If there’s one thing to know about Jim Fraley, owner of J & S Trucking in Arkansas, he likes to keep his trucks clean. He’s so meticulous, in fact, he doesn’t even like having his wife in the truck, because when she brushes her hair, it ends up all over the floor.
“All my guys know how I am—every truck that leaves here, I clean all the windows three or four times a week, inside and out, and I wipe the door panels down,” Fraley explained.
And if you want to know another thing about Fraley, it’s that he’s pretty altruistic. A few years ago, an owner-operator he knew was down on his luck and needed a job. Fraley described him as a “decent lookin’ feller” in his early 40s—and “not a fat slob.” He owned a show-quality Kenworth W900. Fraley recalled it was “very fancy” and “super nice.” (On the outside, at least, he qualified.)
Fraley, who operates 13 trucks, wasted no time putting the new driver in a well-kept 2020 Peterbilt Model 579 Ultra Loft. The long-haul driver did tell Fraley that his 30.-lb pet pig would be riding along, but that didn’t bother him or violate the company’s ban on certain pets.
“I don’t like dogs that shed, and I don’t want a cat in the truck because of the hair. Pigs don’t shed,” he reasoned. Fraley was also under the impression it was housebroken.
The fastidious fleet owner would soon regret that decision only a few months after entrusting the impeccable Pete to this new driver. As he was departing the yard to drive up to the 2023 Mid-America Truck Show, Fraley swung by to check up on the contractor.
He opened the driver’s side door and that’s when it hit him.
“I was knocked off my ass from the smell,” Fraley painfully recalled, equating it to the foulest barnyard your nose can imagine. He started gagging but luckily kept his lunch down.
“Apparently my sniffer is very, very good,” Farley offered.
There is no literary license taken by calling this cab a pigsty, as that’s exactly what it was. The pig slept on the bottom bunk and used the rest of the cab as its toilet. Fraley had thought it was housebroken, but that may have been Pig #1, which died early into the driver’s tenure with J & S, and was replaced with a rescue.
Regardless, pig pellets, to soften Fraley’s terminology, were “just everywhere, under the seats, in places you can’t get to,” Fraley described. And despite the truck being a loaner, the pig took every chance to mark its territory. Pig urine was “soaked in and saturated everything.”
The driver, who otherwise had no issues, and his pig were understandably fired on the spot. Somehow Fraley, whose bacon was really fried at this point, composed himself enough to not end up in police custody. Instead, he went to MATS, dreading the monumental clean-up that awaited him at home.
This is, of course, an extreme example of the messes that fleets must deal with. There are around 3.6 million CDL holders in the U.S., and we’d wager most drivers don’t turn their trucks into rolling biohazards, but instead do their best to keep a clean, professional-looking cab to represent their fleet in the best way possible. But humans are still mammals that need to eat, sleep, and do all the other natural things mammals do. And if you cram them in a cab for one shift in a day cab or several months in a sleeper, messes happen—some obviously worse than others. But whatever the stain, spill, or scuff, fleets have to ensure their trucks are presentable inside and out, considering their company name and DOT number are visible for all to see. It’s an essential part of maintaining the one thing you can’t fix with tools and replacement parts: your brand reputation. So if you can stomach it, read on to see how Fraley cleaned up his literal pig rig and pick up some detailing tips to keep your machines clean.
Arkansas massacre aftermath
While at MATS in Louisville, Fraley ran into Vann Brown, founder and CEO of Brown Ox Ventures. The inventor behind the BullSnot! cleaning product line has turned a tidy profit selling a wide array of aerosol sprays and detailing products to clean up the trucking masses’ messes. As far as cab horror stories go, Brown has heard them all over the company’s 20 years.
And he had just the thing to help get rid of the pig smell at least: BlastABull Odor Eliminator. Imbued with “Advanced Odor Encapsulation Technology,” the spray traps and removes offensive scents left from tobacco smoke, pets, and food.
“The deodorizer, which is a huge seller for me, doesn’t mask the odor; it destroys it on a molecular level,” Brown explained.
It’s the same stuff that solved a serious situation between two slip-seat drivers when one of the drivers’ boorish behavior became an all-out assault on his co-worker’s olfactory system. Brown noted this guy had a penchant for stogies and had an incontinent English Bulldog ride shotgun.
The other driver sought Brown’s help because the cab “stunk to high heaven.” Along with aromas of cigar smoke and dog droppings, the driver detected a hint of his cabmate’s body odor. If this miracle spray was strong enough for that situation, it should work on anything.
Fraley left the truck show with the spray and soon returned home to get started on the truck. His wife, who helps him with maintenance and cleaning, had already gotten to work.
The condition was so severe that Fraley contemplated putting in a whole new interior, but he and his wife were able to get it road-ready in a few weeks. They ripped out the floors and power washed the whole cab. Then they replaced the vinyl seats, curtains, side panels, insulation, and mattresses, also installing a new rubber floor.
“We gave the truck a 1,000% deep clean,” Fraley said, estimating the total cost was $3,000. That does not count the labor he put in or the several weeks of downtime.
The good news is that after everything, the violated 579 is still in use. Fraley was able to get the truck to the point where the next driver, who knew the backstory, used it for a year.
It was a costly lesson, but Fraley now regularly checks every truck’s interior before they depart the yard. His drivers know the penalty for a dirty truck is a pink slip.
“I’ve been a truck driver all my life, but don’t ever tell me you don’t have time to keep the inside of the truck clean,” Fraley concluded.
