Carrier Maintenance Manager Involvement

[mxmom777]

So hubby works for a carrier hauling fuel. We have an 09 KW 871cm. Truck is in company’s name as it’s purchased by them and leased back to him.
Determined it needed a rebuild. Company has $24,000G of his in maintenance trust fund for these sorts of issues. We provided 2 quotes between $38-43,000 and requested maintenance funds held be paid out to shop from trust. Finance lady advised to request PO and she would pay bill in its entirety and hubby could pay company the difference. So he requested a PO from Operations Manager (his terminals boss) and OP brings maintenance guy that’s claims to be red seal mechanic on board. (This guy worked for company called canxxus in Oakville ON). Says he can do better price on rebuild if we agree to move to kw dealership in Bowmanville ON. Says hubby will have all day and make all decisions without anything happening first. Says they are committed to starting work on truck within 1 week or sooner. So hubby tows truck 3.5 hours to dealership for it to sit. End of day it was supposed to have been started to be worked on we still haven’t heard from maint guy so we call KW ourselves. They advise that they didn’t commit to anything and have 3 other engines on the go. So we email maintenance guy and call him on his bs. he responds he doesn’t take being callled a liar lightly and will be talking to superiors lol. Another week goes by we call kw as we have no info still and they advise they will not speak to hubby will only speak to maintenance guy as truck is in carriers name and he’s the representative.

So almost a month rolls by and we get a quote. That’s same amount of $ with $12,000 less in parts… 1 year less warranty and wants to check and reused headbolts in order to save. Proceeds to advise replacing injectors isn’t necessary as they are fail proof and egr cooler. He recommends we get our doc and DPF cleaned for another $2500. Meanwhile these pieces are brand new with no mileage on them.
We tell him his quote is shi#t his labour is $35/h more than our quotes and list a list of parts not in his quote that total $12G of what make up our worst case quotes.

Long and short truck arrives back to the shop it was originally transferred to Kw Bowmanville. Our original quote location. No paperwork to state what diagnosis was made ect. Nobody from his carrier called to advise truck was moved back for 12 days after it happened. Day 12 boss texts and says truck is back at original location. Nothing else. So I call KW bowmanville that advise exhaust manifold was removed and exhaust valve 6 is seaping oil and some other things taken off and put back on without any seals or gaskets. So advise not to put any liquid in as it will leak out..

His carrier too did get his authorization to put a wrench on it. They were to advise and he was to be involved in any decision. (We have an email from maintenance guy stating this).

While this is going on I ask maintenance guy for his mechanic cert number so I can confirm. At first he doesn’t provide. Then at a later date provides a number stating that’s he’s red seal certificate and gives number I check with skill Ontario is not a licence number but ironically I have confirmed with Ryder Truck rental is a unit they have in Salenes California.

So we have a truck that left our shop running and has returned back to our choice shop now not running and we had no knowledge or gave an authorization to anyone to put a wrench on it.

This man is a menace. What recourse do we have? We have practically rebuilt this truck, have been paying for a Ryder lease ontop of our lease and he’s giving red seal numbers that aren’t legitimate and I feel he isn’t certified.

[tree98]

What you describe is the cookie cutter experience that everyone has who puts there trust in the dealer network (and most private shops as well) As far as having any recourse against them..... no you really don't.

Blindly trusting someone who brags they are the cheapest price on an inframe was your first mistake. What matters most is that it's done properly and will last a million miles. Very few shops are capable of this but they do exist. You should have come here inquiring about that and doing homework on what it takes to rebuild one properly instead of hiring a lowball mechanic. At this point you can bet your going to spend a bunch more money and have many more problems related to an improperly done inframe.

I'm not trying to offend you or be mean, it's just that your story has been repeated on this forum untold times and the information to avoid these circumstances is not at all hard to find with just a little looking around on here.

I wish you luck.

[Nostalgic]

Not to kick a dead horse, but if you had done some reading here, you could have rebuilt it yourselves and been back on the road by now. Everything as described tells me that your husband would be much better off working as a company driver. That's not meant to be an insult. When he has someone renting (leasing) him a truck, managing his maintenance funds, and he's also relying on what other people tell him concerning repairs, he's really not acting as an owner operator. Very very few people with that approach are able to survive in this industry, let alone be profitable. The rare few that are, are the ones that trade in their truck for a new one around the time it needs new drive tires.

[Rawze]

yup.. sounds like a typical string of bad decisions to me too. Right along side the typical garbage you get from the stealers$its and the typical garbage arguments you get from the lease holder, who's final goal is to almost always, never let you actually hold that truck title in your own hands at the end of it all.

