigh stations were closed when I passed by. Finally weighed out at my first fuel stop, exit 20 in Sayre, OK. I was 34,900 lbs. on my trailer tandems. Easy adjustment. But I guess next time I have a pickup at Tyson, I’ll have to backtrack to Amarillo and hit a CAT scale there.

Has anybody else had a similar experience? Did I miss a CAT scale along the way? Lots of Prime trucks at Tyson. Maybe one of the Prime drivers has a comment? Sure made me nervous about getting an overweight citation.

I’ve been driving a year and have learned the hard way that if a recruiter’s lips are moving he’s lying. When I hired on I was pretty much guaranteed to make $100K a year. Well, that didn’t happen. I drove about 136,000 miles this year and will gross about $75,000 as a company driver.

Not a bad salary if I were home everyday, but I usually go out for 2 months and come home for a week. But, my view is that if I’m going to live on the road then there should be a premium paid to do so.

Lately, I find my self waiting a day or two for loads if I don’t get back to the terminal at the right time of the week because of our particular lanes.

I believe that part of the income equation should include being an owner/operator. But I’m really beginning to rethink that as I don’t want to be stuck making truck payments, paying maintenance and other costs then my salary and payroll taxes on about $1.30 a mile. Doesn’t seem like a lot of meat left on the bone for the risk taken.

I’ve heard that if I decide to go with a lease purchase I should do it with a company that doesn’t have company drivers since the idea is they will give the O/O’s the lower paying loads because they make more money off the company drivers.

Can anyone suggest a good company to do a lease purchase through where a driver doesn’t have to worry as much about getting miles?

Also, I’m open to any other advice anyone is willing to share.