Hi all,
I’ve been lurking for several months now and found the database of advice invaluable as I start my career.
My story so far is fairly typically others, I’m a mature new driver, only 46 but you have to accept you’re not a youngster at some point. I have been driving professionally for many years, although only 7.5t and vans until this summer. I passed my cat c and c+e in rapid succession and am now working agency’s to get experience. In the 3 months ofmpractical experience so far I’ve driven my share of good and bad trucks, my favourite so far is the Mercedes actros, least favourite is the Renaults.
I have a problem with the truck I drove today and would be grateful for your advice. The unit is a 57 plate MAN with 800,000 km’s on the clock. Today I was sent out on a delivery with an old trailer, previously I’ve been advised about incompatibilities between abs modules on older trailers and wasn’t surprised to see an abs warning light. I swapped trailers and then this is where things got worse, the abs fault remained, even though the trailer is only a couple of years old. The trailer was substantially heavier than the first and after only a couple of miles a red ‘stop’ indication appeared on the dashboard. I phoned the workshop and was told the code referred to worn injectors, which were scheduled for replacement, the mechanic explained that to much fuel was being reported to the ecu in the return pipe, this made the code appear. I was told it was safe to continue and I did so.
Less than a mile later I encountered a slight hill, and immediately noticed a severe lots of power and one again the ‘stop’ fault code came up and I pulled over and phoned it in. I explained the issue once again and pointed out the combination of symptoms. I also pointed out other error codes that had started to appear, these were, ‘trailer park brake’, ’ no ride height data’, abs truck and trailer, and finally the exhaust emissions waring symbol was flashing constantly. Again I was told that it was safe to continue and I carried on to my drop point. With an empty trailer, the ‘stop’ warning ceased to come up, however the abs and emissions warning remained. I dropped the trailer of at another yard and returned to Base tractor unit only. The emissions and abs warnings continued.
When I got back to the yard I was told that I would be taking the unit to the workshop (15 miles away) tomorrow, they would plug it into the computer and see the detail of the problem. The worrying part is that the transport manager also told me about the first jobs on my sheet for the morning and I got a distinct feeling that regardless of what the computer said, that truck was going to be working the following day.
My question is should I drive it? Even to the workshop? I’m pretty sure if I refuse I’ll be sent home, but are the faults bad enough for me to kick up a fuss? The agency have been supportive when I spoke to them.
Any opinions welcome,
Steve
