Still going...

After a boring day of sitting around in the hotel room yesterday, I rose at 0530 to eat breakfast and make it to the 0700 class. The problem is, our schedules were wrong and they didn't need us folks from Denver until 1015. Wow. I could have slept in. Ah well.

I killed a couple of hours by walking down to Wal-Mart and buying some bedding for the truck so I don't have to use my sleeping bag. I would have brought bedding to start with, but I didn't plan on being an A seat and going right out on my own.

At 1015 we did our benefits orientation and I made my first business decision. Other than the basic life insurance, I'm staying away from Prime's contractor benefits. I guess the truckers are a piss poor risk group because those premiums are awfully high for awfully mediocre benefits. I've already got a couple of quotes for less than half the price - without the three month waiting period.

So now that I decided not to shell out $70/wk for health insurance, we went to our logging class. Logging is still logging, but Prime allows its drivers to split a 10-hour break and use all those complicated rules. Schneider expressly forbid that as a matter of company policy. I can see where the split can be handy, but I'm not sure that I'd use it often. Also, Prime prefers that we log at least 15 minutes for a Post Trip Inspection, and just flag the Pre Trip. That's completely the reverse of Schneider. And actually, I think I prefer the Schneider way. Prime's log forms are CLUTTERED, too. It's going to take some getting used to.

Once that was out of the way, I was shuttled off to the terminal to pick out my truck. I had seven to choose from: five 2005 models, one 2006 model, and one 2007 model.

Three of the 2005 trucks didn't pass the appearance test. One was yellow, and I *HATE* yellow as a color for vehicles. Another was "twilight royal plum" and was a little too beat up for my tastes given that there were available trucks in better shape. The same went for the dark red one.

Of the two remaining 2005 trucks, one was "radiant fire". I fell in love with that color and took it for a test drive. I was almost heartbroken to find that it drove like crap. WAAAY too much freeplay in the clutch (almost to the floor to get in the working area!) and a heck of a sloppy transmission. I had a hell of a time finding gears in that thing. After that, I tried ANOTHER "twilight plum" (purple to the rest of us) truck. It drove beautifully. Just over 300,000 miles on it, and the lease would be up in February 2008. Definitely worth another look. The problem I had with it is color. I don't have anything against purple per se, but it is a very common color at Prime and I was hoping for something more distinctive and "me".

Next I drove the 2006 blue tractor. When I first looked at it, I disliked the color. It's a lighter blue of a shade that gets on my nerves. Even so, I tried the truck and it acquitted itself well. 240,000 miles. Lease would be over in September 2008. $20 more per week. I disliked the fact that it only had a hood mirror on the passenger side. I got used to having both hood mirrors at Schneider, and I'm not really ready to give that up.

I then went to get the keys and maintenance records for the 2007, but someone else was already trying it and then he decided to grab it. No worries though. I don't think I wanted to go up to that high of a payment and that long of a lease to start with.

In the end, I decided to get the "twilight plum" 2005 instead of the 2006. The 2005 truck was in just as good shape as the 2006, had only 60,000 more miles, and wouldn't cost me an extra $20/wk. I just couldn't find any value in the 2006 truck. Besides, I hated the color and the fact that it only had the one hood mirror.

After all the running around Prime's lot, I had to inspect this truck. Unlike Schneider, Prime wants detailed damage inspections. I had to go around detailing every nick and scratch on this thing. The only thing I found that needed immediate repair was the passenger side running light, which wouldn't turn on unless the turn signal or hazard lights were on. Tires look to be in good shape, and they credit my tire fund for the amount of tire already worn.

All I need to do now is make an appointment to get a generator/APU installed and all will be well. The truck comes with Opti-Idle, but I really don't want to use that any more than necessary.

Well, I'm absolutely beat. I'll just close with a couple of quick pics of my new ride.