Ironically, the latest truck maintenance trends probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. Freight movement has been strong and equipment demand has seemed unstoppable, yet fleets just like you are dealing with surprising maintenance issues that you likely would have dodged in the Before Times with shorter equipment lifecycles. But older equipment lifecycles aren’t the only issue driving new equipment maintenance trends.
“Because of that shortage and a lack of labor within shop facilities, fleets are sending out equipment out to get repaired at other service facilities and not at their own shops; that’s costing them an inordinate amount of money,” said Doug Adamson, senior vice president, sales and marketing, Transervice. “They may pay upwards of $200 an hour for an outside facility for repairs versus doing an in-house where you’re paying a technician much, much less than that.
“Because of that additional cost, we’re seeing people deferring their maintenance,” he continued. “They’re only doing the bare minimum maintenance–just the essentials. But we’re even seeing that PMs are not getting done in the timeframe that they should be getting done. That’s leading to more maintenance issues down the road.”
I connected with Adamson to talk about the latest maintenance trends, find out what service work fleets are having done that they typically wouldn’t (can you guess the top two that Adamson notes in the video?), and talk through potential solutions to truck service pain points. Watch the video above for all of the service-minded insight.
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