Last week, Thursday evening I got a load from Portland, OR to Peoria, IL and I got 40 miles out of town and the van just died. Wouldn't start. Towed it in to an independent MB/Sprinter shop (mostly Sprinters be he also works on sedans). On Friday it was clear that it was the fuel pump. Got the pump in Friday afternoon, but he couldn't get to it that day, and he doesn't work on Saturdays (Jewish, from Kazakhstan) but he called a couple of friends (both former Sprinter guys at the Freightliner dealer, both also from Kazakhstan) and they replaced it Sunday morning. But replaced the fuel pump and the van started right up. No loft rack, so they did it old school. Took less than 2 hours.
On Saturday we (me and the other van driver) transferred the 650 pound pallet to another van. That was a booger to do without a forklift.
On Monday I got the same load, same pickup, same freight, different destination (Joliet) and I'll deliver that in the morning. I'm at the Pilot a few miles away. 2100 miles, Basically three 12-hour days, easy peasy. Except for the 25-40 MPH wind out of the north smacking me around the whole way. The roads were clear, but they had lots of snow in the mountains, and Wyoming was heavily covered all the way across to Cheyenne. Chilly up in those mountains, too. Single digits, and that wind.
Oh, yeah, a couple of weeks ago I was in El Paso and I started to head over to a pickup going somewhere far away, and I turned the key to start the van and nothing. It's like I didn't even turn the key. Everything else was like normal. I knew it was the starter. Original starter, 916,000 miles, got my money's worth out of it. But it took half a day to find someone who would work on it. The Freightliner place next door to the J, "We don't work on Sprinters." The Mercedes dealers, "We don't work on Sprinters older than 2010." Dodge dealer, "We don't have the software for one from 2005." I'm like, "You don't need software, it's a starter." The other Dodge dealer that would work on it can't get me in until May. The tow truck driver said he'll take it over to the place that works on his cars. A hole in the wall place right next to Ft Bliss, they had me in and out in 2 hours and most of that was waiting on the part.
After delivery in the morning I'm picking up near O'Hare and going down to Asheboro, NC.
