Bad First Day Back

Just got back to work,took a bit to finally leave the yard since I was having trouble with my tablet, then the trailer not being assigned. Anyways that's nothing bad, but when I finally left the yard... Not even a mile down the road:

Everything seemed fine during the pre-trip.

Now I'm waiting to get towed back to the yard. The picture doesn't show it but my coolant tank is also leaking.

You seem to have my luck when it comes to break downs. If it can break it will break on me.

At least your not out in the middle of nowhere when that happened.

You’re supposed to save stuff like this for Monday’s. At least you were close by and not out in the boondocks.

Now I'm waiting to get towed back to the yard. The picture doesn't show it but my coolant tank is also leaking.

Yuck; that is so frustrating!!!! Sorry =(

Might as well be “me” to play the role of “bad guy”...calling into question that which to me, is important to call-out and also for the purpose of teaching newbies reading this...

Jamie wrote:

Everything seemed fine...

Famous last words.

“Fine” like the right half of the belt in the foreground of your first image? Halfway down looks frayed/edge bare and unevenly wearing (at least to me).

Perhaps a dumb question (please do not be offended by it)... Did you pop the hood and carefully/thoroughly inspect your belts (including tightness), wires, cables and mounting points before driving? Leakage?

You don’t need to answer if you prefer not to... not trying to do anything more than offer my perception of this and possibly reduce the potential for a repeat of a similar failure.

Suffice it to say, if you didn’ pop the hood, it’s likely never to be passed-over in the future. If you did, I sincerely and respectively suggest looking at your belts, gaskets/seals and other things that can wear and loosen-up much, much closer. Especially in the winter...wild temperature extremes exist in the confined engine compartment causing things to more frequently loosen, crack, leak and fail. “Boiling to freezing” in a matter of just a few hours with materials susceptible to varying degrees of expansion and contraction.

I ask this and drilled-down because every day I see drivers completely ignoring that which is beneath the closed hood of their truck. Too cold? Too hot? I just did that yesterday...

Drives me batty when I witness this, happens too much... just asking for a longer “downtime problem” to occur on the road. Like rolling the dice.

And even if you did everything by the book (like Jamie hopefully did) and carefully inspected the engine compartment,...this can still happen.

Hope you are back up and running quickly.

Perhaps a dumb question (please do not be offended by it)... Did you pop the hood and carefully/thoroughly inspect your belts (including tightness), wires, cables and mounting points before driving? Leakage?

Yes I did pop the hood as I always do, at the time I didn't notice anything wrong but maybe I overlooked it, not sure.

I did get the truck out of the shop last night and got another load today. But more bad luck... The previous driver hit something and damaged the side skirting. They really need to do something about drivers who do this then report it has no damages. Pictures below:

I called it in to make sure I wouldn't get blamed for the damages and took it to the shop as I'm at the OC already, so they're working on it now. Been about two hours, and this is going to make me miss the appointment time tomorrow in WI, and the place is only open until 2pm. Not a good start this week.

Jamie I feel your pain 2 weeks ago my starter went out and it cost me 3 days Then yesterday my air dryer broke and I couldn’t build up air pressure and since I’m in an AMT I couldn’t shift it into gear Then last night my bunk heater quit and it’s like zero degrees here Then they finally get it into the shop and find the surge tank has to be replaced. So this trifecta will cost me another 3 days. As to what G Town said, very few drivers even do pre trips at all even though they log them in. All you have to do to confirm this is observe how many drivers don’t even get out of their trucks at truck stops and rest areas before leaving the lot. This is one of the problems with the 14 hr clock because drivers don’t want to start the clock until the last minute because then you can’t stop it. At least this appears to be an issue in my brief experience. So my question for the experienced drivers is: how many drivers do you think are conscientious about pre trips and post trips?

Jamie, I'll bet that made quite a noise. I had a belt split on my car once, so that a part of it was flapping around, and it sounded like the car was falling apart or something. I think it does show why we should be opening the hood during pretrip and looking for things like that, but sometimes things are just defective or don't show any obvious signs of a problem.

Bruce, I know what you mean. How often do you see a hood open at a truck stop? When you do it's usually an O/O doing repairs or maintenance. Not saying it's OK not doing it, just that I think we have to conclude that many don't.

Doing a proper pre trip inspection has nothing to do with the 14 hour clock. Do the pre trip inspection properly, then get on the computer device and log it on duty. If you find something, call it in and get it taken care of by the shop or by road service before starting your clock. Save your 70 for driving as much as you can.