Saturday

[MikeJ]

HI guys,
I'm back well up anyhow, was very tired after yesterday was all over. I was sitting in the yard longer then I would have liked, because my trailer was late. One of our transit guys made a mistake and didn't take his easy pass transponder with him and thought he could get through a toll lane and pay the toll with this Com-Data card. Well he couldn't and ended up sitting in a toll both for an hour and a half. The dispatcher at the warehouse had $40.00 and they had to give it to someone else who works at the warehouse who had to take a company cargo van out to the toll both where our truck was stuck. Then they had to run across the turnpike in order to get the money to pay the toll. The transit driver felt pretty bad about the whole ordeal I say what are you going to do? Stupid things are going to happen no matter what you do from time to time.

Anyhow I got my trailer at 5:20 in the morning and was then running later then I should have been, but somehow I ended up being able to kind of catch my self up, load wasn't all that heavy, which helped and made all my stops and was back by 14:00.

Anyhow then I had some miscellaneous errands to run I sold my brother a car I owned and I had it at the mechanic shop getting a new O2 Censor put on and a new Air Pump even though the current air pump was put on in August of 2015! So after I got out of work I spent the rest of my time doing that before I went home. Once I got home I was very tired and by 11:30 pretty much fell over.

Anyhow we got a little snow last night I'm going to go play with the snow blower right now I'll catch all you later.

 

[Zwilley88]

HI guys,
I'm back well up anyhow, was very tired after yesterday was all over. I was sitting in the yard longer then I would have liked, because my trailer was late. One of our transit guys made a mistake and didn't take his easy pass transponder with him and thought he could get through a toll lane and pay the toll with this Com-Data card. Well he couldn't and ended up sitting in a toll both for an hour and a half. The dispatcher at the warehouse had $40.00 and they had to give it to someone else who works at the warehouse who had to take a company cargo van out to the toll both where our truck was stuck. Then they had to run across the turnpike in order to get the money to pay the toll. The transit driver felt pretty bad about the whole ordeal I say what are you going to do? Stupid things are going to happen no matter what you do from time to time.

Anyhow I got my trailer at 5:20 in the morning and was then running later then I should have been, but somehow I ended up being able to kind of catch my self up, load wasn't all that heavy, which helped and made all my stops and was back by 14:00.

Anyhow then I had some miscellaneous errands to run I sold my brother a car I owned and I had it at the mechanic shop getting a new O2 Censor put on and a new Air Pump even though the current air pump was put on in August of 2015! So after I got out of work I spent the rest of my time doing that before I went home. Once I got home I was very tired and by 11:30 pretty much fell over.

Anyhow we got a little snow last night I'm going to go play with the snow blower right now I'll catch all you later.

What kind of cars do you have? I remember you saying you have a few cars

 

[MikeJ]

I have 3 cars soon to be 2.
My friend and I run a small livery business. Well he does pretty much everything for it and I just act as the fleet manager and he throws a few bucks my way every time he does a run so I get spending money from that.
Any how I have a 2000 Ford F-150 Lariet mechanical 4x4 because of the snow that I drive everyday of the week it has 216,000 miles on it.

Then because of the livery business we have/will have had a 2002 Cadillac DeVille beautiful car black nice inside and out rode great everything fantastic about it except the junkie North Star V8's that Cadillac's had. That North Star V8 is not the worlds best motor. Anyhow I sold that car to my brother and it's going to be leaving my fleet shortly.

Then for the business we also have a 2005 Chevrolet Suburban LT. Silver in color leather seating all the bells and whistles it was pretty well taken care of by the previous owner a little rust on the back fender sad to say all the way down by the exhaust pipe, but other then that real good shape inside and out interior is very clean and crisp for the year and millage of the vehicle. Millage on that vehicle is pushing right under the 200,000 mile mark, but that vehicle has a ton of new parts and pretty much all the cool bells and whistles everything on it works very dependable the V8 Vortech motors in the Chevy's and GMCs are night and day difference from the North Stars in the Cadillacs.

The Cadillac's despite there troubles are hard for me to pass up because they look good, ride nice our clients love them my buddy loves driving them, there fairly cheap to buy over a Lincoln Town Car which in my opinion is a better buy I've had a couple F-150s with the 4.6 L Ford V8 and that motor runs circles around Cadillac North Star motors, but Lincoln made a 6" extended wheel base Town Car for the Limousine business and those Lincoln Town Car L's used are very expensive and very high millage despite being discontinued in 2011 because Ford shifted over to making the MKZ and some other garbage that I do not approve of. However I heard the Town Car is coming back and I saw a new model of it and it looks great.

I hope they bring back the Crown Victoria too all these law enforcement agencies all now have these rag tag fleets of mixed junk if you ask me. The Ohio State Highway Patrol had Ford Crown Victoria's for as long as I can remember then Ford got rid of the Crown Vic and now they have a bunch of Chargers, Suburbans and Exploers. Personally the new police package cars they have out on the road now stink compared the the Chevrolet Caprice 9C1 of the 1990s and the Ford Crown Victoria of yesterday those vehicles to me looked better and just were more authoritative and were just far sharper. Every time I see a new police car I say "I hate these new police cars."

