Cliff or Alex, Tuesday morning I awoke in a rest area in CT after about 4 hours kip, the engine had been running all that time as you would expect at this time of year and I noticed a new little sign in the computer read out on the bottom left hand side of the dash 
Above the CC for cruise and where the warning triangle would appear for a fault there was something I have not seen before 
It looked like two small diamonds touching each other, each had little ear like things sticking out of the top, I don’t have a hand book for my truck and they vanished after 30 minutes What do they mean I could find no faults at the time, even by using the diagnostic system on the truck
I dunno-Volvos are odd. Check your manual.
what about sending a query to volvo usa asking what this as
you must be able with your laptop or a computor on a truckstop,
and when you do know what the sign says please let us know,
You said that you left the engine running whilst sleeping ,NO chance
of that in schweiz or austria they will nick you and off to jail you do
go.
I haven’t got a manual, thats why I asked 
Trucks here are way behind techically Pete, thats why we have to leave them running, they don’t have the pre heating stage on the ignition, no inline fuel heaters and night heaters are extreemely rare, you either run the negine or freeze up 
Back at base we have to plug them into the mains
Well, Pat, most class 8 American trucks do have at least an exhaust fuel heater, but that requires that the motor must be running to work.
now that diesel fuel costs $2.35/gallon, maybe we’ll finally get overnight heater/AC units. Of course, in the US, the A/C is as important or more important than the heater. My preference is a generator/heater to keep lights and accessories going, and that can run an electric auxilliary A/C like the kind that are used on caravans. Gives you some modularity to the setup…
Can’t help you at the mo’ Pat, as my diagnostics screen has gone awol, $600-$800 to replace it…not this side of Christmas!
I’m heading out again in about an hour, I will look it up in my manual sometime over the weekend, I hope to be back home Sunday afternoon so I find out what it means I’ll let you know. Otherwise try the Volvo dealership… on second thoughts don’t bother!, not if your Volvo ’ technicians" are anything like our muppets here in Atlanta!
I will patiently await your response Cliff 
I’ll see if the manual is still in the one I’m going out in tomorrow… (just as a pasenger of course…) gets me out of the house…
If not, I’ll try and borrow one from safety or the workshop.
Either of you seen the new 780? Wow… the cab in those things is pure Euro volvo… amazing (for a septic truck anyway)
allikat:
Either of you seen the new 780? Wow… the cab in those things is pure Euro volvo… amazing (for a septic truck anyway)
This is’nt really intended as an exclusive ‘dig’ at you Alikat, more like using you as a springboard to make a general point about people who like yourself, have been gung-ho about coming over here, clinging to fairy tale like notions that once they start trucking in America it will be the end to all of their problems, their lives will be complete and everything will be perfect for the rest of eternity! ( ok so I exaggerated a little ) but you get my point.
■■■■ Alikat! Seems that since you have been over here for while you are starting to sound more and more like myself , Pat, Munchman and others in regards to your views of trucks & trucking over here, where are all the naive/uninformed and ‘rosy’ views you used to have about trucking over here? what happened?
I seem to remember many a post from you, where, despite my many articles in T&D and my posts on here ‘exposing’ the myths that so many in the UK have of trucking over here, you were still ‘gung-ho’ in your quest to get here, what with your sceptical views on some of my posts, and posts of yours that were obvious, if only by the content, that you regarded mine (and other members) posts to be nothing short of exagerated scaremongering!
There are so many UK drivers who have a hard time accepting that the realities of trucking in the USA are at odds to how they imagined it to be
Sometimes I wonder if you all think I make everything up? when I write about the experience of US trucking through a UK truckers eyes, do you all think it is just an experience that is unique to me? or that articles I have written over the years in the pages of T&D were nothing but pure fiction. The times I have described the old fashioned designs and out of date technology of US trucks both inside and outside of the cabs, the rough ride in unbelievably cramped cockpits, potholed and crumbling roads, disgraceful working conditions, the substandard (non-existant) safety regulations, the narrow and insular minded people, etc etc etc. Only to meet someone who has read all that in my T&D articles, then comes out here and is totally gobsmacked when they discover that everything I wrote is in fact true!
My stories evolve from having experienced trucking both sides of the Atlantic, stories that I know would be ‘eye openers’ to the average UK driver, because the stories were/are about ‘eye opening’ experiences of my own and other ‘brit’ drivers that arrived here like myself during the early 1990’s. although many of my stories originate from that time period, the ‘culture shocks’ of my first couple of years were so acute they stayed in my mind, especially when so much from those days is still as true and relevant in America’s trucking culture today ( change in this industry is very slow!)
Many things that were a suprise or shock to me then, I now take for granted, ( Lumpers, unpaid work, mileage pay, no synchro boxes, weeks away, health ins, miserly holiday pay, paper logbooks and, until this year 67 year old HOS rules) are just a few things off the top of my head. I am always mindful that the same things would be just as much a suprise/shock to a newly arrived Brit driver here in 2004 as they were to me over a decade ago. Most of my stories are intended to ‘open’ the eyes of would be future ex-pat truckers, because life is’nt as green on the other side of the fence as those rose tinted glasses would have people believe.
Pat I thought that with two of the worlds leading automotive giants
from europe now in the usa , that they would be able to educate
our backwood cousins in this subject. How can it be that a country
who can send a man to the moon but do not know how to build
a transport vehicle which is econnomic. environmentaly friendly, and
also haveing the means to transport safely the goods carried.
