12 Hour Tire Change

My meet guy ran something over on the road and had a hole in the tire when he got to me. Which is ironic because 3 weeks ago the roles were reversed. But I figured no big deal, I'm parked 200 feet from the Loves tire bay shouldn't take too long.

I called our breakdown department at 4:30, they got it assigned to the Loves who's lot im parked in within like 10 minutes. I checked in with the Loves, he said he has 1 in the bay and 2 infront of me so it will be like 2 or 3 hours. Annoying for sure, but I get breakdown pay from the time I called into the time I'm on the road. 3 hours later I checked back in, they told me 2 more people in front of me. It will be another 2 hours. At this point I knew I'd probably have to get a hotel, but OD pays for it so not a huge deal.

At 9:30 Loves tells me they close at 11 pm and will not be able to get to me tonight, come back in the morning.... I told him I'm in a day cab , i can't just sleep in the lot, you guys told me 2 or 3 hours 6 hours ago. He just shrugged and said they were busy.

I called our breakdown department back told them and they sent out a T/A eta 2 hours. At this point I was cutting it close on even making it back to Indy which is a tad over an hour away and would probably have to be picked up, so i called our dispatchers and got them working on that.

Mean while it starts storming and the tech from T/A calls and asks how the weather is. I told him it's raining and windy but nothing crazy, he said he might have to turn around. You can guess where this is going, he called back a few minutes later and said due to tornado warning and lightning he has to turn around.

Indy sent a driver out to rescue me, he got there at 1 am. So we both just sat in a day cab and waited

Finally the weather cleared and T/A was back enroute, eta was 6 minutes finally 20+ minutes later he showed up. He started looking over the tire and was like "they sent me with the wrong one" all OD equipment uses 11 R 22.5 someone at TA told him to get a 295 22.5. So he offered to install it anyway so we can make it back to Indy, the Indy drivers obviously, and smartly didn't want to drive on the wrong size tire. So the guy had to drove back his shop and get the correct one.

Finally gets back around 3:30 and finished a tad after 4. By the time we got back to Indy and I made it to the hotel it was 6 am et.

Bobcat, that is rough!

We both know truck drivers are great complainers, even when we don't really have good reason. I give anybody a pass on complaining about that situation. Not only does it mess up your day, but it messes up the hours of the other driver too. Then it probably messes up both driver's schedule for the next day.

Ouch! That was a costly tire.

Not only does it mess up your day, but it messes up the hours of the other driver too

It affected 4 drivers, obviously myself, the guy who had to pick me up, and since I couldn't make my meet today, my meet guy and the other guy he goes and meets in Pennsylvania.

Plus, the trailer that had the flat had guaranteed freight which was late. So the customers will get all their money back on whatever it was they shipped.

That sounds brutal Bobcat. I've been spending a lot of time in shops recently. I've had problems when hooking to some but not all trailers where certain lights wouldn't work. All they'd do is change the green cord but usually within a week the problem would return. I finally got it in to my company shop who found corrosion behind the connection on the tractor side. So hopefully I can stop sending in breakdown messages.

Sandman J and I just had a conversation a few weeks back about issues like this. For some reason Love's/Speedco really sucks (except Bridgeport, MI). TA truck service seems to be a better option at TA or Petro.

Sorry you lost so much time man!

Love's don't pay their people in the shop a "living" wage/ Heck I remember CRST starting pay was like $18 hour pfft ya can;t buy tools with that pay, when 1 "big" wrench can cost $100+, so can the bigger 1/2" sockets.

@ 1 time, I had 13 Snap-On sockets, 3/4 drive up to a 2.5" size, and ratchet, that cost over $2,000 alone lol Sure miss my tool collection here in PH, sittin' at home in my shed, probably around $60,000+ worth even after having $10,000 stolen at work, when I was off 6 months with broken leg. Boss didn't lock my tool boxes like he claimed he had, then lost ALL my keys.....