The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
When Your Truck Betrays You: The Fear of Red Check Engine Lights
The long-awaited return of Ice Road Truckers after an eight-year absence has the crew buzzing with excitement. We dive deep into the fascinating world of trucks navigating frozen lakes in northern Canada and Alaska, where drivers must maintain painfully slow speeds to prevent creating pressure waves that could crack the ice beneath them. These brave souls transport everything from school buses to 100,000-pound pipes to remote communities that would otherwise only receive supplies by small aircraft.
Motorcycle enthusiasts will appreciate our discussion of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's adventure series, particularly their newest journey "Long Way Home" where they tour Europe on vintage motorcycles. The challenges of maintaining decades-old bikes adds an extra layer of complexity to their already impressive journeys that have previously taken them across continents and through remote regions of the world.
For bourbon lovers, our preview of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown reveals what makes this annual event special. With approximately 300 different bourbons available for tasting, it's a celebration of craftsmanship rather than excess. We share our experiences from previous years and our plans to visit historic distilleries like Castle & Key - once abandoned and reclaimed from nature, now restored to its former glory - and Woodford Reserve during this year's festival.
The conversation takes a technical turn as we examine what terrifies truck drivers most: warning lights. We break down the progression from amber warnings to the dreaded red "Stop Engine" light that can strand drivers mid-journey. This leads to our analysis of recent EPA announcements addressing Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) systems that have plagued the industry. By 2027, trucks must be engineered to avoid sudden power loss from DEF issues - a change that balances environmental concerns with practical operational needs for truckers nationwide.
Curious about trucking opportunities or have topics you'd like us to discuss on future episodes? Reach out to us through our website or email theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com. The team at Hyfield Trucking is always ready to answer your questions and share our passion for life on the road.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hyfieldtrucking.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
Call us at 1-833-493-4353 Option 1
Facebook: The Outer Belt Podcast
Instagram: The_OuterBelt
yeah hey everybody, welcome to the outabout. I'm patrick and you all know the crew I'm chili buttermilk eric zucchini bread and jerry oh man, it's a beautiful day we've had such great weather. It is another one of these weeks, you know for long y'all hear us talk about how horrible the weather is, how terrible everything is. It's so cold. The tire froze off the truck. That's never happened. It's never happened to me, but it could, it could, it could. Yeah, it was cold enough.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I believe it? Oh, they say they're going to get 20-something inches of snow this year.
Speaker 2:It's crazy.
Speaker 1:I saw that I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait, can't wait 20 inches, or feet Inches.
Speaker 3:Inches.
Speaker 4:I just needed that clarified. They are male, so we're not sure.
Speaker 3:Back checking over here.
Speaker 2:We are starting a new division. It's the Right.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's that division. What Right? Yes, Now it's the Iron.
Speaker 3:What's the bay up in Canada?
Speaker 2:Moose Bay.
Speaker 1:I've never, been to Canada.
Speaker 2:No, I know, but there's the famous one where they do the oil stuff and it's by the Arctic. Prudhoe Bay, that could be it. Is that like way up north? I think so.
Speaker 1:That's the 20-footers. Yes, that's the 20-footers. Yes, yes, that's the 20-footers. Yes, no, but not today, not today, not today, jerry. We're not going to eat snow today.
Speaker 2:And today we actually had 80-degree temperatures.
Speaker 5:Yes, it was nice Changing tomorrow. It actually wasn't bad.
Speaker 2:We need the rain. Here comes the rain.
Speaker 5:We do. Tomorrow's high is like 68.
Speaker 3:I'm like the 80 has the undertone of fall wind, though.
Speaker 2:It feels like spring, it does.
Speaker 3:No, it feels like fall.
Speaker 2:It feels like spring, but I have a feeling it's about to start feeling like fall.
Speaker 1:I did see, I'd rather it felt like spring, because that means winter is still months away.
Speaker 2:I have started seeing some of the trees are starting to change.
Speaker 3:Oh, leaves are in our yard already. We won't talk about that.
Speaker 2:Why not?
Speaker 3:It just means work.
Speaker 2:Well, call the lawn boy Patrick. We need you. Your landlord's name is Patrick.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. No, it's our lawn boy's name.
Speaker 2:It's a good name. It's got character Patrick Lee, but what? No, he's Irish. You are so funny. The Irish don't know how to deal with changing leaves. It's just always green there.
Speaker 1:It's just always green, it's just always brown leaves on the trees, yeah so nothing, but it's.
Speaker 2:What do they call those trees that never change?
Speaker 3:Evergreen. It's all evergreen. Yes evergreens.
Speaker 2:And when you go to Ireland and you figure out that I'm lying, don't hold it against me. But you know you just mentioned Dice Road Truckers. Did you hear they're coming back? I did hear they're coming back. Eight-year hiatus, I did hear that.
Speaker 4:Oh, I was thinking hyenas, is that?
Speaker 1:a word yeah, hyenas, hyenas, port.
Speaker 2:Isn't that from my Cousin, vinny, where the lawyer's like this is a hyenas crimes?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I think it is.
Speaker 4:And he pronounces like every letter in that word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, but it's been an eight-year hiatus and the History Channel's announced Ice Road Truckers coming back. I am excited. I really liked Ice Road Truckers. Did y'all, I did yeah.
Speaker 1:I did like Ice Road Truckers.
Speaker 4:Did y'all, I did, yeah, I did like Ice Road Truckers, my mom watched it more than I did.
Speaker 3:I think they got a little overzealous with bouncing in their chairs, but I like the schematics and the thought behind it.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I think they just removed the shocks. I have a correction.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 1:Prudhoe Bay is actually in Alaska, not in Canada.
Speaker 2:Moose Jaw is what we were talking about. Yes, Moose Jaw. Moose Jaw is what we were looking for. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Squirrel, squirrel Right across the whole screen.
Speaker 2:That's a cool effect, Jerry. How'd you do that?
Speaker 3:You know what I was looking at with the road trucker thing is how can you be on a the what? The ice road trucker.
Speaker 2:That's not what you said.
Speaker 3:How can you be on a hiatus and then?
Speaker 2:It does seem like it would have to be, but they do that, though, why not? The new Ice Road Truckers and it's season one.
Speaker 1:They did that with Criminal Minds yes, it was on hiatus, which was a whole different network, and it came back and picked up the same season it left off at. They did that with Frasier, didn't they? No, frasier had a different name, I think, and it wasn't the exact same name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right. No, they did it with Roseanne. So when Roseanne came back, that was like season 10 or whatever it was. And then she, of course, you know.
Speaker 3:I wonder who makes those rules Fired. I don't think they're rules.
Speaker 2:Next season it's going to be season eight for us. Yeah, we're skipping right over, we're just we're doing the Apple.
Speaker 1:We're pulling an Apple, yes, you know, going from iOS 18 to iOS 26. I thought we were going to start charging our corporate sponsors more. We are going to do that too.
Speaker 3:Okay, yes, we're going to do that too, yep. So I saw it looks like it's with the original couple. Is that what I was reading?
Speaker 2:there yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, it hiatus or they just didn't want to be filmed. For eight years the whole show was gone for eight years.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I think people got bored of it, honestly, because I know I kind of did Towards the end. It's kind of the same thing over and over and over again. You can only watch someone pour rubbing alcohol into your brake lines so many times. You can only see so many trucks towed into a building to thaw out so many times.
Speaker 1:You can only have so many times where they show the ice cracking under it, oh yeah. And you think, oh, my goodness, this is going to crack and it doesn't. From the same camera point every time.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we got to back up. If you don't know what Ice Road Truckers are, history Channel puts it on and it is about these truck drivers that actually it's a documentary. Is that what you call it, docu-series?
Speaker 4:It's reality TV.
Speaker 2:But they're really doing it. They're really it's not like stage, summit, stage, but they are actually hauling freight. I guess is what I'm trying to say, like they're not faking that part. They are actually picking up freight, running it down the ice road and delivering it.
Speaker 2:And so, if you don't know, in canada and in alaska, super high up there's these huge bodies of water and uh, during the uh, winter or summertime, there's so many bogs and the and the lakes are obviously water that there's no way to build a road to get to these um oil field sites.
Speaker 2:And so in the winter time you have all this ice that they are able to compact down and the lakes freeze over, and so you literally build a road over the ice. So they are actually driving over uh lakes that are just iced over. They're just, they're super thick, they're like eight foot of ice. They're really really thick and um, and and they have a very limited window to move as much of this freight as they absolutely can, because after that, the only way these places get any kind of freight is via air, and that is only very small things. So they'll get their food replenished via air, they'll get mail and bring crew members in and out, by flying it in with airplanes, by flying it in with airplanes. But if you need a 100,000-pound pipe of whatever calloused or whatever it may be, you only got one way to do it. Or even large machinery.
