It's Not a Van, It's a Tank
By Jason W. McGlone, staff writer
Mar 3, 2010 - 8:50:54 AM
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Lima, Ohio's Bert
Lambert has been expediting for quite some time, so it's no surprise
that he's driven many, many miles over the years. His relationship with
one particular van, however, is a bit special. Specifically, he put
1.2 million miles on a 2002 Ford E-350.
To put that in perspective, in
the space of almost eight years, Mr. Lambert could have driven around
the equator just over 48 times.
At 60 miles per hour, that's 20,000
hours. By any measurement, that's a lot of driving, especially in one
vehicle.
It doesn't seem to
faze Mr. Lambert, however. That's where his experience comes in. "I
bought the van from a fella who'd made one trip with it. He'd bought it
new. He wanted to try out expediting and it didn't work out for him,
and he sold it to me by just taking over the payments. It had about
2000 miles on it at the time, and I put the rest of them on."
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You'd think that after 1,200,000 miles, every last bit of life would be choked out of a vehicle, or that it would at least be for a complete overhaul, or be destined to be a parts vehicle, but it doesn't appear that this is so. "It was still in good shape when I sold it other than the engine needed some work. What, I couldn't tell you."
Mr. Lambert and his wife, Mary, ride team for
Panther Expedited Services during their expediting travels,
and he says that the E-350 has been
through all 48 continental states, as well as many areas in Canada, going "As far North as St. John's, Newfoundland." Mr. Lambert adds, "My wife has been an integral part of the operation. I could not have done it without her!"
"I'd still be driving this van if it weren't for an oil change I had done in Pittsburgh at a Wal-Mart. They overfilled my oil by probably two quarts too many." This caused, as you can probably guess, the van to start burning oil, which made quite a bit of smoke. "I had a 700 mile run from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, she was smoking pretty good. As long as I was running, it wasn't quite as noticeable, but as soon as I started out, it left everyone behind me in a cloud of smoke, you might say."
After countless loads, Mr. Lambert says that the longest trips they've made have been cross-country, but since that seems to happen on a somewhat regular basis, none particularly stand out as having been the "longest."
As you might guess, the key to keeping a truck running so well for so long is "Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance" Mr. Lambert says. "Change that oil regularly, and I'm a firm believer in that. Every 10,000 miles, and I wouldn't go over that. And I always use top-grade oil. That's the number one contributing factor, I believe."
This isn't to say that the van never broke down; but when it did, it was never anything catastrophic. "The biggest problem I ever had with that particular van was the vacuum pump went out. That happened a couple times, two water pumps and several alternators. Other than that, that's been about it. Engine-wise, I only had two injectors go bad."
Once he topped the million mile mark, his E-350 became something of a standout even among those who performed its maintenance. "Every time I had my oil changed and they looked at the odometer, they looked at me and asked, 'Is that for real?' I blew everybody's mind, including the Ford dealer whenever I'd take it in to get something replaced. They'd always ask, 'Is that the right mileage?'"
"I wrote Ford about it. They said, 'It's nice to know we put out such a good product,'" Mr. Lambert says with a laugh.
Despite driving the truck through thick and thin (he says of the van, "It never owed me a dime," as he laughs), and the fact that it was his "Wife's baby," as he puts it, Mr. Lambert sold his 2002 E-350 recently and is now driving--you guessed it--another Ford E-350, this time a 2004 model. The new one currently has 280,000 miles on it and doesn't show any signs of stopping, either. "I hope the one I'm driving now does as well," he says, and plans to get everything he can out of it, too: "I don't swap 'em out every three or four years; I drive 'em. But I take care of 'em, too. If I can foresee something that's going to happen, I don't let it go."
"Someone told me that when you get to a million miles, they should give you a new one. Too bad it doesn't work that way," I told him. He agreed.
I asked Mr. Lambert whether he had any advice for others in the expediting industry. He thoughtfully paused, and said, "It's a tough business nowadays. It's hurt us all. You just have to stick with it and bide your time." Couple that with his own personal mantra, and you've got a recipe for success.
Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.
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