Article

By Colin Dilley, Prestone

n the emerging days of the heavy-duty industry, as liquid-cooled engines were being developed and heaters were added to allow winter driving, finding the right coolant could be as easy as taking a trip to your pantry. Coolant is a lot more complex today, and the more you know about it, the better you can help your customers.

Tags: Maintenance, Aftermarket, Prestone, Coolant, Cooling Systems

By Tom Berg

As truck and engine makers continue to move toward vertical integration, fleet managers and owner-operators are less likely to be able to spec what air filter they want on their trucks, and that has implications for aftermarket parts sellers and shops.

Tags: Maintenance, Filters

By Jim Park

Tire maintenance is like preparing a fine meal. Unless you really like cooking and are very good at it, it's far easier – and safer sometimes – to visit a nice restaurant. Here are five reasons you might want to consider outsourcing your tire work.

Tags: Maintenance, Goodyear, Michelin, Outsourcing, Tires

By Deborah Lockridge

It's more important than ever to protect a truck's air system from contamination, because there are more and more on-vehicle technologies making use of that air. That's why having and taking proper care of an air dryer is vital.

Tags: Maintenance, Bendix, Brakes, Air Dryers

By Tom Berg

There was a time when fleet managers and owner-operators specified many components on their new trucks and tractors, but that's been seriously curtailed by vertical integration — the practice of manufacturers controlling the design and spec'ing process using parts they build themselves or get from a few suppliers.

Tags: Air filter, Maintenance

By Truckinginfo Staff

Fleets continue to say they want to outsource more service work, but they've been saying that for a while, and the actual amount of oursourcing has remained pretty stable, according to surveys done by MacKay & Company, a market research and consulting firm specializing in heavy-duty equipment.

Tags: Maintenance, Outsourcing, MacKay and Co.

By Thomas Bray, Editor, J.J. Keller & Associates

Whether you have one truck or 20,000, the FMCSA's maintenance regulations apply to you. The safety and compliance experts at J.J. Keller have tips for owner-operators and small fleets on how to develop a maintenance program that will meet federal standards.

Tags: Maintenance, FMCSA, Owner-Operators

By Contributed Pete Haskell, Director of Heavy Duty Sales with Luber-finer

In the heavy-duty trucking business, fleet managers must be ready to expect the unexpected as seemingly minor unexpected maintenance can ultimately lead to a major system failure

Tags: Under The Hood, Maintenance, Filters, Luber-finer, oils

By Deborah Lockridge, Editor in Chief

By January of 2016, you'll see a new API diesel engine oil classification, designed to help meet federal greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards. In fact, you may, for the first time, see two separate categories

Tags: Maintenance, Oil, MPG, GHG, API, PC-11, CO2

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

If there's a problem with your truck's electrical system, simply replacing the bad batteries with fresh ones may consign those to the scrap bin, too

Tags: Maintenance, batteries

By Glen Sokolis, Contributor

Weather forecasters are predicting not only one of the coldest, but the snowiest winters in the last five years. Here are a few simple tips to help maintain your equipment and fuel tanks

Tags: Maintenance, diesel, Winter

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

For years, some fleets have turned to synthetic engine oils for easier starts in cold-weather climates and to help them extend oil drain intervals

Tags: Under The Hood, Maintenance, Engine Oil, synthetic oil

Dye-Lite TP-3100 fluorescent dye pinpoints oil leaks easily and efficiently in diesel engine lubrication systems

Tags: Maintenance, Dye-Lite

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

Uptime and utilization are everything, so you don't want a truck sitting on the shop floor during basic battery maintenance. Most fleets pull the batteries at the first sign of trouble and replace them with fresh batteries to get the truck moving again, planning to deal with the bad batteries later. But what killed the batteries in the first place

Tags: Under The Hood, batteries, Maintenance

By Jim Park, Equipment Editor

There's nothing like a smack up side the head with a two-by-four to get your attention. That's what the Federal Motor Carrier Administration is doing to maintenance with its Compliance, Safety, Accountability program

Tags: Maintenance