Speaker 1:Like an article we read out of CDL Life. They show a flatbed hauling a school bus up there, but they also take large machinery up to the drilling sites and that type of thing. Those are things that you can't necessarily put on an airplane, correct? So they actually had that very small window during the winter to haul the stuff up there.
Speaker 2:And the airplanes they have up there. They're flying like Cessna caravans which are like sea Peaches no, leave that in. So they have very small airplanes, little single-engine airplanes. I mean they're big single-engine airplanes but still they can only carry a few thousand pounds of payload. So again, like you said, if they need a new drill motor that weighs 30,000 pounds screwed, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so the whole show is them doing this and, of course, as it gets to either end of the season, the road starts to break down, the ice starts to melt. The drama builds. The drama builds.
Speaker 1:We've got to have this up there in three days, otherwise the road's closed down.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and they all have like monetary goals. Like this year, I'm going to haul 28 loads and make $90,000. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:It's a lot. It's a lot. It's probably like half a million.
Speaker 2:I'm probably way off with that number. So then it's like, oh, can they get it all in? And someone's doing a super heavy and super heavy they can be dealing, and the fascinating thing is they're going dead slow. They're going like 10 miles an hour over the lake, because if they go faster than that, you'll actually get a wave under the water which could break the road.
Speaker 1:How many times have you heard that on the show? I thought the pressure wave under the water 700,000 per season.
Speaker 2:So they are really really going very slow. Now, once they get on land they can go faster, but crossing the actual ice they go a lot slower.
Speaker 1:And then there are certain stretches where they only have one truck on the ice at a time, correct, because of the pressure waves. It's interesting stuff from an engineering perspective and I'm going to tell you this right now I'm going to apply to drive for the next season, because this season that air starts airing in October is already in the can, right, yeah, so next season I'm going to drive the ice.
Speaker 2:I'm going to apply to drive the ice, okay? So, note to self, we're going to lose Chile in eight years. Yeah, so it would be fun. It reminds me. No, I don't think so. It is super dangerous, right? Sure, people die every year with this road. It's a very dangerous job, so they do get paid very, very well. It reminds me of what's the fishing thing they do up there. They made a television Deadliest Catch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, deadliest Catch. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of that and my boy, todd Graves, who founded Raising Cane's, that's what he did. He actually went up and did the deadliest catch, not the TV show, but actually did that style of fisherman to raise money for Raising Cane's. Now he's a billionaire Interesting, but it's super dangerous, very dangerous. So I'm excited to see it come back because I feel like it's been long enough that I'm like all right.
Speaker 1:I could watch this again. Yeah, let's see what's happening. There's a whole new audience for it.
Speaker 2:Let's see if they're using automatic transmission After eight years. It's a whole other generation. A whole new generation of trucks and now I'm curious what are they going to do when the DEF light goes on? Good question. Very good question, you know what I'm saying, Like what happens when they derate halfway through.
Speaker 1:Is your truck to derate as you're crossing the ice and the ice is melting because it's the last day of the season, right, yeah, and you're cruising at two and a half mile an hour.
Speaker 3:Do they have backups to when something happens Like reverse gear?
Speaker 3:No, no safety precautions in place. It's been a while since I've watched an episode and I honestly don't know if I've ever watched a full episode. But like, what if you get sick in the middle of your road and you need immediate attention Heart attack, let's say? Or what if you do break through the ice? Are you wearing a life jacket? I mean like, is there a helicopter coming to rescue you or are you just kind of SOL out there in the middle of no man's land on ice?
Speaker 2:So, from what I can remember, there are tow trucks staged, aren't there?
Speaker 1:I think I remember I believe there are tow trucks in like safety vehicles along the route. It's been a long time. I remember there being something about safety vehicles.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I remember that too, and I remember stay tuned.
Speaker 2:I remember people having health issues and ambulances getting to them okay, so obviously they've got something in place yeah, because I would think it's super cold.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking lots of anti-gel and oh yeah not letting your engine shut off, yeah well, they did talk about that how once you go up there for ice road trucking, you turn your engine on and it stays on and it never turns back off. So like most people, like your Swifts, your Primes, all those guys, when you turn your engine on and you just leave it on idle, after five or ten minutes it'll turn itself off. Those actually Freightliner and Detroit Diesel have a programming on there. When the temperature drops below, I think, it's zero, maybe ten degrees, something like that, it will actually let the truck just idle. So it knows if the temperature is cold enough we just need to let the engine run. But if you gel, you know you're kind of screwed.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they all have, like all the trucks, remember all have those blankets around the fuel tanks and stuff. Because even though you're recircling circulating hot diesel on 300 gallons, the outsides are going to start to gel up against that tank wall because it's so cold and if that flakes off and starts to get in your engine you could have pretty serious issues. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, October 1st, huh.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:We should have a watch party.
Speaker 2:How do you watch it outside of? I don't have cable, so I'm going to have to figure out how to watch it.
Speaker 1:Well, but I mean it might be on some of the streaming networks. Maybe, I mean Hooster Channel is got to be somewhere on a streaming network, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:YouTube TV or Fubo or something.
Speaker 2:So I subscribed and this is something y'all might be interested in. I subscribed to History Channel on YouTube and they have full-length episodes of tons of their programming free on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:So like they used to have a series Modern Marvels.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love that series, Love that series.
Speaker 2:All those episodes are free on YouTube. How it's Made.
Speaker 4:How it's Made was the science channel.
Speaker 2:Let's not get confused, it's still a good show. No, it's still a good show.
Speaker 5:I like the history channel. Me and Don watched the whole series. They have quite a few different ones, but the food that built America, the companies that built America, the men that built America.
Speaker 2:I saw that one about the Vanderbilts and Anderson Cooper and no, he wasn't part of it.
Speaker 4:Not yet.
Speaker 2:But the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers. Thank you.
Speaker 3:The Carnegie's, the Carters Carnegie Hall. Thank you, carnegie.
Speaker 2:Carnegie, yes, but I don't know how to say what about the Hatfield and McCoys? Carnegie, they did not. Carnegie, thank you, that's how you say it. No, no, hatfield and McCoys. I think the Hatfield and McCoys were English, weren't they?
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm like I thought they were British, they had the place over by old Cheshire Cheese House. Yes, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't know, but the Hatfield McCoys are very Western era.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's not American. I mean, that is American. Yes, I'm pretty sure it's American, I don't.
Speaker 3:They were dueling like ranches or outlaws.
Speaker 4:I know nothing Like Billy the Kid and whatever his nemesis was West.
Speaker 5:Virginia or something.
Speaker 2:The answer had Bill McCoy's. I know nothing about that. What about the?
Speaker 3:Ewings, the Ewings Did. They help build America.
Speaker 2:If I'm not mistaken, he was an amazing basketball player.
Speaker 3:Oh, I meant JR.
Speaker 1:And Bobby.
Speaker 3:Oh God he has no clue.
Speaker 4:Patrick Ewing. You don't know who Patrick Ewing is.
Speaker 1:Of course she knows who Patrick Ewing is. Did you know that, miss Ewing?
Speaker 2:was my fifth grade teacher. You don't know who JR Ewing is, of course I do. So anyways, you don't know who JR Ewing is, of course I do.
Speaker 3:So, anyways, he was definitely part of a dynasty.
Speaker 2:He was on Duck.
Speaker 3:Dynasty right.
Speaker 2:There was also Dynasty Duck.
Speaker 1:Dynasty Duck.
Speaker 3:Dynasty, sure Well that's good to know that YouTube has free history channels.
Speaker 2:Yes, so tons of free content if you want to watch it.
Speaker 3:Vince is going to be watching it.
Speaker 2:The other thing I was going to say is, right now, eric and I, speaking of all this in history, are watching the Long Way Home. So if y'all don't know, ewan McGregor and his buddy Charlie Borman, that's the one. They have done several shows and if you like motorcycles, you might really, and if you don't, you still might really like it.
Speaker 3:They've done. If you like motorcycles, you might really, and if you don't, you still might really like it. They've done the If you like travel, if you like travel to unique places.
