According to Rick Martin, manager of training for ArvinMeritor, greater emphasis should be placed on preventive maintenance, but in today’s world, everyone wants to just run the truck until it’s “dead.”
What needs to be stressed in normal preventive maintenance?
• Oil and lube changes at set intervals that the OEM/component manufacturer recommends.
• We (the manufacturers and OEMs) should know our product the best. But it’s a whole new world out there with the new emissions (and soon to be 2011 braking) regulations. Truck operators and owner-operators should err on the side of over-inspection, and/or over-maintenance until one learns the nuances of the “new” products.
What are the latest preventive maintenance best practices?
• Perform your inspections on time, on schedule. Do a thorough, quality inspection.
• Inspect the air dryer and air system for proper operation.
• Inspect wheel ends for proper wheel bearing end play and seal leakage.
• Inspect the ABS system for stored and active faults.
• Dealers in California typically follow the Cal DOT 90-day inspection procedure or BIT. Every commercial vehicle registered in California must have this 90-day inspection. This inspection covers all the items in the CVSA out of service criteria and is quite effective.
• The biggest changes are things a fleet can do in-shop to improve fuel economy. Today fleets are looking at engine data closer than ever. It seems that even though fuel prices are relaxed for now, they all know the price jump will come. It appears that a lot of common sense things are being looked at that previously were just let go. Fleets that have their own shops are looking to do more of their own regular maintenance, as well as PM maintenance. Many are buying the tooling and diagnostic programming and software to do the work themselves.
• The addition of air disc brake products to fleets that once had only cam brakes. The addition of traction control, roll stability control and electronic stability control to vehicles requires the techs to be familiar with the systems during a PM if there are system malfunctions or to determine that the system is functioning. Additionally, the increase in mixture of standard and long stroke brake chambers is becoming more and more of an issue. Technicians do not understand the difference between the two. Not only techs, but also parts personnel, need to know the difference.
What trends are you seeing in preventive maintenance inspections?
• More focus on training the PM techs on what components need closer inspection. Front to back review with PM techs on what has changed when a new truck is delivered.
• Dealers are trying to resolve fleet complaints that PMs are taking too long and are too costly. They are asking help with SRT information that is not published by the OEM brand plate. One dealer is working with its OEM rep to help a national fleet to get a better understanding of what should be included in a full vehicle inspection and PM. The fleet can then choose to modify inspection PMs based on its operation knowledge.
• Some not so good trends include technicians that need training on basic cam brake and ASA inspection and inconsistencies in PM procedures within a specific fleet; i.e., one location inspecting brakes totally different than other locations of the same fleet.
• PM Inspections really haven’t changed a lot for the higher quality shops. They do, however, document the work they perform better than before. Warranties are examined for what is needed to keep the Warranty active, rather than letting it go by not performing the required PM items. Small fleets are doing as they always have done, doing as little as possible to their trucks. In most cases, those shops are just barely hanging on financially as it is—one major breakdown and they likely will go out of business.
How have emissions-compliant engines impacted preventive maintenance inspections and schedule?
• Refuse PM is every 150 hours so it has little or no change on timing, just one additional component that needs review.
• Typically no change, but this emissions topic is still very new to the vehicle operators. There is a steep learning curve for the fleet to know if it operates with an active or passive regen cycle and must make changes in its operations to accommodate the regen cycle.
• Have not observed dealers doing particulate trap cleaning on a regular basis.
• Have heard that the industry has a continuing driver education challenge for emission light operations and regen procedures.