The city I live in all they had were Crown Victoria's and maybe 1 Explorer and 1 Expedition and that was it. All they bought for 20+ years Ford Crown Victoria nothing else. Ford discontinues it and now the police fleet is an embarrassment if you ask me they have some Ford's from 2011 because they bought some Crown Vics back then and then they bought some Chargers and some Tahoe's and some Explorer's and still have some left overs from post 2011.

My favorite trucking story while I'm off on my tangent about fleet managers is Gully Transport from Quincy, Illinois wrote Freightliner a very angry letter when they discontinued the Freightliner FLD he said the new Casscadia's can't hold a candle to the FLD trucks of years past and Freightliner mine as well consider there relationship with Gully transport toast for the time being.

Anyhow I know this is a really boring post but I have passionate opinions about the strangest of things like this paragraph above, spent a lot of time in high school researching things I was interested in like law enforcement vehicles and cargo vans and stuff like that. I think I even spent a lot of my early 20s before I was a driver for GFS reading this forum and looking at pictures over on hanks truck pictures. Also when I got my bus endorsement I would spend some time reading school bus stuff, I always wanted to be a fleet manager and decide what equipment to buy sell and buy again. I would be and maybe I'm to idealistic, but I would be the kind of fleet manager who would be going back to the drivers asking what they like and what they don't like and maybe we wouldn't be able to match it all up 100% but I would try to get a really common ground everyone could at least live with.

Anyhow went off on a tangent there. The reason I have the Cadillac as the sedan is because the Cadillac's have nice presence look good, I dislike the Northstar motor's and all there ridiculous electronics , but I like everything else about them from a livery vehicle stand point there sharp, they look good they ride great they are very comfortable our clients love them which is very important my friend who does the driving likes them as well. While the motors are bad, you can still get a real decent one used fairly cheap, wash it real good wax it real good, have the windows tinted and you know regular oil changes and a few things here and there and your in business you could get a year or two of service out of a $5,000 dollar car.

The 2002 DeVille to me was getting a tad old and the Suburban can do everything it can do if not more so it didn't make any sense to have one sit and the other go out all the time and ironically enough the Suburban did most of the sitting because a lot of the air port stuff is only 1-2 people and my friend usually used the Cadillac which is all his decision I have nothing to do with what he choose to drive, but I said no I'm not going to have one sit all the time and one go out all the time so I sold the Cadillac off now if we need another car I can always ad a newer Cadillac DTS it's not hard to do. However right now the one is all we need funny enough we've been busier the past month had a new client come on and they do a lot of flying and so will see what happens. Plus I sold the old Cadillac because I want to move out in a year and a half and well $4K in my pocket is $4k in my pocket.

 

[kboomarang]

I had a friend that had a Seville with the Northstar and I swung by to see what he was up to one day, well he was putting a starter in it, he had to pull the intake to do it, huge job and he's a handy guy, and so after that he had the car serviced at a local garage where he was friends with the owner, and then he brought it in one day and the guy just told him apologetically its not just your car, but we are all done working on Northstars, because they're a pain, I wish they were better because those Caddies are sharp looking.

 

[MikeJ]

I know Cadillac from a design standpoint made a fantastic car in those years, the Eldorado, SeVille, and DeVille all really really great from a sharp looking design stand point and actually from a performance standpoint at least with my experience and my friends as well the Northstars drive okay you hit the gas and they go, but from a maintenance stand point and just engineering standpoint they have to be one of the worst motors ever made.

I said to my friend, I said here's where I am at with the Cadillacs, you ever see that woman who's from the outside looking in she's got it all smart, good looks, good job, money on and on etc etc, yet there's just something about her you can't put your finger quite on, but she's got something unsettling about her and then you realize she's a loser, he said "Yes, been there I know the type."

Well I said that's where I am at with the Cadillac's there Northstar V8's are garbage and they have way to many ridiculous malfunctioning unnecessary censors and electronic controls that don't need to exist. Every mechanic I've talked to they have all said the same thing "That Northstar V8 is a dud" it's a shame to because as a livery vehicle fleet operator the Cadillac DTS would be my first choice hands down for sedan service customers.


Now Limousine manufacturers did manufacture Cadillac Deville and DTS limousines and there awesome as far as sharp and classy goes you can't beat them. However from a mechanical standpoint I was told by a limousine dealer in Las Vegas "Never buy a Cadillac stretch limousine all that extra weight on the rear end with a bad Northstar V8 and a front wheel drive vehicle doesn't work at all, you'll just run the motor into the ground and with Northstars it's not hard to do." The Lincoln Town car was rear wheel drive and doesn't have nearly the troubles of the Northstars and that made it a much much much more attractive choice for fleet operators.

However GM as far as SUV's goes has a much better line up then Ford, to choose from. I think the Suburban is a tad bigger then the Expedition which is why I bought one because I thought and my buddy agreed extra cargo space for luggage was crucial. Of course could have went old school and bought a 1996 Buick Roadmaster B Body station wagon made in Arlington, Texas would get the same cargo carrying result :)

 

[Lazlo]

"I hate these new police cars."

Those Chargers have distinctive tail lights though. Especially when I'm driving to work at 3:30am, can pick them out driving on the highway waaaaay ahead in the dark and know to slow down cause there's a good chance it's a sheriff's deputy I'm about to fly past.