Speaker 2:It's a really great show they have. And they did the Long Way Down, which is they left England either England or Scotland, I don't remember which and they actually rode their two motorcycles all the way down to South Africa. And that actually rode their two motorcycles all the way down to South Africa, yeah, and that was a whole show. You watched the whole thing, which was really cool because they had a. The director or producer of one of those was an American, and so there's countries in Africa that as Americans we can't go to, right, and so it was kind of cool to see how they logistically worked all that out. But being that Charlie and Ewan are both British, they were able to go to those countries, and so, you know, it's neat to see that side of the world that we don't have a chance of going to because we're not allowed. So then they do the long way around, which is they actually rode their motorcycles again from Scotland or England through Europe, through Russia. They rode them through the Pacific Ocean. That was impressive to watch that was very impressive.
Speaker 3:I'm like, were they on paddle?
Speaker 2:tires, yes, and you know the continuous filling of the gasoline for the bikes wide open. They took a ferry across to Alaska and they rode Alaska down to America and then our US to the United States or, I guess, to Canada and the United States and then over to New York City and back home. That was really cool to watch as well. And they have another one, and I can't remember what it's called, but it was from the US down to Long Way.
Speaker 1:Is that the one on electric bikes?
Speaker 2:Yes, that was Longway Up. They started down in South America.
Speaker 1:Ushuaia, whatever it's called, and rode up. That trip was supposed to end in Seattle, I think, and it ended in LA because they had so many challenges with the electric bikes.
Speaker 2:I think that was a really cool concept, just probably a little too ahead of its time. You know what I mean yeah, I agree. If they tried to do it now, the electric bikes have come so far that they probably would have been better off. You said they had problems in California.
Speaker 1:No, they had problems along the way with the infrastructure for charging them. They worked with I can't think of the company's name now that and that company actually built um like mobile charging stations to use along the way to charge the bikes, because they just the infrastructure just wasn't there all the way up from south ushaya to ushaya, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:You mean they don't have Tesla superchargers in the middle of the Amazon rainforest?
Speaker 1:Well, they were actually riding Harley-Davidson live wires.
Speaker 2:Live wires.
Speaker 1:Now just live wire, no longer Harley-Davidson.
Speaker 2:Still sold at your local Harley-Davidson dealer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly the infrastructure, just wasn't there for it.
Speaker 2:So that one we haven't seen yet. We do need to watch that one, but we're watching the Long Way Home. So they talked about how they've done these epic journeys, but they've never toured around Europe, so they're literally doing a big circle around Europe and back home.
Speaker 1:So the first one actually was Long Way Round, Okay, was it? Then they did Long Way Down, Long Way Up and now Long Way Home.
Speaker 2:Okay, I got that a little out of order.
Speaker 3:I, and now long way home. Okay, I got that a little out of order.
Speaker 2:I beg for your forgiveness and mercies. How exciting. Sounds like a neat show. Well, so they're doing it now around in the schtick they're doing, or whatever it is. The hook they're doing is they're on antique motorcycles. So one guy's driving a BMW from like I don't know back when Vince was a kid in the 50s, and the other one is riding a Moto Guzzi. Okay, and it's a cop motorcycle so it has a siren still on it. But it's cool watching all the difficulties and challenges they're having with these old motorcycles.
Speaker 2:And they always start the series out by showing you, kind of leading up to it. So the first episode or two are usually here's the planning stages, here's the general idea. Okay, well, if this is closed, what are we going to do here? Like coming up with all the redundancies and stuff. They do actually bring tents and they camp outside in places and all. So it's been fascinating kind of watching this happen. So I say all that to say we just watched an episode and they are in Norway and they are meeting with the Vikings, but they're in Minnesota. No, the original Vikings they're in Minnesota, not the Minnesota Vikings. The Norwegian Vikings, oh, the Norwegian Vikings.
Speaker 1:What sport do they? Play Death and Conquer, devour and Conquer.
Speaker 2:They love Risk.
Speaker 1:Risk, great game.
Speaker 2:You got two days Risk. Yes, it's wonderful. So they're at this Viking village and they're talking with them all and they all get the big chain metal and all that stuff on and they're just these huge swords and everything. And Ewan tries some of it on and he takes a sword and he's like, of course, my sword's a little different, it was made of light and he just goes on this whole Star Wars. He doesn't ever say Star Wars, but if you know what he's talking about it's like oh okay, I see what you're doing there.
Speaker 2:It's very funny. So it's nice seeing someone talking about Star Wars up against this Viking. Anywho, I recommend the show. I think it's a lot of fun. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It does really make me want to get the Suzuki out and take it for a ride.
Speaker 3:Who went for a ride on Monday? I went for a ride Monday.
Speaker 4:I and take it for a ride. We went for a ride Monday. I never get invited to those. It was Monday. They weren't there when I got back.
Speaker 1:I think you were asleep when we left?
Speaker 2:Probably yeah, that definitely was.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll just ride down there.
Speaker 2:That would be cool. Both of y'all could you, could you could? Melissa.
Speaker 3:What are we doing?
Speaker 2:Would you care to explain?
Speaker 1:What are we doing? Would you care to explain?
Speaker 3:She's dodging the questions, we are going to Bardstown Kentucky.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:For the third year For the Bards.
Speaker 1:Festival.
Speaker 3:The Bards Festival.
Speaker 1:Yeah, watch a lot of Shakespeare.
Speaker 3:It'll be our third year. Romeo, oh Romeo.
Speaker 2:Wherefore art thou?
Speaker 3:Bourbon.
Speaker 1:Excellent question. On that note, romeo. Wherefore art thou Bourbon? Excellent question, excellent.
Speaker 4:On that note cheers.
Speaker 3:So it's KBF or Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:I saw that next year is going to be their 35th year of doing this, what I saw it on their socials.
Speaker 2:I thought they were like five years old, wow, okay.
Speaker 3:It is our third year of going, the four of us Eric, you, vince and I.
Speaker 2:And we're going to meet some friends down there as well.
Speaker 3:We are, and we've kind of morphed it each time we go each year, and I'm really excited to see how this year kind of pans out, something a little bit different than the last two.
Speaker 2:Well, this is going to come out afterwards, so if you want to spoil it, you can.
Speaker 3:I don't want to spoil it. Is this coming out afterwards?
Speaker 2:Afterwards, yep.
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't know how to spoil it. Somebody else spoil it. I already said we're doing KBF.
Speaker 2:So we're actually going to take a field trip.
Speaker 1:A field trip, a field trip from the Burbank. That's how the change is. Yeah, yeah, a field trip.
Speaker 2:A field trip from the bourbon. That's how the change is. Yeah, yeah, so it's a three-day festival. You really don't need all three days. You really don't. You really need two, and you do need two. One is not enough.
Speaker 1:No One's not enough Not for bourbon taste.
Speaker 2:No, it's bourbon. Yeah, exactly One is give you, so to be clear. So it's a festival where they talk about bourbon and there's maybe 300 bourbons to choose from, not 300 distilleries, but 300 total that you can actually try and they give you the tiniest of samples. It is literally just a taste, and then you know some of it. If you don't like it, you can spit it out, like a wine tasting has or whatever.
Speaker 3:Pour it on the ground.
Speaker 1:Pour it on the ground, or even, if you do like it, you can spit out the rest, because you don't have to swallow it.
Speaker 2:Correct, absolutely. It is a really cool festival. It's mostly older people. When I say older people, I mean like in 30s and up, so it's not you definitely have to be 21 or older, you do but there's not a lot of people in that 20 year category.
Speaker 2:So it's not like a party, like they have bluegrass music playing, like they'll bring a bluegrass band. So I'll have people there talking about the industry or talking about new things. Like, uh, a couple years ago I remember they had a guy talking about um, what they were doing at their distillery where they were using smaller barrels and pressure to age the bourbon faster. I know that doesn't work. That didn't work, but still, it's just a bunch of people there just enjoying bourbon. It's not a like hey, let's get hammered.
Speaker 2:No, it's not it really isn't, it's nothing like that. But if you did try all of them, you would. You would, you'd get hammered. And even when we go, I would say we probably visit 75 of the of the booths. Right, there's some, you just skip right over, um, but 75 of the booths, and even there each booth may have three or four selections for you, but you really, you really only get one or two, sure, uh, unless it, I mean, there's a couple favorites.
Speaker 3:Yes, we're going to try your online and it's your big name distilleries, and then it's craft distilleries.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They separate it out really nicely, so craft on one side and big name on the other.
Speaker 3:Food, food vendors, craft vendors.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, the barbecue and the mac and cheese Barbecue and the mac and cheese. Anyways, you need carbs. So, yeah, so this year, halfway through it, on Saturday, we're actually going to leave Bardstown, which you're like, but you're in Bardstown for the festival, right? Yeah, we're leaving and we're going out to Frankfurt and we're going to go do a tour of Castling Key Distilling we are and Woodford, woodford woodford reserve. So, uh, take our friends out there. They've never been, we have been, and these are like two of our favorite uh distilleries to go to. And vince got um outvoted for four roses.
