The absolute first thing you are going to want to do is whip our your cell phone and start taking pictures. Preferably pictures with the date superimposed within the pic. Take pics of ANY damage on the truck. This will be your only evidence of existing damage on the truck prior to your acquisition. Save those pictures somewhere. Transfer them to your laptop hard drive, because it never fails: you will lose your phone, or it will get crushed as you run over it with your truck at some dark truck stop somewhere.
Next, you are going to want to hop inside and look for damage as well. Document everything.
Familiarize yourself with where all the buttons and switches are for everything, especially the headlights and windshield wipers.
Next, you are going to want to go to your company's maintenance department, either the day you get your truck, or as soon as you can, and stock up on maintenance supplies: a jug of motor oil, an oil filter, spare bulbs for each type of bulb that your tractor and trailer will likely use, some extra rubber grommets for where the air lines connect to the trailer, some seals to seal trailers up when needed, etc., etc.
Your company is probably going to route you towards home. They are probably going to tell you to grab a loaded trailer that some other driver has dropped in the trailer drop yard somewhere, and head home. Before you do that, fill up your fuel tanks, if possible. Then, grab an empty trailer, hook to it, and run your truck and trailer over the scale, if your company has one on-site. You will want an idea of how much your truck and trailer weighs empty. It's good to have a ball park idea of what your truck and trailer weigh, empty, but with both fuel tanks full.
This is important because later on you might pick up a load that puts you very close to your legal limit. Suppose your fuel tanks are near empty when you are getting loaded up. Then, you get loaded and find out you are near the limit. Then, you decide to fuel up. Fueling up can add several hundred pounds to your truck's weight, and can theoretically put you over the legal limit. If you find out you're over your legal limit, you'd better make some quick decisions: take the load, or risk going over the next scale along the highway, knowing you're overweight and risk getting a fine? You decide.
If you don't already have one, you will definitely need a good recent trucker highway map. These will help you tremendously. Also of great help are paperback guides to all the truck stops, rest areas and scales in every state. This is important because you will most likely want to scale some, if not most of your loads. My company reimbursed me for scale costs, so it didn't matter to me much. My logic was to scale everything, unless it was completely obvious that it was a load of cotton or some other negligible lightweight product. I scaled almost everything- and definitely everything if the paperwork suggested a heavy load- because, what if the paperwork I was given turned out to be wrong? What if the paperwork said the load weighed 55,000 pounds and it actually weighed 59,000, putting me overweight?
CAT scales are guaranteed to be accurate, and are located at almost every major truck stop. Your truck stop guide book will tell you if a scale is present at any given truck stop.
When in doubt, scale the load at the nearest scale. If it's overweight, take the load back to the shipper. Have them take weight off, or re-load the trailer to move the weight around (if one of your axles is heavy and another is light).
Another thing you are going to want to do when given the keys to the truck is to know how to contact your dispatcher, the maintenance dept, and so on. Get back up phone numbers, in case your in-truck communication module (if yours has a Qualcomm) fails.
Next, you are going to want to hop inside and look for damage as well. Document everything.
Familiarize yourself with where all the buttons and switches are for everything, especially the headlights and windshield wipers.
Next, you are going to want to go to your company's maintenance department, either the day you get your truck, or as soon as you can, and stock up on maintenance supplies: a jug of motor oil, an oil filter, spare bulbs for each type of bulb that your tractor and trailer will likely use, some extra rubber grommets for where the air lines connect to the trailer, some seals to seal trailers up when needed, etc., etc.
Your company is probably going to route you towards home. They are probably going to tell you to grab a loaded trailer that some other driver has dropped in the trailer drop yard somewhere, and head home. Before you do that, fill up your fuel tanks, if possible. Then, grab an empty trailer, hook to it, and run your truck and trailer over the scale, if your company has one on-site. You will want an idea of how much your truck and trailer weighs empty. It's good to have a ball park idea of what your truck and trailer weigh, empty, but with both fuel tanks full.
This is important because later on you might pick up a load that puts you very close to your legal limit. Suppose your fuel tanks are near empty when you are getting loaded up. Then, you get loaded and find out you are near the limit. Then, you decide to fuel up. Fueling up can add several hundred pounds to your truck's weight, and can theoretically put you over the legal limit. If you find out you're over your legal limit, you'd better make some quick decisions: take the load, or risk going over the next scale along the highway, knowing you're overweight and risk getting a fine? You decide.
If you don't already have one, you will definitely need a good recent trucker highway map. These will help you tremendously. Also of great help are paperback guides to all the truck stops, rest areas and scales in every state. This is important because you will most likely want to scale some, if not most of your loads. My company reimbursed me for scale costs, so it didn't matter to me much. My logic was to scale everything, unless it was completely obvious that it was a load of cotton or some other negligible lightweight product. I scaled almost everything- and definitely everything if the paperwork suggested a heavy load- because, what if the paperwork I was given turned out to be wrong? What if the paperwork said the load weighed 55,000 pounds and it actually weighed 59,000, putting me overweight?
CAT scales are guaranteed to be accurate, and are located at almost every major truck stop. Your truck stop guide book will tell you if a scale is present at any given truck stop.
When in doubt, scale the load at the nearest scale. If it's overweight, take the load back to the shipper. Have them take weight off, or re-load the trailer to move the weight around (if one of your axles is heavy and another is light).
Another thing you are going to want to do when given the keys to the truck is to know how to contact your dispatcher, the maintenance dept, and so on. Get back up phone numbers, in case your in-truck communication module (if yours has a Qualcomm) fails.
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