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XPO | New trailers, specifically vans

shamrockhockey said:
Anybody pulling the new vans especially in the city operation, do you feel that they are unsafe? I ask because these specific vans, the air lines tend to disconnect often, especially during right turns. Extremely unsafe to exit the cab in traffic to reconnect these lines. Yes or no?
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Ok so lets look at why this is a problem. Con-way and now XPO have to paid to have the airlines connection point moved to the center of the cab. The reason this was done was because most of our trailer hookups are on the passenger side. Having this done is an extra cost add to the truck price.
Now I know you all will point out this was done for safety, but heard because CF did it. Really how many time have you had to drop a trailer on the side of the road. I done it maybe 3 times in 25yrs. I see a lot of driver getting up on the cat walk anyway to hook and unhook there airlines.
I have yet to hear of any problems like this from FedEx or OD and there hookups are on the driver side.
I found a pic of the rear of a new OD truck just look at were the airline are attached and when you are on the road look at the back of most Freightliners they all look like that.
2P0wBJE.jpg
 
r0H6qjs.jpg

Hey look at were the airlines are in this 2017 Median duty city truck and were are ours at?
Hell we even pay to have ours moved to the middle.
That's the price of having specialized equipment
 
Fly-by-night said:
Hey look at were the airlines are in this 2017 Median duty city truck and were are ours at?
Hell we even pay to have ours moved to the middle.
That's the price of having specialized equipment
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Excellent observation and a well made point. This will continue to be quite a problem until all the mismatched pieces and parts are exhausted from the system. What 15 years from now ? We got Sterlings in our truck pool for next year on some runs. Its going to be a while. What do we, as drivers, do in the mean time to get through ? How do we handle this situation on a daily basis to protect ourselves from the obvious safety hazards that come from it ?
 
highspeeds said:
Excellent observation and a well made point. This will continue to be quite a problem until all the mismatched pieces and parts are exhausted from the system. What 15 years from now ? We got Sterlings in our truck pool for next year on some runs. Its going to be a while. What do we, as drivers, do in the mean time to get through ? How do we handle this situation on a daily basis to protect ourselves from the obvious safety hazards that come from it ?
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Why do you still have Sterling's on lineruns? The policy from what I understand is the lowest mile tractors are to be used on the longest line runs. We don't use Sterling's on any Lineruns anymore.
 
radman said:
Why do you still have Sterling's on lineruns? The policy from what I understand is the lowest mile tractors are to be used on the longest line runs. We don't use Sterling's on any Lineruns anymore.
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My barn is slated to run two 08 Sterlings on our shortest run. The only problem is we don’t stay at that FAC. We usually via thru.
 
Bloodwidow said:
My barn is slated to run two 08 Sterlings on our shortest run. The only problem is we don’t stay at that FAC. We usually via thru.
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We have two sterlings also, going from xsx-xnw. Bridgeport drives are driving more sterling’s than freightliners. There are plenty of sterlings with low miles on them.
 
dalesr said:
We have two sterlings also, going from xsx-xnw. Bridgeport drives are driving more sterling’s than freightliners. There are plenty of sterlings with low miles on them.
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He's 100% right. I see Sterlings, I'm guessing '08 models, with less miles on them than '12 Freightliners. Remember '09 when they put the old beaters on the long runs to increase the miles before selling them? Oh wait, I'm sorry. That was Con-Way.
 
Fly-by-night said:
Ok so lets look at why this is a problem. Con-way and now XPO have to paid to have the airlines connection point moved to the center of the cab. The reason this was done was because most of our trailer hookups are on the passenger side. Having this done is an extra cost add to the truck price.
Now I know you all will point out this was done for safety, but heard because CF did it. Really how many time have you had to drop a trailer on the side of the road. I done it maybe 3 times in 25yrs. I see a lot of driver getting up on the cat walk anyway to hook and unhook there airlines.
I have yet to hear of any problems like this from FedEx or OD and there hookups are on the driver side.
I found a pic of the rear of a new OD truck just look at were the airline are attached and when you are on the road look at the back of most Freightliners they all look like that.
2P0wBJE.jpg
Click to expand...

So is that the reason they are moving the airlines to the passenger side? Seems like looking for a solution without a problem. They are might as well move all the wheels to the passenger side so if you get a flat, you won't have to be so close to moving traffic. Lol
 
DanielHK said:
So is that the reason they are moving the airlines to the passenger side? Seems like looking for a solution without a problem. They are might as well move all the wheels to the passenger side so if you get a flat, you won't have to be so close to moving traffic. Lol
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I can see the landing leg crank and maybe the fifth wheel release, but if your not 6' tall you have to get on the catwalk anyway to hook and unhook the airlines.

BTW if you get a flat on the driver side you must park on the other side of the road LOL
 
icuicp said:
Airlines are sooo long that they hang down and touch catwalk. Even adjusting them to hang higher ( suspended by hanger springs ) doesn't work for long because a tight turn will uncouple the gladhands. And this pulls the airlines out of the helper springs letting them hang low enough to get caught on bolts sticking out of the frame during hard turns.

Yep. Really happens. Tore the emergency ( red airline ) off at a customer while making a hard turn - just below the gladhand. Broke down until a mechanic came and replaced the airline.
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Hope they didn’t give you a chargeable and a LOI for tearing off an airline...
 
shamrockhockey said:
He's 100% right. I see Sterlings, I'm guessing '08 models, with less miles on them than '12 Freightliners. Remember '09 when they put the old beaters on the long runs to increase the miles before selling them? Oh wait, I'm sorry. That was Con-Way.
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I remember that VERY well! :cuss:
 
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