Speaker 3:Um, sorry, vince, I mean well, we were trying to squeeze in a few before the show started.
Speaker 2:Yes, back in Bardstown, yep, and so then we'll get back.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. Let's go back to Four Roses. I got outvoted on Four Roses. No, okay, I'm over it.
Speaker 2:Well, there's four of us, and one person said Four Roses and three said Woodford.
Speaker 3:I don't believe that we had Price Waterhouse actually.
Speaker 1:I have not seen the verified results of that vote yet.
Speaker 2:Well, as soon as they're finished with the Bush-Gore election.
Speaker 1:I just got a message from Price Waterhouse saying that they think that there was tampering in the election.
Speaker 2:It was a hanging Chad.
Speaker 1:It was, I agree, I think it looks like now it was actually 2-2. Oh Well, it's a shame, because now there's no availability. There's no availability at Four.
Speaker 2:Roses. Now we're going to go hang out there, show our friends, kind of what it's like to actually be at the distillery and then be back Sunday morning for more bourbon tasting at the show. So it's a little different than what we normally do. Either way, I'm excited to go Now. Next week's episode may have us being like that was a total mistake.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:But I'm pretty pumped for it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's one of those places like especially Castling Key. And it's one of those places like especially Castling Key you could go like it's an old building that looks like a castle and it's gorgeous. And when I say it's old, I mean the distillery went out of business in like 1910. And then they found it and it was buried in weeds and they literally discovered it.
Speaker 1:Well, it was buried in weeds because it had been neglected for so long. It was actually sold to an architectural company what do they call it? Restoration place company that was dismantling the warehouses and things.
Speaker 2:Oh, I do remember that, yeah, piece by piece and selling the old wood. Like a reclamation company. Like a reclamation, yeah, so they were selling this old wood for new projects.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:They had that old wood. So when they purchased the land from this architectural restoration company, everything was gutted, everything was gutted, everything was gutted. There were warehouses that were half built because they removed timbers and that type of thing, even the main building I don't think had a roof. No, it didn't have a roof. It didn't have a roof.
Speaker 2:So the outside is stone, like a castle, like legit looks like a castle, and it was just the stone that's all that was left.
Speaker 1:That's it, I, and it was just the stone.
Speaker 3:That's all that was left, that's it.
Speaker 2:I'm excited, but so they bought it. They started making bourbon there and it's a really cool place. The gardens are massive. They do weddings all the time. The reason it's called Castling Key is the castle is the distillery. The key is actually the spring, where they get their water for the distillery. It's in the shape of a key. Again, this was built in the turn of the century 1800s, late 1800s, early 1900s. It's beautiful. It's a place where, if you don't drink at all, if you hate whiskey, you would still go and be like. This is gorgeous.
Speaker 2:They always have craft food vendors on site and such they always have craft food vendors on site and such they have music. It's a really cool place. I'm very excited to go there. It helps their bourbon's good, but even if it wasn't, I would go. It's gorgeous. I have a barrel head. It was the first place I went to where I'm like this place is so pretty, I want a barrel head.
Speaker 1:They also have gin, that's good. They do they do they have gin? That's bad? They do. But you know they do quite a few different things there at that distillery that are really good yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's a cool place to go, even if you are in the area. So I'm excited to go, and then back Sunday a couple more hours at the Bourbon Festival and then we are responsible. So we are all staying in Bardstown Sunday night and then Monday morning head back home. Yeah, so that's why they are saying bring the motorcycles down. Yeah, because that area is hill country.
Speaker 1:It is Horse country, beautiful farms. It's gorgeous. Yeah, it's gorgeous.
Speaker 2:So you want to bring your hogs down to horse country?
Speaker 1:Right, I just booked a U-Haul trailer for tomorrow, is that okay?
Speaker 2:Well, very cool. For many, many years driving a truck, what is the?
Speaker 1:scariest thing you can see while you're driving a truck, a DOT officer with his lights on behind you.
Speaker 2:That's correct, a check engine light. So this was not going the way I planned, was it Jerry? Wait a second. I want to hear what their answers are Good job, we have different answers, but I already gave the answer. But I still want to know what their answers are. Good job, we have different answers, but I already gave the answers. So, okay, someone that we would have said Jerry.
Speaker 3:What's the scariest thing?
Speaker 5:Jerry, I would have said maybe a driver sleeping, falling asleep at the wheel or something.
Speaker 3:Who in front of you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, I would have been the same seeing that truck in front of you, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh, if it's swerving and weaving, I'm good, I slow down I let it swerve and weave. I blow my horn, you know.
Speaker 5:I think the worst thing is whenever you see that woman pass you in the fast lane and she's got her leg up there, shaving her legs and stuff. That's just.
Speaker 1:Wow, no, you know this was probably a tie. When you see that guy passing you in the fast lane and wrestling and he's got his legs up there shaving his legs, you know, or you just follow him to the drag show that night that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right. He drives a funny car right yes, yeah, very funny cars at top fuel? I don't remember a very a very
Speaker 3:funny car what was your scariest thing when you get behind the wheel and you're ready to go out like that you would? That would startle you.
Speaker 2:I don't remember any very crazy things when I was driving. No deer, you weren't kind of curious about deer, A fox maybe.
Speaker 1:No, no, there was a turtle one time.
Speaker 2:Oh, do-do-do-do-do-do.
Speaker 1:Do Actually twice. The second one, he wasn't as lucky as the first Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Speaker 4:I just remember one time I was driving by and this guy was watching a movie.
Speaker 1:Oh, he was driving down the road. You passed me and didn't wave. Sorry that is.
Speaker 3:That is a joke.
Speaker 1:It's literally a joke.
Speaker 2:So uh, that is a big joke. Yeah, so no, I've actually watched. Lord help me. I've actually passed a ton of trucks where someone's got an iPad right there watching a movie or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And I've passed many cars. One of them had, like, the two headrests, for the back seats had TVs in them, yeah, and they had a TV in the center console and they had another TV over the passenger, like airbags. I guess if the airbag went off it would just slam an iPad to someone's face Right. They were showing. I believe they're called flicks.
Speaker 3:Oh, flicks.
Speaker 2:Oh, flicks Pictures.
Speaker 3:Possibly yes.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, well, we're just going to On all five TVs, all five TVs Streaming, live, live, live.
Speaker 5:It's just Wow. I pulled into a truck stop one time and there was a truck. He was sitting there on his break, I assume, and he was literally just in the front row. I was pulling up to the fuel island and he had this huge tv in the front cab. Yeah and same thing I get it's.
Speaker 2:It's lonely out on the road, especially if you're a solo driver. Yeah, this was a car, wasn't a truck, but I'm like they're children. A, I don't want to see it, but B there's children around.
Speaker 3:Like what?
Speaker 2:Wow Anyways.
Speaker 3:But that's not it. It's a light To me it's a check engine light, not a mill light.
Speaker 2:So on a truck, like on your car, you're driving down the road. So if you're not a truck driver, on your car driving down the road you have a light that pops up and it's your engine and it's your check engine light, and so you know. All right, we need to figure out what this is wrong. On a truck, you actually have two versions of that. The first is that same amber engine light that you have on your car.
Speaker 5:It means it's a multi Malfunction indicator light.
Speaker 2:It's a multi-malfunction. No, it's a malfunction indicator light. That means something has gone wrong somewhere. When those pop up nine times out of ten, 95 times out of 100, they're emissions related of that time it's uh, you're driving down the road and the one of the sensors somewhere on the exhaust system saw something that was slightly out of balance and it threw it. It could be you had bad diesel, so it just made the temperature a little wonky, could be. You were in a place that was super humid and so it burned a little different, so that something was off a little bit. If it sees that it's like, hey, this is off, it's going to shine that light. If you keep going after a little while, if you restart and keep on going and everything's normal, it'll turn itself back off.
Speaker 4:It will, it'll go, oh, self-healing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So it may go like, hey, we saw a weirdness, but actually it ended up being fine and so it'll go off. If it doesn't go off ever, then you've got a real problem. It has to go to a shop and have something fixed on it, right. But there is the second light, and this is the light that's the actual check engine light, and if you look in the manual it's called a check engine light and it's red. It ain't amber, it's red. And that light means stop, now, get me fixed, because if you don't, I am going to turn this truck off.
