Why Truck Preventive Maintenance Matters

Here at Fullbay, we believe our customers matter…almost as much as truck preventive maintenance (PM) does.

Don’t get us wrong, you folks are great and all, but can you keep a fleet in full working order with minimal breakdowns and low operational costs? Not without a good PM schedule, you can’t.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Keep reading to find out more about the importance of truck PMs (and for tips on turbocharging your heavy-duty maintenance strategy).

Key Benefits of Truck Preventive Maintenance

Well, let’s get right into it…why does truck preventive maintenance matter? Some of the biggest perks that come with focusing on PMs are:

Improved Truck Performance

This shouldn’t be too shocking: if you take care of your trucks, they’ll run better than they would otherwise. Making PMs a priority can definitely keep your fleet on the road, but this type of service will also help you get the most out of your trucks when things aren’t going (dramatically, horribly) wrong.

A Reduced Risk of Breakdowns

If you’re in charge of a heavy-duty fleet, unexpected breakdowns come with the territory. These equipment failures might be caused by:

• Malfunctioning batteries
• Damaged air bellows
• Locked/stuck brakes
• Clogged filters
• Starter motor issues
• Clutch-related problems
• Tire wear and tear
• Oil leaks

Remember the old saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?” Regular preventive maintenance is that ounce of prevention, and it’ll give the techs a chance to spot issues like these as soon as possible. Then, they’ll be able to find a solution long before you would have to deal with breakdowns and downtime.

Lower Operational Costs

The more attention you pay to preventive maintenance, the more fuel-efficient your fleet will be. Between the money you save at the pump and the money you’ll save on responding (or, more accurately, not responding) to breakdowns, you’ll enjoy much lower operational costs over the long term.

Longer Truck Lifespans

Speaking of “the long term,” paying close attention to your trucks and handling maintenance when they need it will also improve your fleet’s longevity. That can help you keep expenses under control by allowing you to wait longer before replacing trucks.

Enhanced Regulatory Compliance and Safety

When your trucks get regular maintenance, you’ll know your drivers will be safe on the job. On top of that, keeping up on PMs will help your fleet comply with government regulations.

What Regular Maintenance Should Be Done on a Truck?

Your maintenance efforts won’t fully pay off if the techs don’t know what tasks they need to take care of during PM appointments. When scheduled preventive maintenance rolls around, technicians should be ready to handle:

• Oil changes
• Repair and cleaning work
• Safety system inspections
• Spark plug replacement
• Tire pressure checks
• Brake inspections
• Filter replacement
• Fluid checks and lubrication
• Tire inspections and rotation
• Belt inspections

How Often is PM Required on a Truck?

Now that you know why preventive maintenance is essential and what boxes your workers need to check during these appointments, there’s one more question you’ll need to answer: how often should you take care of PMs? Well…it depends.

The fact is, any truck’s maintenance needs will vary based on how much it’s used and the conditions it’s used in. Your plan shouldn’t rely solely on time-based scheduling. Instead, look at your fleet’s actual status with strategies like usage-based and condition-based PM.

Tracking performance data across an entire fleet is harder than creating recurring appointments for maintenance work. But since software can make it easy for techs to access real-time data on your fleet’s condition/usage, you’ll have no trouble taking care of PMs when your trucks really need them.

Preventive Maintenance Tips for Fleet Managers and Technicians

By now, you should have at least a rough understanding of the ins and outs of preventive maintenance. To get even better results from preventive maintenance, be sure to:

Follow a Checklist

Some PM jobs (such as tire pressure checks, brake inspections, and fluid checks) will have a bigger impact on truck safety and performance than others. Still, you’ll get the best results when the techs do everything they should do, every time they complete an inspection.

Considering the sheer number of tasks techs need to complete while working on vehicles, even the most dedicated employees can miss important jobs if they aren’t careful. Fortunately, a heavy-duty maintenance checklist can make this less of a concern.

Utilize Service Records

The more you know about the history of your trucks, the less trouble you’ll have meeting their service needs going forward. But if you’re still stuck in the past technologically, taking this data into account while planning PMs can be all but impossible. Of course, this will be a non-issue when your fleet management software lets techs access service history no matter where they are. 

Give Your Workers Training

Pop quiz: What’s the best way to make sure techs know what they’re doing while handling PMs? If you said “training them on inspection and maintenance best practices,” you win! (You have to have phrased it exactly like that, though. “Showing them how to handle PMs” or whatever doesn’t count.)

Enhance Your PM Strategy with Fullbay

There’s no denying the importance of truck preventive maintenance…or the fact that keeping up on this work can get complicated. Fortunately, there’s a better way to tackle this than giving your fleet manager an entire pot of coffee and forcing them to stay up until 3 a.m. figuring it out (AKA “the old-fashioned method”). 

These days, you can use heavy-duty maintenance software to schedule PMs based on data from your trucks. When one of these vehicles needs maintenance, your system will let the techs know that it’s time to take care of this job. If you’d like to start using modern PM scheduling and other powerful features like inventory management and service order generation, set up a demo of Fullbay’s software today!