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Summer Fleet Love - 4 Things to Do For Your Fleet | Semi Truck Repair

Summer PM

Yes friends, it’s time for the obligatory summer maintenance lecture speech discussion.

We know you run your fleet hard year round. We know you have the best intentions when it comes to maintaining consistent seasonal PM practices.

Still, we get calls year after year from some of our favorite clients who either ran out of time, got inundated with loads, or plain just forgot. It does indeed happen to the very best of us.

With that in mind, we compiled a quick list of things you need to pay attention to outside of your regular PM schedule.

4. Don’t run overweight. Oddly enough, more fleet managers fear the cost of a violation over the stress being overloaded puts on their equipment. Yet it happens all the time. The truth of the matter is though that in the long run, the truck is just as expensive to fix as the ticket is to pay, oftentimes even moreso. High summer temps are already putting extra stress on your engine, coolant systems, and tires. Adding extra weight to that equation can easily make things go from bad to worse.

3. Service your coolant system. We already mentioned (and it’s likely that you already know) but summer is the season your coolant system is working overtime. (Duh.) 53% of premature engine failures are caused by poor maintenance (or lack thereof) of your cooling system components. Think a PM service will cost ya? Try fixing or replacing an engine.

2. Maintain your brakes. Your brakes already heat up to ridiculous temperatures without the help of summer temps. When it’s hot, the pavement and your tires heat up, making your brakes even hotter. Couple that with improper brake maintenance and poor braking practices and you’ll find yourself with overheated brakes and/or increased stopping distance, two things that generally don’t end well.

1. Keep your tires properly inflated. We’ve only mentioned this maybe a 1000 times, but improper tire inflation is one of the main causes of blowouts. Period. Improper tire inflation + hot summer pavement = blowouts FASTER.

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