Speaker 1:I think you skipped over one. There's three lights. The middle light's solid. There's a check light. It's actually an amber outline and it says check in the middle. And then there's the red light that is solid and says stop in the middle. So you cover the MIL light, which is solid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. Okay, I see what you're saying. I guess I'm thinking back to the old Kenworth. Well, let's talk modern trucks, because that's what we run, You're right. So I am thinking of the Kenworth which actually had a red engine. So on the Freightliners, they do say check and it's yellow and that's when you know you have a an issue bigger problem and it will eventually be turn red turn red pop up the red one also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So when it says check, you got a problem, you got a problem like a real problem, uh, and then when it goes red, it says stop, it says stop it's been so it's been so long since I've been driving um and when it says stop engine, it is turning itself off Like it's legit.
Speaker 1:Two minutes roughly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and our trucks have an engine shutdown override.
Speaker 1:Yes, they do.
Speaker 2:So, you can actually, depending on the issue, you can press and hold that and it'll let you get off the interstate or the highway and get to a safe place to park Can. I go through it a little bit deeper than that?
Speaker 1:Sure, so generally, if the stop light comes on, the red light comes on, the amber check light will be on also. Yes, when that check light starts to flash, you got about 30 seconds before it's going to shut down on you. Okay, so if you press the shutdown override button, it'll stop that and reset that timer. Yes, to about two minutes and then it'll go back through it. However, like you were saying, you don't just want to willy-nilly hit that reset. Correct, If that stoplight comes on, get off the road, yeah, and that could be safely off the road, on the shoulder safely, you know. The example I give is if that light comes on, that stoplight comes on and you're stuck in traffic and you can't get over immediately, well, hit that reset as you're trying to get over, but you need to get off the road and shut the truck down and find out what the problem is. Yes, so it's not a tool that you just want to keep hitting willy-nilly.
Speaker 1:Another example I had a truck in the yard, that was. It popped up Before I even left the yard. It popped up with the check light and the stop light and the code was and actually it popped up a big display. It was Cascadia in the middle, big red message that said coolant level low. Stopped the truck, popped the hood and my coolant's fine, my coolant level wasn't low.
Speaker 2:The sensor was bad.
Speaker 1:So I had to get it to a dealership. So I drove to the dealership watching my temperature the whole way, pressing that button every minute or so to get myself there. So there are times you want to use it. However, you don't want to just do it willy-nilly. You want to know what's happening. You want to watch everything you can. In that sense, coolant. I knew I was full, my temperature wasn't going crazy high, I was safe to get there. But there was a lot of investigation before I drove it to the dealership.
Speaker 2:So you actually have a couple different coolant sensors. People don't know that you have a couple different ones, and when it gets to the bottom sensor, the check engine override does not work.
Speaker 4:Interesting yeah.
Speaker 2:So when you actually run out of coolant, like if it had a pipe that exploded or something, and you didn't see it, which is possible because you think of a coolant line exploding. I'd see smoke coming out of my engine. So how could I not know that the bunk heaters for our trucks actually run off these and they share a coolant line with the APU, so you could actually rupture a line behind the hood and you wouldn't see it driving. If you're looking forward, yeah, especially at night, especially at night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now you find that when you park and then you're like what's this goopiness on my feet? Yes, been there, done that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. Oh, and the smell.
Speaker 3:Burning coolant smells terrible.
Speaker 2:So no, if you get to a certain point on the fill tank or on the tank, the coolant, it will not let you override it Interesting.
Speaker 5:Ask me how I know.
Speaker 2:How do you know, patrick? So in 2021, I just picked up a brand new, the very first new Cascadia Bolt bathroom sleeper with all the safety systems. Oh, the Troitus bolt bathroom sleeper with the uh, with all the um safety systems.
Speaker 2:Detroit insurance and everything. And, uh, I at that time used to run the trucks around and make sure they were fine. Sure, um, before I I brought a team in to look at the truck or didn't move into it, and, uh, it was on my birthday. I remember this very specific. And I was on the interstate and that came up and I did the engine override and it let me do it a couple times and I was able to get into a truck stop and then it shut off and it wouldn't let me do it again. So at least I got to the truck stop, sure, and then I opened up the hood and there's bone dry, no coal in there, and it was like all right, I see how I did it.
Speaker 2:And so I had to order the tow truck out and they came and picked it up and then I had to actually ride with the truck driver out back to my place to get my car. And it was a whole fiasco and not a big deal. It was a clamp or something that came loose and the hose came out. They were able to put it back on, re-topped it off at the Freightliner dealership and I went and picked it up a couple days later and later on that week I was still able to put Jerry and Don in that truck with no problem.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's awesome. So that was a very memorable experience for me.
Speaker 5:Me too, I think.
Speaker 2:I was on the phone with you, wasn't I when it happened?
Speaker 5:You told me what happened, but you were not letting me know that it was our truck. You were definitely keeping that a surprise.
Speaker 3:Surprise, you have fresh coolant.
Speaker 2:Well, that was a time, too, where we were picking up a truck, like one or two a month, right, like that was a crazy time for us.
Speaker 5:I remember whenever you had me go pick up another truck and you needed me to follow you back to the yard and you were driving the truck that we were in at that time and I was driving the other truck you needed me to pick up. Yes, I remember the smell and I noticed Patrick was just giving it all he had and I'm like why is he driving my truck like that? Right, yeah, I mean he was just getting on down the road. Let me tell you, of course we can only do 65, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was a 35-mile-an-hour road Exactly. I was not. That was a joke.
Speaker 5:We go pulling into the yard and I see this big red bow. There's a picture up here. There you go.
Speaker 3:A big red bow on a truck.
Speaker 1:Is that the red bow we used to have in the yard? It is.
Speaker 3:We gave it to them.
Speaker 1:I was giving our daughter her first car. They didn't give it back.
Speaker 2:I think they did, it might still be give it back.
Speaker 1:I think they did. It might still be in the yard.
Speaker 2:I think they did give it back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you were. Do you know how hard it is to find a four-foot bow, Apparently it's easy if you have enough money, because you kept telling us we couldn't get rid of it, even though it was taking up space in the yard.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh Because of how much it cost. It was the size of a toolbox, it was huge. It was huge. It weighed nothing. It was crazy, nothing at all.
Speaker 1:Nothing.
Speaker 4:Nothing.
Speaker 1:First time I went to figure out what was in that box. It was up on a shelf, yeah, and I picked it up.
Speaker 2:I almost fell backwards I thought it was heavy and you were like it's an empty box. We've been storing an empty box and you open it up.
Speaker 3:I've never had a vehicle with a bow delivered to me.
Speaker 2:No, but I did and I bought a brand new vehicle before. But I did surprise you, she did surprise you. I didn't tell you about that truck when you came to pick it up. Either you didn't know about it or you were faking it.
Speaker 1:We knew about it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And we were still knew about it.
Speaker 2:See, that's why you don't tell anyone on staff when you're trying to surprise someone you told us about the truck. See, that's why you need to learn to keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 1:Yes, you do Apparently.
Speaker 3:I was even excited, though, for the third one.
Speaker 2:Man, y'all drove a long time, didn't you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the third truck was.
Speaker 2:How many of those were new?
Speaker 3:Zero Nope. First one, the second one, the second one, the.
Speaker 1:Western Star was new, as we call it, number two 1,500,.
Speaker 3:I think she had on her 1,500 miles. What did you say she had on her recently?
Speaker 2:800 and oh, that's y'all's truck. Yeah, stop it.
Speaker 4:I just pointed that truck out to you today 820,000 miles looks beautiful on the outside.
Speaker 3:We got our 1,500.
Speaker 2:The inside looks good too. It doesn't look bad at all, you're right, the seats are tight, the seats are worn.
Speaker 1:They're original seats. I am shocked no seat covers on those seats.
Speaker 2:I am shocked those are original seats. I'll be honest Around half a million miles we try to get rid of a truck, but some trucks they last longer than that. A team try to get rid of a truck, but some some trucks they last longer than that. And a team will say, like we love our truck, but can we please get a new seat?
Speaker 2:yeah, and so it's not crazy unusual to put a new seat in a truck that's got half a million miles on it, 800 000 miles with original seats, and they still work they still work, it's there's.
Speaker 1:There's no holes, physical. No, the vinyl's just rough, just rubbed yep, yeah, and I think so.
Speaker 2:I know what we're going to do with that truck and I can't really tell y'all yet, but there is some stuff happening with that truck that you'll see in the future. It'll make sense, and I think we're just going to put seat covers on, right. Why not Coveralls? Yeah, coveralls.
Speaker 3:All three. Of the first one, she had lots of miles on her.
Speaker 2:Is that Bagheera?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you sold her this last summer. I did.
Speaker 5:Here's a picture of that Vince cried.
Speaker 3:Vince, did he cried? He cried when he handed the keys over. She also had a lot of great teams in her that we mentored and a lot of good memories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lots of good memories on that truck, I tell you.
