the thread is set up to share stories on the places where everyone have broke down in the country... it's purely for entertainment. so this forum should be interesting to read as time goes on..

very nice addition to the thread. I love it when the internet grammar police come out to play instead of just adding something to the subject.

I only had 2 breakdowns and neither were major just annoying. The most bothersome was in dickson tennessee. I got loaded early in the day and was only about a 2 hour ride from the house on a friday and allw as looking good until I went and got may paperwork and came back out to the truck only to find out it was not going to start. Took forever to get a service call out tofind out my batteries were pretty much shot but the company wanted to take the cheap route as the first option obviosuly so I sat there for about 2 hours with the guy trying everything he could think of to jump off the truck. Did not work, had to wait for all the telephone games again then had to wait for the service guy to go get new batteries and comeback and install them.Finally got the truck running and in good order several hours after i would have been home and on my way dispacth informed me that wanted to relay my load way off in another direction from my house. After all was said and done,my getting home on noon on a friday ended up getting me home many hours after the sun went down and i started off 2 hours or less from my driveway. That was annoying but the worst I had to deal with so i guess i am lucky.

The only place I ever had a truck breakdown was on NC-157 south of Roxboro. I was trying to make it to the Petro in Mebane when one of my crossover lines got clogged and the truck died in the middle of the [two-lane] road. After several calls to dispatch, and the obligatory Qualcomm message, I was getting frustrated. I kept hearing the dispatcher say "Well, let me e-mail Road Breakdown and see what their ETA is." Finally, a sheriff's deputy pulls up after we'd been sitting there for three hours. He instructs me to call dispatch to get an updated ETA. Unbeknownst to the dispatcher, I put it on speakerphone. Needless to say, after I hung up the phone, he said "Give me the number to your dispatcher," which I did. Within thirty minutes, the wrecker showed up and we got towed to their shop. An hour later, the problem was fixed and we were on our way.
What makes this even more contorted was that the reason I even got that load was because one of the other drivers thought that the manager at one of those stores and I would make a good couple. She barely said 'hi,' and otherwise avoided speaking to me or interacting with me at all. What a crappy day.

I have had 7 break downs in 10 years.

first time was the 400 mile marker in wyoming. hit a piece of tread in the right lane it snapped the air line off the right brake chamber. had to go back to the T/A. to get a new line.

the second time was in flagg staff,Az. went west with a load of my life books. kind of though the truck was running hotter then normal on the way out. I get load back out of salinas. I was headed back across 40. then the truck was running really hot. limpt in to flagg staff,az. and spent the nite in the hotel, it was graduation day at the local college. so the room cost $156. for one nite. the radiator was stopped up. it ran great after that.

a year later. nearly to the day. the rear end went out. started hearing the crunching sound east of williams,az. and it was all i could do to get to the top of the hill in flagg staff. I spent 5 days at the hotel there. they had to have the parts shipped in.

the next time i was in down town seattle,wa. whenI realized the clutch went out. I managed to get back to the a shop in yakima,wa. I spent the nite there. which was no big deal. I loaded out of yakima all the time any ways.

one time I was coming into the yard with an emty trailer. and the transsmission decided it wanted to blow the back end out..

the time after that. I broke down in l.a. I was half way down the mountain on the east side of bakersfield. and the jakes up and quit. hit the bottom of the last grade at 86mph. in california I stayed off the brakes until I started to cross the overpass. and then laid in to them.. I never smoked a wheel. went on up to stockton and then back down to l.a. it was a 2 stop load. I spent the day and most of the nite in the peterbuilt drivers lounge. I couldn't sleep wink. too many people kept walking in and out..

and it was 3.5 years later when the engine blew up in baker city oregon.. I spent nearly $18k in parts to have the engine rebuilt. plus another $6k in labor.
the parts list.
new crank
new rods
new main bearings
new rod bearings
new cam
cam bearings
new head
all new gaskets
new wrist pins
new piston
new cylinder sleeves
new belts
new water pump
new oil pump
new jakes
new engine wiring harness
new air compressor
new oil cooler
new turbo.
new radiator
new radiator hoses
new heater hoses.
new piston rings.
new inner cooler

The truck had 1.2 million on it when the engine went. the only reason I rebuilt the engine. is the fact the onlytrucks in the freight liner in lagrade was old columbias. and I just couldn'tsee giving $40k for a used frieghtliner with detroit. that had 600k on it.

The truck i had the engine rebuilt in that was my truck. and i was down for 2 weeks. after that. I drove for 6 more months . and then at the end of the apple run in 2007. I sold and the trailer. and I haven't never cared to own another since.

Most notable breakdown I've had was not much of a mechanical problem. It was the circumstances.

Came out of Casper, WY, and ran through Lusk into NE. There's a "SCENIC VIEWING AREA" on the south side, and I seemed to be having a problem with the air. Half way between Casper and Lusk, I'd hit rain, and it was still with me in NE. Outside temps were running between 22 and 26 degrees F. I looked at the airlines under the trailer, and they were bigger around than my thigh. Hole worn through one of the hoses. Going back to the truck, I turned and realized I also had a flat tire on the rear axle. Taking a better look at it... Not just one, TWO FLAT TIRES. The valve stems had broken with all the ice build up.

Repair shop to come out and fix the stems was only 34 miles away, but it took the guy 7.5 hours to get to me because of all the ice on the roads. (Bull wagons were only doing 15 mph on US-20) He replaced the valve stems, aired up the tires and we were off again.

At Valantine, NE, I went up into SD, and when I got to Souis Falls, I had another broken one of the front trailer axle. (No idea what it all cost, because the company took care of that with their Bridgestone Account.)

Half way across MN, I ran it over a CAT scale. Load weighed only 17,000. But the whole rig weighed over 97,000. About 46.000 of ice on the rig.:eek2:

Worst breakdown I ever had was when the bolts that hold the alternator bracket to the engine broke off. The repair guy came out and tried to use "extractors" to take them out. He only managed to get one hole opened up. Broke off his extractor in another one, but did manage to get the mounting bracket back onto the engine.

When I got to my repair guy, he was not able to get the last hole opened up because when road service drilled, he went off on the side, and drilled into the casting. From then on, I only had 3 bolts holding the bracket on, instead of the 4 that it's supposed to have. And, it cost me almost $400 to have the guy mess it up. (I could have done better if I had used his tools.)