The rest of the week

What a few days, long hours and some interesting things. This week I had a Merc Actros to drive and to be quite honest and blunt, I do like them. When they are working they are excellent wagons but when they break boy do they cause misery.


Had an Actros 2544 on my Thursday, as this is one of the new models and I drove it for the fisrt time I was duly impressed. The cab has been redesigned, everything is well within arms reach, all the selection buttons are much more accessible as you don't have to hunt all over the cab for them. The dash is much better with the display much more user friendly. The cab is very spacious, no central shelf but loads of foldaway bits such as tables and shelves. I suppose there are things like a fridge etc but I just didn't have the time to explore. Two beds, with loads of storage space either in lockable lockers or cubby-holes. Much better wagon in my opinion, fully automatic with a foldaway selection lever.

Wednesday.
Supposed to be going to Derby but managed to get as far as Dunstable, wagon threw up some errors so a mechanic was called. Two hours later he turned up and reset the errors and informed me that it was OK to drive. Just joined the M1 again when the dashboard lit up with a bright red colour, the same problem. Called in and had to crawl to Milton Keynes to a Merc dealer to get it fixed. Spent the rest of the day there and when driving back would you believe it the damn thing threw a wobbler again. Oh I love crawling back to the yard at a snails pace.

Thursday.

Down to Sheppey Island with a delivery and then to Cranford to do a few collections and then home. Nice and easy day, oh how wrong can you get. The girl in the office looks at one of the collection notes and duly informs me that I have to go to Ipswich for my last collection. Joy, M25, A12 & A14, arrived in almost Felixstowe and sat there for a while waiting to be loaded. Left to go home at 4pm and didn't get back to the yard till 8pm, bloody M25. Got on and just stopped, 4 hours to do 120 miles, this has to be some sort of a record.

Friday.
Nice and easy, just go to Alesford and swap a trailer. The chappie in the yard was watching me reverse into a slot and then had the balls to call the yard and tell them that I hit some plastic pallets. To add insult to injury he called 2 hours after I left the place, something fishy about this, if I had crunched the pallets I would have seen/heard it and he would have spotted it there and then. When I was dropping the legs I had a look around and didn’t see any damage as the palets were stacked on the same side against a building. This just doesn't smell right. Had to do an accident report and all the hassle of a 'crunch'. Letter of this will also be sent to the agency and I don't want to loose out working for this client as they are pretty good and there is a good and constant amount of work.