Winter Trucking Maintenance
You may or may not know that our Maintenance Manager Alex Downey publishes a quarterly article in Western Canada Highway News magazine. Below is an excerpt from his article that was just published in the Winter Edition beginning on page 76.
Snowflakes and Wrenches: Revving Up for Winter Maintenance
Trucking in the great white North comes with several challenges that are all too familiar. On average, temperatures drop and stay below zero degrees Celsius between November and May, even though it feels like we get about thirteen months of winter every year. Tackling slick roads, frozen brakes, frozen fuel, frozen air lines, dead batteries, brittle plastic, and more – are daily headaches all winter long.
All of these issues require more shop and maintenance time, which is time many of us just do not have available in abundance. The cold truth is winter trucking will cause havoc with your shop schedule.
The seasons changing is out of our control, so what can you do about it?
For starters, planning ahead for the inevitable winter months is a good start to keep your shop operating smoothly, and keeping your sanity. After all, we can only control what we can control.
Scheduling truck and trailer annual maintenance over the whole year is within your control. Some months are going to be heavier for government safety inspections than others, so why not move them around to leave some room where you need it? Moving predictable maintenance away from the less predictable, and demanding, winter months allows you to have the manpower available to deal with increased winter maintenance.
While some outfits see the value in having a light July and August for safety inspections because they know they will be short-staffed with people taking summer vacations, you may want to avoid having a long list of equipment requiring time-sensitive maintenance while you have frozen trucks you need to get moving immediately.
Click Here For the Full Article on Western Canada Highway News.
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