I have yet to see an OEM repair shop rebuild an ISX worth a stick in the last several several years, nonetheless would not completely rip you off. It is a major mistake to even let them near your truck, especially if it has a major engine failure... and I would even go as far as saying this even it had a warranty covering it too. Someone is far better off simply knuckling down and having things done right, than to get that OEM repair that is only going to end up being half-arsed to h#ell and beyond by a bunch of speed-gun happy idiots.

Owning a truck has nothing to do with running off to a stealers$it for repairs. That is the LAST and WORST places to take a truck these days.!!!... -- If that is what you are doing with that truck, then like the others have said, .. go back to being a company driver and be happy .. you will make more moneys.

85% of all lease-purchase operators fail their lease as soon as a major repair takes them out of commission. They do stupid things like digging themselves into major debt by renting a truck while the other one is down .. they make bad decisions like taking the truck to a stealers$it .. and then they make even worse decisions by relying on some kind of garbage 'Maintenence fund' and all sorts of other things that keeps digging that financial hole deeper and deeper...poring everything into it endlessly, only to have the truck taken away from them for one reason or another .. and never holding that truck title in their hands.

Sounds to me like the bad decisions have already been made at this point. There is nothing anyone can do to reverse this. .. My advice.. walk away and become a company driver again. Learn that you cannot ever hope to own a truck with bad planning and bad decisions like that.

READ MY BOOK at the top of the forum.. study it and check to see how many things that I mention of the 19 things to avoid on a lease purchase deal.. and then go ask yourself what kind of mess you ended up signing into there.

Also, HOW MUCH you want to bet that if you called them up and said you are going to rebuild it yourself .. that they would not come off the money for the parts, out of your own so-called 'main. fund' that ehemm .. supposedly is yours??.

Unfortunately, like others mentioned already, your story is a repeating broken record around here. It have seen it time and again over and over, and by the time most people realize it,.. it is far too late.

- YOU CANNOT RUN A TRUCKING BUSINESS OFF OF 'MAINTENANCE FUNDS!!!

- YOU CANNOT OPERATE A TRUCKING BUSINESS WITHOUT SOME WORKING CAPITOL OF YOUR OWN FOR RAINY DAYS (MONEYS SAVED UP FOR EX$ REPAIRS)!!!.

-- YOU CANNOT RUN A TRUCKING BUSINESS BY BEING FORCED TO LET EVERYONE ELSE MAKE YOUR DECISIONS, AND/OR BY RUNNING OFF TO EX$$ HORRIBLE OEM REPAIR SHOPS EVERY TIME SOMETHING HAPPENS!!!.

[Rawze]

That tongue lashing aside .. I see no mention as to what was wrong.. what failed?. What exactly is wrong with the truck/engine?... other than someone wasting big $$$ moneys having it "towed" here and there.

It would take a h#ell of a lot for me to even let my truck be towed somewhere except from away from the middle of the freeway, only far enough to get it parked at a nearby truck stop somewhere so that i could work on it ... nonetheless to a damn stealers$it where I was not even allowed to even open the hood without them bitching like all he$ell about it!.

I.E.> Even if I woke up one morning and the damn thing was completely hydra-locked .. I would pull the damn valve cover off it.. take a hammer to the intake valves that were closed, to relieve the pressure.. Loosened the radiator cap+ put a rag over it.. and then gently drove it to where I could work on it properly myself.


==== related story... ====
Had a guy called me up about 1.5 years ago in fact in this same situation. 2 different slealersh%its said it was an engine failure!. Engine would turn over and then seem to lock up, as soon as it turned over a bit and started to fire off.

Turns out that his descriptions in detail about it, pointed towards the the damn turbo was locked up at 100% closed. The truck owner on the phone with me had the hood open, walking around it + inspecting things, so we could determine what exactly was wrong .... about 20 minutes into it ...

Some nasty ppl who worked there were running out of the doors into the parking lot, yelling at him that he was not allowed to work on his own damn truck! .. not even to just inspect it!! .. and threatened to have the cops called on him. I heard the whole thing in the background.

-= needless to say.. he took a hammer to the turbo hausing and got it freed up enough that it let him crank it and drive away.. where he spent about $2500 putting a YTS new turbo on it the next day over here at my house, me helping him.

If he would have left it to them.. they would have wasted about $33,000 rebuilding the engine .. and all along it was only the damn turbo!.

Seen that kind of OEM nonsense wasteful crap plenty around here!. That is an example on how truly bad they are most of the time.

Here is another fine example on how stupid these stea;lers$its really are...
ref: http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?t...1#pid68941

here is another one..
ref: http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?t...3#pid44983

And there are a whole lot more of them including people who spent more than $40,000+ only to have to rebuild their engine a second time themselves a few months later due to the typical crappy OEM type of work!.
ref: http://rawze.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2972