Speaker 5:I was just looking and my truck that you gave me brand new is still on the road in the fleet and, as of recently, it's at $817,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3:Wow. I know because that one had— Do you think about that and you're like—.
Speaker 2:I do no.
Speaker 1:Jerry doesn't Jerry's like. That was his 87th truck in his career.
Speaker 2:He's right, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 5:That was my only new truck I've ever had.
Speaker 2:I think about that truck because it's out of warranty.
Speaker 3:How many miles did you put on it before you?
Speaker 2:I had a repair recently.
Speaker 3:Roughly if you can think back.
Speaker 5:Oh God, I don't know, I really don't know.
Speaker 2:Jerry, jerry, yeah, you had it like three or four years.
Speaker 5:Almost four years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so about 150,000 miles. So that's the picture that pulls up for Fight a Freightliner. So you'll see it here. It's a really cute picture, but on my phone it actually it's buried in the photos. I don't even know why it's on here like this, but like you ran a lot.
Speaker 5:I did coast to coast.
Speaker 2:I know so.
Speaker 5:I did run a lot.
Speaker 2:Four times a month.
Speaker 5:No, that's not true, especially not in the beginning 6,000 miles times four, what is that?
Speaker 2:24,000 miles in a month? Oh, that is a lot. Oh, you're right, that is a lot.
Speaker 5:In the beginning. We didn't do that.
Speaker 2:Towards the end. Yeah, well, that's a great trip down in history lane, but, uh, again back on track. So check engine lights yes, there's the mill light, check engine light, stop engine light by big fear. And the reason I was thinking there was only two is I still remember when eric and were driving, we got started in a 2008,. I actually got started in 2007, but we actually bought our first truck. It was a 2008 Kenworth T660. And that truck only had two. It was an amber mill light and then it was a red engine light. They were identical. We didn't have anything that said stop or whatever.
Speaker 4:The truck just randomly turned off.
Speaker 2:When the truck turned off, you knew that it was done. The red check engine light to me was the scariest thing, because if a DOT officer pulls you over and you're maintaining your truck like we all did, who cares? I do exactly.
Speaker 3:Who cares?
Speaker 2:Let me do my inspection and we're good. Now there is that immediate fear of like did the speed limit just change to 55? How many of us have felt that Wait?
Speaker 4:what's the speed limit again?
Speaker 2:So there is that, when they come to your window, they're like, oh, we just pulled you over for a random level one inspection. You're like whew window. They're like, oh, we just pulled you over for a random, uh, level one inspection. You're like, um, so the that part, uh, it's over in a half an hour or so and you're on your way again.
Speaker 2:Um, if there is someone in front of you that's weaving and driving crazy, right, you can blow your horn and hopefully, that'll help them out, or or, yeah you, you report it to a cop, or you just sit back and like I'm going to slow down that way if something happens, I'm not in the midst of it, right, and if they get off the road for a rest area, you get on around them. So a lot of these deer constantly saw them. It's just something you just kind of get used to. Numb to it, I think. But a red check engine light, yeah, that could be a three, four, five-day.
Speaker 3:Adventure.
Speaker 2:Adventure yeah, you could be, down for a while, and so that always brought me such stress. Now, granted, we had the added weight of not only is it we're going to be down, but now we're going to have to pay for this right. So I mean, when you're driving for a fleet owner, the nice thing about it is it's not my money, they're going to put me in a hotel. They driving for a fleet owner, the nice thing about it is it's not my money. You know they're going to put me in a hotel. They're going to cover any Ubers we may have.
Speaker 5:They're going to take care of.
Speaker 2:if we're down for over a week, they're going to pay us some downtime pay right, but when you're an owner-operator that's all on you. So, yeah, that always brought so much stress and so much fear to me. And then on the newer trucks, so that, as an old truck only had a DPF filter, nothing else on it. On the newer trucks the EPA was so strict on how clean those trucks had to run. They actually had things in there where if your DEF system, if your DEF was low or it saw something funny or whatever, it would actually paralyze your truck even though your engine was still running fine, even though your DPF filter was still clean. It's not that emotional.
Speaker 1:Are you okay? It's sad to think about what would happen if your deep-depth system had a problem. I mean, Melissa and I sat in a truck stop for I don't know a couple hours one time, waiting for a tow truck to tow us in because our truck wouldn't regen, because we had a bad dozer valve and we were down overnight.
Speaker 3:So sad If anybody didn't see that Vince is wiping tears away with his hank overnight. So sad If anybody didn't see that Vince is wiping tears away with his hanky.
Speaker 1:No, I have real tears. My allergies are kicking in. We got back on the road. We got back on the road and we were good to go. Ready to roll Truck had 30,000 miles on it, friggin' western star.
Speaker 2:Well, you know quality. Quality is in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:So on these trucks nowadays that can absolutely be a problem. So when Eric and I first started driving, if your check engine light came on and the truck turned itself off, it was to protect itself from implosion. Right, it would literally if you kept going. Light came on and the truck turned itself off, it was to protect itself from implosion. It would literally. If you kept going, you could absolutely harm the engine. Nowadays, if your check engine light comes on and it shuts itself off, it could just be an EPA required. Your truck's not running as clean as it should be.
Speaker 1:Which was our problem. Honestly, yes, that was our problem. Our truck range is fine except we couldn't do a region.
Speaker 2:Happens all the time. Jerry, I know Don is in maintenance and I know he vents to you. How many doser valves and DEF pumps have paralyzed our trucks over the last two years?
Speaker 5:A lot.
Speaker 2:A lot, yeah, would you say over 100?.
Speaker 3:What a surprise you to learn. Feels like he's on trial here yeah exactly. What a surprise you to know.
Speaker 5:I would hate to say a number, but I know it's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot If it's not 100, it's close. Yeah, it's over 5 is what I'm saying. Oh God, this month, this week, so it's a lot. So where we see that as an inconvenience, as a frustration, especially if you're in the driver's seat and we get it because everyone sitting here has been a driver before. We all know what that's like Outside of it being a frustration for you or for the drivers and possibly losing your load, which means the load you accepted for $3,000 just became a $900 load because, you weren't able to complete it, which means you took a cut in pay because of it.
Speaker 2:It's an expense on us because maybe we had to have it towed and, yes, that part is covered under warranty, so that's fine, but we have to tow the truck there right which cost us money, money, and uh, we have um, we have that lost income as well.
Speaker 2:So, like where that three thousand dollar load was gonna pay us an x amount of money. Now it doesn doesn't. It pays us considerably less. And then some of the carriers will even back penalize us behind the scenes because of it. So there's that as well. We have to maintain a certain level of on time across our entire fleet. So there's other stuff that people won't see. Then we're putting drivers in hotels. We're paying if it is a week-long repair. We're paying drivers in hotels. We're paying if it is a week-long repair. We're paying downtime pay.
Speaker 2:So those breakdowns are extremely costly and annoying to us and they're annoying to the drivers. But what's interesting has happened recently. Very interesting Is that the EPA, under the current administration, is looking at this and going okay, not only is that a burden on these companies, not only is that annoying to these drivers, but it's actually hurting the us economy. It is by having so many trucks down for these repairs, and the numbers are staggering, uh, and the amount of money this cost is crazy to see. And so the EPA has put in a. Is it a requirement, or is it just a recommendation, or where do they? What are they calling it right now? So we saw this article in CDL Life is where I'm looking at it. Yes, it's on multiple places, it's a very widely referenced, but CDL Life is the article we're looking at right now.
Speaker 1:So the quote here is on Tuesday I forget what day that is August 12th the US Environmental Protection Agency announced action to address concerns from truckers and farmers, even about diesel exhaust fluid systems. Yes, diesel exhaust fluid systems. Yes, on August 12, 2025, epa Administrator Lee Zeldin announced new guidance meant to quote, protect American farmers, truckers and other diesel equipment operators from sudden speed and power loss caused by diesel exhaust fluid systems. So they've taken an action. It doesn't really. I guess what they're doing is, in short, by model year 2027, the requirements state that all new diesel on-road trucks must be engineered to avoid sudden and severe power loss after running out of DEF, the problem with current vehicles. The manufacturers need to develop software or adjust their software so that trucks pre-2027 don't have that problem as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there'll be a massive recall, pretty much every truck built since 2010 will have to be reflashed software recall to make it to where this uh doesn't, um, paralyze the truck and and this is actually like so I know we're talking about it kind of selling it as like a good thing, because we've all been there, we've all been handicapped by it, um, but it's this is not without controversy.
