In The News

Mobile mechanics help get truckers rolling again

HENDERSON, Ky. — Most people dread the surprise phone call that awakens them in the middle of the night.

Don Caudill makes a living accepting such phone calls.

"Two or 3 o'clock in the morning, we'll go," Caudill said.

Since January, he has operated a mobile service from his home near Robards, about 17 miles south of Henderson, that provides emergency roadside repairs for diesel vehicles such as tractor-trailers. Caudill's Diesel Service answers the phone and responds 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

A diesel mechanic for the past 10 years, Caudill last year purchased two used school buses.

He and former co-worker Butch Smith, a mechanic since 1971, painted the buses white, removed the seats and began installing tool chests, work benches, vises, parts bins, generators and other equipment to convert them into rolling mechanic's shops.

Those buses make repairs go much more smoothly, Caudill said.

"When I worked in a shop, they would send me out to fix trucks ... in a pickup truck where I didn't have near the (amount of) equipment, so I'd have to go back and forth" between the broken-down truck and the shop, retrieving tools and parts.

Caudill and Smith repair wiring and electrical systems, brakes, air systems, trailer refrigeration equipment, wheel bearings, trailer bodies — "about anything," Caudill said. "Unless it's major. We don't do overhauls on the side of the road."

They do work for fleets such as Estes Trucking in Owensboro and Wal-Mart. Caudill also gets referrals from the National Truck & Trailer Services Breakdown Directory, a Web site that identifies 30,000 repair and heavy-duty towing services across the United States and Canada based on their proximity to thousands of cities and towns.

Caudill and Smith will drive up to 100 to 150 miles to repair a truck or trailer. Caudill once traveled more than 140 miles to Effingham, Ill., to change an engine belt.

"We have probably a 90-percent win rate," referring to their ability to address a trucker's problem, complete a repair and get the truck back on the road, Caudill said. "If they have a rod hanging out (of their engine), we can't help."

With customers for whom time is money, the emphasis is getting a disabled truck moving again. "If we can fix it right, we will," Smith said. "But if we need to just get it going, we will" to ensure that a stranded load of car parts doesn't shut down an assembly line or a truck full of perishable fruit doesn't sit and rot.

Winter has so far proved to be their busiest time. Between the two mechanics, they were called out an average of about four times a night.

"

We'd come home, park the bus, touch the door knob and get another phone call," Caudill said. "We'd have to put another log on the fire and head out again. That happened twice one night."

"Everything freezes" in frigid weather, Caudill explained. "Brakes freeze up. Batteries run down."

The two buses are equipped with salamander portable heaters to thaw frozen brakes (and mechanics). They also carry parts ranging from replacement truck batteries to brake chambers.

The buses are equipped with 120-volt generators, and each has a television and VCR. That provides a cold, stranded trucker a warm place to sit down and be entertained while his vehicle is being repaired. Smith's bus even has air conditioning.

"No sense it being rough," Caudill said. "May as well make it nice."

They're starting to do routine maintenance service, including Department of Transportation inspections, at customers' sites.

And with the state weigh station reopening across from Ellis Park now that the U.S. 41 twin bridge painting project is complete, "we'll get a lot of work up there" as inspectors find repairs that are needed on commercial trucks, Caudill said.

Sometimes, they're called out because a truck has run out of diesel.

"You won't believe how many truckers run out of fuel," Smith said. Sometimes, they're independent operators trying to postpone a costly fill-up; other times, a dispatcher might urge a driver to keep moving. Either way, Caudill's buses are equipped with transfer pumps to get enough fuel into a rig to make it to the next truck stop.

"To tell the truth, when Don told me about this, I thought, 'What a hare-brained idea,'" he said after returning from a recent roadside repair.

But now?

"

Oh," Smith said. "It was a good idea. Don came up with a good idea."