[Ran D. St. Clair]

My First Truck Adventure - Unfortunately It wasn’t the good kind…

I got a call from the shipping company telling me that they would deliver my toilet on Tuesday morning, so I think, great, I will bring the truck to work on Tuesday and bring it home right away. Tuesday goes by and I checked the receiving dock several times, but no toilet. Oh well, maybe tomorrow, so I head home.

On the way I am passing the home improvement store, I think, might as well pick up a few supplies, so I pull in. I hop out of the truck and note that sitting on the front bumper has fooled me again, and I could pull forward another 18” to make my back end a smaller target, so I hop back in, turn the key, and click.

It was running perfectly 1 minute before and now it won’t start. Now to be fair, this isn’t exactly the first time. A couple of times it did this, so I took it out of Park and then put it back into Park and it started right up. I figured there was something a little iffy with the safety interlock. I had also received a “2nd Notice” of a recall from Mitsubishi about a week earlier. It seems the shift linkage can bind or become offset due to normal heat from the exhaust pipe. Naturally I popped the cab and checked the linkage. It wasn’t binding and there was no evidence of deformation. I tried shoving it around at the transmission end but it didn’t help.

15 minutes and several starting attempts later I figured it was time to get some help, so I went into the home improvement store, borrowed their phone (thank you) and called AAA. Now I didn’t really expect that AAA would tow my truck, but I figured they might connect me to a private tow company that could. The nice lady at AAA wanted to make sure I was safe (it’s in her script), and then she wanted to know, make, model, year, color, and of course location. I gave her the info, and then made sure she understood that it was a 14’ box truck, like a small moving van. She said, “Oh no, its not a problem”.

You guessed it, ½ hour later, which is pretty good response time I must admit, a tow truck smaller than my truck shows up. The driver takes one look at it and says, “I can’t tow that.” (No kidding…) He’s trying to be helpful though and wants to turn the key himself, so I figure, sure, why not. It doesn’t start for him either, but now he feels better. He also tries banging on the starter motor with a stick. I guess that must work sometimes because every tow truck driver wants to do it, but I am getting ahead of myself…

He calls his dispatcher and she eventually puts me on the line with Frank’s Towing (not their real name). Another lady dispatcher, so this time I make extra sure she knows it’s a big truck with a 14’ box on the back. She asks how much it weighs, so like a dummy I answer her specific question with a specific answer. “I don’t know exactly, it has a GVWR of 14,500 pounds, but it’s empty right now and probably weighs about 7,000 to 8,000 pounds.” Between the wind and the cell phone cutting out I am pretty sure she got it.

You guessed it, ½ hour later, which is pretty good response time I must admit, a tow truck smaller than my truck shows up. The driver takes one look at it and says, “I can’t tow that.” He’s trying to be helpful though and wants to turn the key himself… This all seems so familiar somehow? He wants to smack the starter, but I told him the last guy already did that. The good news is he says they have a tow truck that can handle my truck, but it might be 45 minutes or so.

You guessed it, ½ hour later (x3) and I am still waiting. It’s dark now, windy, and getting cold. OK, so it’s not the middle of winter in the Midwest cold, but it’s pretty amazingly cold considering that it was 80 degrees at 10:00 pm 3 days ago. My friend Dave says I should have M and M tattooed on my but cuz I am such a candy ass, but I’m telling you it was cold.

I jog back into the home improvement store where the nice folks let me use their phone again to call the dispatcher. She says he’s there but can’t find me. There’s one big white truck in the middle of a mostly empty parking lot and he can’t find me? I run outside and sure enough, he’s driving around, so I wave him down. It’s a big red Pete, so at least it should be able to get the job done.

He’s not a big guy, well not vertically anyway. Not much of a talker either. Doesn’t say a word, just walks around with his flashlight like he’s never seen a truck before. I was glad when he found the placard on the inside of the drivers door that warns you can’t tow the truck with the rear wheels down without severe transmission damage. Clearly he’s having a good evening, nice and relaxed, taking his time, filling out the paperwork in his nice warm cab way up in the sky.

Finally, he backs the stinger up under the rear of the truck, and I’m thinking, alright, forward progress, but no, he pulls out to consider his options. Now just to be fair, I was getting just a little anxious (and cold) by this point, and it probably only seemed to me like he was swimming in molasses.

He pulls the wheel pads off the swivel bar and puts on some brackets, followed by two heavy pickle forks about 18” tall to catch the frame rails. They don’t fit under the bumper, so off they come, and then back on again back under the truck. Now we’re crawling around under the truck looking at the frame rails. There’s wires, and a gas tank under there and not a lot of good places to grab onto. We move some wires out of the way and finally get the forks in place. Now comes the chains, but there’s more wires to be crushed, and the hooks just won’t stay hooked, so the chains come out and a couple of big Kevlar ratchet straps go in. More safety chains to the rear leaf springs and about 45 minutes later we are hooked up and ready to roll.

So where are we going? I was thinking my place where I can work on it or have my mechanic take a look, but he points out that if I have to tow it again it will cost me double. He talks me into taking it direct to a truck repair shop with a locked yard. Yes, it sounds like a setup, but it might work out, and if I don’t like the smell of it there are several other shops in that part of town.

It was a fairly short and uneventful tow to the yard where one of the mechanics lives on site. I give him the key and we exchange info. The tow should have been $250 or so, but the driver knocks it down to $195. I guess shivering is a good negotiating tactic. The driver offers to take me home, THANKS!, and we get there about 10:00 pm. The street is freshly paved and I am glad to be home, so I give him $20 for his trouble and head for bed. (Don’t worry, I’ll give him some more later if he was straight up about the repair shop.)

That’s not the end of the story though. Were just getting to the part where I admit to being a complete idiot….

To be Continued…