Speaker 2:No, it's not, it's not at all. Some of the controversy has been environmental impacts on this and there are some questions about what does this mean for clean air. So the purpose of that system debilitating the trucks is to ensure compliance, right? So if I make your truck stop working when it's not in compliance anymore, when you're out of DEF or a sensor's gone bad or something of that nature, then I ensure that you're going to have to get it to a shop, get it fixed and then put more DEF or whatever in it. Right? The backside of this is how are they going to guarantee compliance? What is going to entice people to actually still continue to maintain those systems and continue to put DEF in those trucks? And DEF diesel exhaust fluid it's a urea-derived substance that actually goes through and cleans the exhaust and it helps take out those diesel particulate, filters diesel particulate from the air and helps the trucks run cleaner. So I think that's an interesting question. I haven't seen much information on that.
Speaker 1:There's a quote here from OIDA, the Owner Operator Independent Driver Association, that says EPA's guidance establishes more common sense inducement schedules that will help drivers maintain safe control of their vehicles as they diagnose and remedy faulty deaf scr systems. Um, so it sounds like from that that there will be kind of a time frame on when you get that repair done. But that's not clear. That and that's from awida, it's not from epa. So who knows if they'll have a time frame where it allows you to get your load taken care of and then work towards getting it repaired.
Speaker 1:What that time frame looks like, who knows? You know, if I'm making a delivery in laredo, texas, but the preferred shop is columbus, ohio, will it give me a time? We get two days down to Laredo and then four days back to Columbus. So what that looks like I don't know. But again, there has to be. I guess it doesn't have to be. It seems like there should be something that says you can't just run your truck on empty def with a check engine light on forever because you're polluting the air or potentially polluting the air seconds and light on forever because you're polluting the air or potentially polluting the air.
Speaker 2:Well, and they are saying um the epa requirements in 2027, um must be engineered to avoid sudden and severe power loss. Right, they didn't say no?
Speaker 2:power loss, yeah, and they also didn't say that it couldn't be a slowly timed, sure right. So do they give you 10 000 miles? Do they? Do they add on to the dot inspections that are happening annually that? Does the truck have a check engine light on right, like? What are they doing for that? I'm very curious. I don't know that there's been a lot of guidance since this. I know a lot of people are very curious about it and what's going to happen, as am I, because although I am in trucking and I am excited to see that there are some progress made that hopefully will save us some money, I also am a person living on this earth and I want to make sure that we're not polluting it too much, so I'm very curious what they're going to do.
Speaker 3:I have a couple of comments. First and foremost, I guess I never thought of farmers and heavy equipment aka like all the tractors on 70 for the road also having deaf. I don't know why. I guess I live in my little world of straight trucks bubble. So wow, that's all I got to say about that. Who knew they had them too?
Speaker 2:secondly, well, and it's not necessarily the tractors, it could also be their dump trucks or their grain trucks.
Speaker 3:Sure, any of the construction or mining equipment or any big rig Diesel equipment.
Speaker 4:Diesel.
Speaker 3:I guess I just didn't think all diesel needs DEF.
Speaker 2:So not all diesel does so, like a lot of them don't have SCR systems, but the trucks that they use to bring the grain from, or the corn or or whatever from the field to market may require it. Sure, so it may not necessarily be the combine that's running down the road, although it could be, because the new ones do have it, yeah, but there's so many parts and pieces that they're using that it could then affect them.
Speaker 3:And then my other question is without sensors. So pretend there's no sensors on any trucks. Does a vehicle that's running diesel need to have DEF? Because I guess in my little bubble of straight trucks for three years plus I assumed one didn't work without the other. But is that not the case? Diesel still runs with diesel, but DEF is trying to help us save the earth.
Speaker 2:So yes.
Speaker 3:For emissions.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious about that as well. So that's a very good point. Actually, like our first truck, our Kenworth didn't have DEF, so it just worked on the diesel engine. And what happened? It had a DPF filter, a diesel particulate filter, but what happened is, while you're going down the road, when it acknowledged that the DPF filter was getting clogged, it would actually superheat the exhaust, and it did this by way of an injector through an art head, which was the nightmare that Caterpillar figured out. It was horrible and cost us tons of money, but it would superheat that exhaust, and Mercedes-Benz had their version of it and Cummins had their version of it, and that would literally bake the DPF filter and all of Ash out and then ash would just come out of your exhaust pipe and it would land on the road.
Speaker 2:And ash is not the same as diesel particulates. I know ash is a substance and particulates are the substance.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:But ash is not a micro, whatever they call it that diesel particulates are. So ash will just land on the road, get in the water system and it goes away. Diesel particulates actually are still harmful. They get in the air. So that's the difference. And that would clean itself. And then at some point it would no longer be able to clean itself. You'd have to bring it in. They would take the DPF filter out, they would try to bake it or clean it with another machine. If that didn't work, you'd have to replace it, and they're super expensive, a couple thousand dollars and then you'd be good to go again On a DEF system. They inject this urea solution and it cleanses the air and it actually makes those DPpf filters lasting a lot longer.
Speaker 2:But I do wonder without it, because they're designed to work together. So it's a selective catalytic. Uh regeneration, which is what the scr side of it is. It's really what it's called. Def is an element of it, but scr is really what we're talking about. Um in europe they're not required to have dpf filters. In europe they go. If you have def, it'll actually clean the exhaust. Good enough. You don't need that dpf side of it. Uh, in america we don't have that, so we have to. We have both and um, I do think. I do wonder, like if the if you haveF but the truck is allowed to continue to run, there is no superheat function, so eventually that DPF filter would clog. So maybe that's what they're relying on.
Speaker 2:Is at some point, if you don't get A fixed, then B's going to break down and now what could be an underwarranty or super cheap fix will become a monumental expense to get the whole system replaced or repaired. So I don't know, I'm curious, I don't know. There's any situation where you can run a DPF truck without DEF and test it, because they all have the kill feature installed with them.
Speaker 3:So we didn't care about our pollution and our air pollution and want to live forever as a species. Can you run? I guess this is my other question. Can you run diesel in the truck without death or whatever else, or does it need something?
Speaker 2:So deleting a truck, it's illegal. Do not do it.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I realize that.
Speaker 2:I'm just pointing that out there. We're going to talk about deleting a truck, but do not do it. It's illegal, it's immoral, it's wrong. It just is wrong. Even if you're like screw the government, yada, yada, yada, it's wrong. It's morally wrong, yeah, but what they do is they will disable the DEF system, so electronically programmed.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:Those doser valves. They'll just tell them to turn off DEF pump. Just turn off. And then for the DPF or the DPF filter, they can do a couple things. One is they will just remove it altogether, so it's just a pipe, you know. Exhaust out of it? Sure.
Speaker 2:And sometimes they'll put a muffler on it too, because your DPF actually functions as a muffler. So if you don't have it, you need to have something to muffle your engine. So put a muffler on, or they will take that DPF and they'll actually core it, which means they'll take a drill like a diamond drill bit and go through the DPF filter. And whereas a DPF filter looks like a honeycomb, it's tons of little small holes and it's in ceramic and platinum and lots of precious metals. They'll just drill right through it and you'll have several two-inch holes or whatever to get the amount of backflow they need. And then they'll stick it back on and that's never going to clog because it's such big holes. They'll do that a lot of times if they're trying to hide the fact they've deleted the truck I see so a officer or someone could still look at it.
Speaker 4:Go well it has a dpf filter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it has all the other stuff. That's what they'll do, so that one system doesn't destroy the other sure so I don't know if you left, if you took one system out and left the other one working as it's supposed to, I don't think they'll work together, but I don't know.
Speaker 3:I see, do pickup trucks that run on diesel need DEF.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, modern ones do yes, modern, yeah After a certain year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Sprinter van uses DEF.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I knew that.
Speaker 2:I got a buddy of mine. He has a Volkswagen Golf wagon with a 2.0 liter diesel. It has a DPF filter. It's very small, it's adorable, but yeah, and he has to put DEF in it. Now, on smaller vehicles they're able to like put a big enough tank in that you do it every 10,000 miles. So a lot of times people don't know that because they're getting DEF put in when they do their oil changes. I see you get a Volkswagen diesel and you drive it in 10,000 miles. You go to the dealership, they're going to top off your DEF, they're going to do all that and you won't be the wiser of it.
Speaker 4:That's why you don't see a deaf thing at the normal car spot. I was like yeah, seems odd.
Speaker 2:But I did have. I had a Dodge pickup truck 2015 Dodge pickup truck with a 3 liter turbo diesel and actually at the like when you open the gas door. It did have a DEF and a diesel fill and the DEF was way smaller than the diesel, so you couldn't like, so I mean a pickup truck like an F-350 or Chevy 3500, they're going to consume a lot more DEF than, say, the Sprinter Vandellas or your Volkswagen Golf.
