It's difficult to overestimate the value of commercial vehicle maintenance and preventative maintenance program. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) demands that you "systematically inspect, repair, and maintain all motor vehicles and intermodal equipment subject to its authority," whether you have one semi truck or hundreds.
By maintaining your commercial trucks on a regular and proactive basis, you may not only meet federal laws, but also extend the life of your vehicles, reduce the likelihood of costly emergency repairs, and boost fleet uptime. Continue reading for advice on creating a maintenance schedule, using applicable maintenance checklists, and documenting your preventive maintenance program.
Preventative maintenance is not limited to commercial trucks. Most machines require some amount of routine maintenance to function properly.
Cleaning, oiling, monitoring fluid levels, and even doing simple visual checks are all examples of preventative maintenance. Preventative maintenance for automobiles, in example, usually entails changing parts that are expected to wear out over time, such as windshield wipers, brake linings, tires, and air filters on a regular basis.
While a preventative maintenance program may appear to be expensive and difficult to establish, there are numerous simple methods to get one up and running within your own fleet.
1. Inventory your fleet
The first step in developing a preventative maintenance program is to inventory all of the vehicles in your fleet. Because no two cars are similar, their maintenance requirements may vary substantially. The difficulty is only increased if you have a diversified fleet of cars.
The FMCSA also requests that all fleet owners keep proper maintenance records for each vehicle in their fleet in order to enforce their safety standards. Each record is supposed to contain ownership and maintenance information such as:
2. Create a timetable for each vehicle
Now that you have a record for each vehicle in your fleet, you can begin to create a customized maintenance schedule for each one. The preventative maintenance required for semi trucks varies substantially depending on how the truck is utilized. Engine hours, fuel levels, and miles are frequently used as benchmarks to help you forecast when a truck will need to be repaired next, making it critical to regularly monitor these signs for every vehicle in your fleet.
3. Instruct drivers on inspection procedures
Your truck drivers are the eyes and ears of your company, and they are virtually always in charge of doing the vehicle checks required to maintain a preventative maintenance program. Consider constructing a maintenance checklist that covers the following categories to provide your drivers with the information to execute a pre-trip checkup that covers all important areas:
4. Keep track of your preventative maintenance
A pre-trip checklist is a good place to start when it comes to documenting your preventative maintenance, but the FMCSA requires each vehicle to have at least one year of recorded and scheduled service to be compliant. Previously, many fleet managers and truck drivers depended on paper paperwork, which may be lost, destroyed, or stolen.
Consider digitally designing your preventative maintenance routine instead. Beginning with a digital strategy is advantageous since the entire process becomes more visible, safe, and simple to update, as well as improving the productivity of your back office.
A semi truck maintenance checklist can assist you in ensuring that nothing is missed or forgotten during periodic servicing. The checklist for each vehicle will be based on the information you've previously gathered to fulfill FMCSA standards. However, your checklist should include concerns for severe situations that could reduce vehicle durability more quickly, such as extreme weather and high miles.
Keeping a diary of your vehicles' routes and expected weather conditions is the best method to assess if they will require seasonal maintenance. Extreme heat and cold may both cause various components and systems of a semi truck to wear out faster than usual.
Another factor to consider when developing a preventative maintenance schedule is the distance your cars travel. A excellent strategy to bridge the gap between a pre-planned maintenance schedule and a distance-based maintenance schedule is to regularly monitor a truck's average mileage and set alerts to schedule additional repair as it approaches a mileage milestone.
Finally, preventative maintenance is both a science and an art, and getting it correctly requires diligent attention. However, investing in preventative maintenance early on will result in a vehicle that operates well more consistently and for longer periods of time than if just retroactive repairs are performed.
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