FedEx Freight | Equipment change/ Old tractors

roaddawg54

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Our terminal had all of our nice tractors taken away to terminals that don't have a shop. We have been told that we are getting their tractors in return. Well thats a flat out lie, The tractors were getting are very old high mileage equipment and its obvious that they have been sitting in a lot somewhere for a very long time. The shop is overwhelmed with the work they have been doing to make these clunkers " roadworthy".Almost every tractor is getting major work done to it to get it back on the road I heard that one of these fine pieces of equipment needed in excess of $ 15,000.00 of repairs to get it back on the line. A rig I was driving has almost a million miles on it. Now you could argue that trucks are designed to last that long and I might agree with you if they have been well maintained thes clearly have not been well maintained. Also these rigs have been sent out without proper permits, we have had several drivers cited for this and I heard a road driver was delayed at a scalehouse untill the proper permit could be delivered to him. The kicker was when i finished my day friday and parked I see this beast of a cornbinder ( international) sitting on the ready line for some poor schmuck to drive on monday, it looked like a circa 70's truck and painted that godawfull red that had faded very badly and yes there was a big puddle of oil underneath it. ( SEALS AND GASKETS DRY OUT WHEN A TRUCK SITS FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS SOMEWHERE) And finally someone who was bringing these wrecks in mentioned to a hostler that one of the tractors he was bringing he pulled from the middle of a field where the weeds around it had grown about 5 ft tall all the way around it. I hope and pray that someone driving these does'nt have a catastrophic failure in one these. And I have a sneaking suspision that some of you drivers are going to become known on a first name basis at the local truck scales.....opionions anyone?
 
When they needed more equipment everything that was set aside to be sold was put back in service. Once the dust settles they will probably start replacing old equipment
 
I did not now weeds grew in the winter time.YOU GUY'S ARE PULLING MY LEG OFF.I drove a tractor with 800000 miles on it,unit was serviced in good condition.The only thing that was trashed was the inside of cab.Some drivers are very nasty.Please clean up after your trip.
 
Remember, its the drivers responsibility to make sure you have all the current permits and stuff BEFORE you depart... that IS part of your pre-trip, and if you do not, you cannot drive that truck legally until they provide them to you, or give you another tractor that has the correct (current) permits and there is nothing FedEx can do to MAKE you drive it ill-legally. YOU MUST have the correct permits, you are the captain of your ship, always remember that, it is YOUR CDL to lose, not FedEx's. Do not take the chances, and no, they cannot fire you for refusing to drive a truck without the proper licensing or permits, so I don't want to hear that.

Here in California, by the year 2014 all the tractors have to meet the new smog requirements, and they are not going to spend the thousands of dollars on old junk to have them retrofitted as it would cost more than most of the tractors are worth. They will probably send them to out of state terminals and we may get some newer tractors that will meet California's new smog requirements.
 
I'm sure some old stuff is back on the road so make sure it's good to go. Like what's been said you have one CDL they have thousands of drivers. Let them get the black eye on their record
 
Remember, its the drivers responsibility to make sure you have all the current permits and stuff BEFORE you depart... that IS part of your pre-trip, and if you do not, you cannot drive that truck legally until they provide them to you, or give you another tractor that has the correct (current) permits and there is nothing FedEx can do to MAKE you drive it ill-legally. YOU MUST have the correct permits, you are the captain of your ship, always remember that, it is YOUR CDL to lose, not FedEx's. Do not take the chances, and no, they cannot fire you for refusing to drive a truck without the proper licensing or permits, so I don't want to hear that.

Here in California, by the year 2014 all the tractors have to meet the new smog requirements, and they are not going to spend the thousands of dollars on old junk to have them retrofitted as it would cost more than most of the tractors are worth. They will probably send them to out of state terminals and we may get some newer tractors that will meet California's new smog requirements.
Every permit necessary for each state (with the exception of the original registration for each tractor) can be found and printed off of the intranet. Any dispatcher can print a needed permit within 1-2 minutes. In 15 years as a road dispatcher, I was only made aware of one instance where a driver was held up until a permit could be faxed. All it takes is initiative. Each new tractor should have been inspected by a redshirt immediately upon arrival, as each state has different permits which are mandatory.
 
Yes. Shops had swaped out all the good tires for bad and striped them, only a couple weeks later told to get them ready to put back in service.
Is it any wonder we have not even been close to being profitable for the last couple years. More of the wing it policy fustrating shop personal.
 
The best truck I've driven since the merge so far was a old ex-Watkins sleeper Volvo with almost a million on it. I'm not being sarcastic either, it really was a good running, smooth truck.
 
The best truck I've driven since the merge so far was a old ex-Watkins sleeper Volvo with almost a million on it. I'm not being sarcastic either, it really was a good running, smooth truck.

good to hear, it sounds like were getting those here at express.
 
good to hear, it sounds like were getting those here at express.

Gotcha....Yea as a matter of fact I've driven 3 different sleepers in the last 2 weeks and they've all been pretty good trucks.
Even though the milages are high, it makes a big difference when a truck has done nothing but big long trips it's whole life.
 
Gotcha....Yea as a matter of fact I've driven 3 different sleepers in the last 2 weeks and they've all been pretty good trucks.
Even though the milages are high, it makes a big difference when a truck has done nothing but big long trips it's whole life.

I still wish they'd just get use some new trucks instead of giving us your guys old trucks.

Here's something funny, they're talking about sealing the sleeper off when we get them...
 
I still wish they'd just get use some new trucks instead of giving us your guys old trucks.

Here's something funny, they're talking about sealing the sleeper off when we get them...

Would love to see how they do that on a Volvo.... very interesting... lol. Not saying that it cant be done, I just would like to see how they do it.
 
STLFireman said:
Would love to see how they do that on a Volvo.... very interesting... lol. Not saying that it cant be done, I just would like to see how they do it.

I'll take pictures of it if they do end up going through with it. It seems silly to me
 
CaptainKirk said:
Every permit necessary for each state (with the exception of the original registration for each tractor) can be found and printed off of the intranet. Any dispatcher can print a needed permit within 1-2 minutes. In 15 years as a road dispatcher, I was only made aware of one instance where a driver was held up until a permit could be faxed. All it takes is initiative. Each new tractor should have been inspected by a redshirt immediately upon arrival, as each state has different permits which are mandatory.

Can't print triple permits off the intranet.
 
Would love to see how they do that on a Volvo.... very interesting... lol. Not saying that it cant be done, I just would like to see how they do it.
that would be a site!!! Almost all the sleepers I drove were good trucks...mileage is just a number, it doesn't have anything to do with the condition. A million miles ain't a big deal
 
Ihave drove quite a few of the trucks here that had well over a million on them and were quite desent trucks ,It just depends how they have been drove alot of city work, or strictly linehaul etc...
 
I drove one of the FXN sleeper Volvo VNLs last week, it had 1,018,xxx miles and was in good shape and was pretty clean inside... Then Guardrail killed the clutch in it... :)

roog
 
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