AND what do I HEAR that the vehicles in question are of the
standard of yesterday, Sorry you can keep your KENWORTH;WHITE
MACK: I will just have my LONGLINE 580 SCANIA WITH BONNET
THANK YOU:
My sentiments entirely Pete
How a country that is suposed to be advanced so far can make such low tech vehicles is beyond me, I would love a Scania just like I had back in the UK
Even the cars are way behind, and you would think that Ford being an American company would have better vehicles here, but they seem to release them in Europe about 3 years before they do here and they are far better in Europe, little things like ‘Quick clear windows’ don’t exist here
They have never seen a Ford Puma the worlds best selling vehicle is a Ford Transit, but there is now such thing on this continent.
It seems that vehicle technology has evolved much slower here
When I drove back there, I could raise or lower tractor unit and trailer suspension to what ever level I needed to keep the thing level for offloading etc, here they have either normal (travelling position) or dump the tractor air to drop the trailer more smoothly, when I tell others about how advanced trucks are in Europe I am met with looks of shock or total disbelief 
What about air disc brakes, Pat?? The last time I saw a set on a US tractor, other than on a show truck, was on an o/o’s truck out in Kalifornia. He only spec’d them because he was tired of fighting with Caltrans over brake adjustment measurements…
I knew you weren’t joking Cliff. I just had this hankering to be able to drive 300 miles in a straight line without ending up in the north sea
Having run in an 83 GMC General, an 88 KW, a 90 Trashional, a 99 volvo is like heaven… and it’s one of the oldest trucks on the fleet here. It’s even got a 425hp volvo D12 engine in it! Cab is halfways reasonable, and the ride is almost on a par with that of on FL10…
If you want some advice Cliff, if you can stand a little bit of cold (only -16c here tonight, with an inch or 3 of snow…) come up to Canada, join up with the company I’m with, get a 2005 volvo 780, and have some fun. You can get Cadburys here, Mars bars, and decent coffee. They can even spell!
Junk that detroit “powered” piece of rubbish and get a decent truck
When I get everything sorted, and get my own truck, I’ll lease one, and spec it myself, disc brakes, adjustable suspension and a volvo engine
Kinda gotten used to the roadrangers tho… may have one of those… But then I liked the twin-splitter 
Wonder if the volvo dealer in the Peg would be able to get me an FH16-610
Oh… if you can’t get shots inside an older US truck, tell me, I’ll mail you some pics you can use in the next article. Cabs that look like they were “designed” by ramming the parts into a shotgun, firing it at the dash, and wiring them where they landed… 
It’s no wonder with such a low-tech approach that the driving test has such a massive emphasis on the pre-trip… Since half the mechanics here couldn’t find their own arses with the aid of a map, a torch and a guy who’d been there before
Electronic engine management? On a truck?? You’ll be telling me it has disc brakes and a synchromesh transmission next!
Here’s a new oxymoron for you: “Truckstop Mechanic”. I had some wrench jockey last night down in Texas who didn’t understand what I meant when I asked him if the wheel was “true”.
Alli,
Why would we want to go up there to Canada and earn half the pay we do here
You talk as if we don’t have weather as cold as they do up there, -16f is nothing wait till real winter hits you, try -60f and real ice storm.
-16c is +8f that is a heatwave … you haven’t lived yet
Winter doesn’t start till mid january
I have to say… I agree with Cliff. I am curious though Allikat. You were all “gung ho” to come to the US… made no secret that you planned on moving here, ignored what was said about the conditions that the truck drivers work in, and have tried just about every legal means to bypass INS that you could think of. Seems you got here, spent the harvest season driving on a B licence, were denied the opportunity to take your CDL-A, and so you now think Canada is SOOOOO much better. You’ve complained in other posts about your US experience being ignored… but driving on a B license is not Class A experience. And you didn’t have an HGV 1 in the UK either, so the Artic experience doesn’t exist. Not sure how you can complain about that. Try pulling a 72 ft truck through downtown Manhattan… then you could complain about your experience being ignored.
And we do have Cadbury’s, Mars Bars, and decent coffee here. North Dakota is hardly downtown “USA”… and if “real coffee” are those instant granules that are so popular in the UK… we’ll stick to the fresh ground, fresh brewed “pretend” coffee that we’ve gotten so accustomed to.
Funny how someone who was so hellbent on being in the US finds it so repulsive after she discovers the US isn’t as ‘gung ho’ to have her.
Well Kate, I love the US. And I got a bit dissilusioned with going there after struggling for a long time to get in by a legal method. Canada let me in, and I can still run the US from here, and get all the things I love about America that way.
And I do have some semi-experience. It’s called the harvest licence exmption. I drove semi trucks of up to 102,000 pounds on that. You pull a heavily laden trailer out of a tight field with 6’ ditches either side onto a single lane dirt road and complain 
Sure I drove some junk on the harvest. And I still love the US, I just happen to like Canada a bit more, even with the forthcoming ice and snow and ICE!
Funny how you get the good ‘candy’… i could never find it in the parts of the US I’d like to live in… wierd huh?
Fix up the US immegration “policy” and I’ll take a job down there tomorrow. Until then, I’ll stay in Canada.
Hrm… have to arrange to mail Kate and Pat a box of Tim Horton’s coffee…
So, what are you driving up there? Remember all the stuff I told you about ND winters? Well, they are just a little bit worse in Manitoba, so get ready for it!
I’d noticed Alexx. It’s not too bad right now, -16c at night, and only a foot of snow. I’m doing ok thus far. We’ll see how I’m doing in Jan/Feb when it gets really cold shall we?