Speaker 3:Sure, and I wasn't trying to be nefarious, I just didn't know if.
Speaker 1:That's a good question In the world if a vehicle was made, fresh off the assembly line.
Speaker 3:With only a diesel tank and diesel lines would a truck run on diesel. You don't have to have another chemical to make it run.
Speaker 2:So let's go back 2007, which was the last year you didn't have to have a DPF filter.
Speaker 3:Oh, there we go.
Speaker 2:In 2007,. That truck that Eric and I drove had a 11-liter Caterpillar engine and the exhaust left. The engine went into a muffler, got quiet and blew up the tailpipe. Most of the trucks Jerry drove back when he was driving back in 1987 or whatever it was. None of those had DPF filters A diesel engine. Actually. It's more reliable and works better than a gasoline-powered engine. Sure, because it requires so much less than what a gas engine does. So, yes, they will work just fine without it, but they're not. The article doesn't talk about getting rid of everything. It just talks about suspending the disciplinary action of one.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And that's where I'm like does this get to cause issues on the other side of the?
Speaker 3:truck Sure, that makes sense it's very interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm very curious what's going to happen. I'm curious what that recall is going to look like as someone who operates 125 trucks. That's a lot of trucks that have to go to Freightliner and get reprogrammed.
Speaker 1:I think, though, for a fleet like ours, if a driver reports that they're having a check engine light, we'll get that through. On the back end we get the alerts when they get a check-ins and light. Yes, If they need to make a delivery, make your delivery. You're not going to get derated. And then, once your delivery is done, we need to get you to a dealership to get it taken care of. So responsibly, as a responsible fleet, we're going to make sure that gets taken care of. So one we don't have problems down the road.
Speaker 3:With the red one.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes and two, we're still being environmentally responsible. An environmentally responsible fleet yeah, Sure Right.
Speaker 2:Well, and we do it now.
Speaker 1:We do.
Speaker 2:So like if you call and your red check engine light's on and you're like, hey, hi-field, and your red check engine light's on and you're like, hey, hifield, my red check engine light's on, I don't know what to do. Our maintenance department's going to ask okay, we're going to look for an email, see if we have anything. But they're going to ask a few questions and one of them is where do you deliver? Where are you now? Where do you deliver? Where do you pick up All that good stuff? And if you're at the delivery or you're like close to it, they're going to tell you engine shutdown, override, get to your delivery, make your delivery and then, if there's a shop nearby, you may engine shutdown of that shop. If there's not, we'll get a tow truck and have you towed out of there. We do that now with our very limited amount of two minutes at a time. In the older Cascadias, classic Cascadias, you had to press and hold.
Speaker 1:The new ones you could press for every two minutes. I was taught to put a coin in it, so it would stay down as you drove.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that actually ended my reefer career. Too bad, we don't have any more of those trucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're already doing that. So I can imagine with this it's going to give us even more leverage to make that happen If you have a close. Maybe you do a delivery and your pickup's only two hours away. Maybe you have time to get that pickup and then maybe make that next load and then we get your truck fixed right. Like that would be nice is to get some time sure uh, I do agree that there needs to be a limit, like if you can't run forever you can't run forever, it's.
Speaker 2:It's not good for the environment, like at some point our lineage, our heritage needs to live on right, and it doesn't do us any good if we pollute and kill the Earth. But a little bit of flexibility certainly would help out.
Speaker 3:Interesting to watch that one play out.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it will be, and 2027, still two years out. So I'll be very interested to see what happens In a quarter, yeah, exactly. True, they didn't say exactly when 2027.
Speaker 4:Oh model year. So it's model year 2027, which actually is. It's a year away, you're right.
Speaker 2:That's.
Speaker 3:July 2026.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been real good catching up. We went a little long this time, but it's been a great conversation. It's been a great conversation, yes, conversation. It's been a great conversation, yes. And if you haven't seen Ice Road Truckers, go back History Channel on YouTube, binge all 11 seasons to get ready for the 12th season coming up, and if you binge 11 seasons you'll be sick of it.
Speaker 4:But at least watch one season. It's pretty fun. You just fast forward through some of the parts.
Speaker 1:Yes, and just watch the exciting stuff when they start showing the ice cracking. Just skip ahead. You got it. You got the whole thing. Just skip ahead. Watch it one time, watch it once and skip ahead, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Jack's headed to.
Speaker 1:Yellowknife on yeah, yeah yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2:So in the meantime, if you for some reason have interest in what we're doing and you want to know more about high-field trucking, we had some availability but it looks like it's starting to fill up. So if you're interested in driving with us one of our high-field trucks, with Panther or FedEx, reach out to us, because that little bit of availability we had is starting to shrink down and I'm excited about that. And then, if you have a topic you want us to discuss here on the Outer Belt, by all means you can shoot us an email at theouterbeltpodcast at gmailcom. The Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 5:Also known as the Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:One more time.
Speaker 3:The Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Or you can Callcom.
Speaker 4:Or you can Call.
Speaker 2:No, well, yes, you could. That would be odd. I mean, you could.
Speaker 4:How about they put a little comment thing at the bottom?
Speaker 2:Thank you for calling Highfield Trucking. This is Melissa. How can I help you? Oh, you'd like us to talk about Ice Road Trucking, season 12, episode 4.
Speaker 4:All right.
Speaker 2:We will do it, melissa would like that phone call.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:Melissa would love that phone call. No, you're right.
Speaker 4:What did you call it? The little comment thing? The comment thing also known as the comments yes, Just plain comment. Just go down below the video.
Speaker 2:Below the thing, the thing Below the thing, yeah, yeah, below the video or whatever. Jerry is dying. Jerry looks so uncomfortable. If you're listening to this on the podcast, you should know that Jerry right now wants to crawl under the couch he's sitting on. Jerry, you should make the thumbnail your face right now. You should. So anyways, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Speaker 4:Oh no, that's okay Because you know it's a video. But if you're not watching and you're just listening, it's just a picture.
Speaker 2:It's just a picture of Jerry's face.
Speaker 4:And you can hit the like button.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:And then you can comment about how much you love us.
Speaker 2:Okay, now let me ask you a question. Say you like what we're doing and you'd like to see all the episodes we're doing. What should they do then?
Speaker 4:Subscribe.
Speaker 2:Subscribe and the fee for that is $5 directly to Heather, no, eric.
Speaker 3:At bimmocom and we're done with you, Eric.
Speaker 2:What's the fee to subscribe? Zero, that's right, not a single cent. And then you can hit that bell on some platforms and that'll actually, that's right.
Speaker 3:And if you're interested in driving a truck, you can go to Facebook, instagram, tiktok website. At oh, highfieldtruckingcom. I don't know what all the other platforms are, but you can definitely find us Highfieldtruckingcom.
Speaker 2:Highfieldtrucking. It's the same name. That's on my shirt. It's on Eric's shirt. Yep H-Y-F-I-E-L-D trekkingcom. We got a chat feature on there. We got a message feature on there. You can set up an appointment to chat with one of our lovely recruiters.
Speaker 3:We've got some of the best. You can just call if it's Monday through Friday you could call 8 to 5.
Speaker 2:And who would you talk to?
Speaker 3:Either myself or Delina. I should say Delina or myself.
Speaker 2:Are they knowledgeable?
Speaker 3:Very.
Speaker 2:Are they nice to talk to.
Speaker 3:I think I am.
Speaker 2:Will they get you off the phone quickly?
Speaker 3:No, we'll answer all the questions that you might have, plus some.
Speaker 2:What else?
Speaker 3:I talked to a lady today four different times.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Okay, she had to take the information back out to her husband who was working in the yard.
Speaker 2:I get that.
Speaker 3:And then she'd have more questions and come back in. I get that Plus we also were messaging and calling, so I will answer all of your questions. I'm here to provide you.
Speaker 1:He was up mowing the yard with a beer in his hand and she kept coming out and stopping him to ask him questions.
Speaker 3:It was a coronerita.
Speaker 1:It was a coronerita.
Speaker 2:So we're here to answer questions, to make sure it's the right fit for everyone, including yourselves, so yeah, yes, I think we've got a great thing going on. I'm very excited about what the future holds and I can't wait to tell you about the thing that we alluded to earlier, that we can't talk about right now, but it's coming. Stay safe and make good decisions.
Speaker 5:Don't leave money on the table and keep those wheels of turner.
Speaker 4:Good night, bye, see you next time, thank you.