Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Passed through Knoxville, Nashville and will spend the night in Memphis. What miserable – boring looking places. Maybe it’s the 55/65 split truck/car mph thing? How stupid is that? I have put Tennessee in double secret probation along with Virginia. And one of these days, I’ll actually get off the interstate to see what all the hub-bub is about Nashville.

So, I’m driving along though dreary Knoxville. I’m listening to some Christian station. The Oakridge Boys are assuring me I have a reservation in heaven if I do this and that. OK – no problemo. I’m “giggy” with it. Then, all of a sudden, the skies open and the rain comes down in buckets. Heavy lighting. Did I say something wrong? Then, without any warning, my passenger side window “rolls” itself down. It’s a power window. I swear I never touched anything. Then both the left and right rear view mirrors start going up and down on their own, like birds flapping their wings.

Well, I gotta tell ya I was freaked out. And the water is pouring in. My log book now looks like a Salvador Dali etching. And I wonder just what the heck is going to happen next. Every 4-wheeler is sliding all over the place, braking and trying to pull over to wait out the sudden storm. Every second for a second I can see to my left and right as the mirrors do their dance. Then the window goes up. Good. But then it goes down again. And the rain water starts coming in everywhere. With the window open, in addition to the rain, hot 95 degree humid air is blowing in. And there is loud whistle like noise from all the air passing through something. Sounds like its coming from a retarded – sorry – mentally challenged – parrot. I’m getting one huge stress headache.

Friends, this is Kenworth engineering at its finest. I know that if I cannot “capture” this moment, when I pull into the dealer in Memphis tomorrow – yeah you guessed it – they will find NOTHING wrong. Just like three weeks ago when the bunk air blower went on and off and on by itself. Of course, it was working fine when I got to the dealer. They “checked” it out. Yeah right. They found nothing wrong. I told you. Waited 7 hours. Got the keys. 10:30 PM that night climbed in the bunk. NO AIR! I grabbed the night service manager before they closed and dragged him into the truck to show him that IT DID NOT WORK.

Listen truck manufacturers, you need to do some serious “reverse” engineering. My truck has some “ghost-like” electrical problem. It’s either haunted or you screwed up. I say the latter. When the wiring was being connected I’m sure the 12 o’clock whistle blew. The electrician went to lunch. He must of eaten a bad taco. He went home sick. They got a guy from the metal shop to finish the job – to connect the wiring. And it has never worked right. And no “check engine light” or “we’ll plug it into the computer” crapola is going to figure out what  is wrong. You know it, they know it and I know it.

So, Kenworth and everybody else at PACCAR, here’s what you need to do. Take trucks like mine – I have 351,348 miles on it – call Everitt to transport it on his oversized gooseneck trailer back to Mexico or Canada and TAKE IT APART to see what you did wrong. And we all know ya’ll obviously did something wrong. Right? Right. Reverse engineer it.

And ask yourself why I (and most drivers) must have wires all over the place for their Blackberry, GPS, satellite radio, calculator, refrigerator, laptop, printer, television, DVD player, QUALCOMM, CB and inverter. It’s because you don’t design a truck for truckers, you design them for the stupid cheap short-sighted tunnel-vision “infected” MBA carrying trucking company executives that buy them. And that’s the reason they don’t work right and the executives wonder why after only 250,000 miles their shiny new trucks spend sooo much time in the shop and not delivering the little freight there is. Or did ya’ll purposely “design” them that way? Hummm. I’ve driven Freightliners, Peterbilts and a few KW’s – all that experienced “electrical” problems. Internationals? Haven’t had the pleasure yet.

As I write this post, the mirrors have stopped flapping because I pulled the fuse out, But the window, about every 30 minutes, decides to go down. It goes up after about 5 minutes. Have you ever been in downtown Memphis? I’m sleeping with my Smith and Wesson tonight. You didn’t hear that.

Photo credits: http://www.tourcart.net/tourmate/img/tours/2368-1.jpg, www.artquotes.net/masters/salvador-dali/the-, p…,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenworth, http://www.pamsghia.co.uk/images/Karmannelectrics%20and%20floor%20010_800×600.jpg, http://scifipulse.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/pp-casper.jpg