Simple Steps To Keep Your Truck Tires From Eating Your Profits Alive

We know tires are expensive. We also know most drivers mean to keep up with their tire maintenance programs, but driving often gets in the way. Until you drop a tread, or pick-up a bolt, it's easy to forget about your tires. Problem is, tires are very unforgiving, and will eat up your profits any chance they get. Don't let them. Here's how.

Any tire showing damage is trying to tell you something. You might need an alignment if you see certain patterns, so knowing which tire patterns to look for helps you identify the problem. Tire sites usually have a chart on types of damage to expect with each problem.

Keep tires of the same diameter together (New with new. Used with used). If not, you end up with one tire skipping and scraping the road because it isn't the same size. Premature wear isn't pretty.

Know when to replace/retread your tires. Minimum legal depth is 4/32" on the steer and 2/32" on others. Tires wear at approximately 1/32" per 13-14,000 miles. Measure your treads now, and mark their expected replacement dates based on your average mileage. Problem solved.

Service those bearings and kingpins. This WILL make your tires wear better.

Always install new tires - not retreads, on your steering axles. Better safe than sorry when it comes to steering gear.

Make sure your inflation is correct for your load.Underinflated tires, especially under load, will chew tires quickly.

Adjust pressures for cold climates you are driving in. If you're coming from a warmer area, when you hit cold weather areas the air in your tires contracts, and suddenly you're running underinflated. Check your pressures.

Damaged, improperly balanced wheels will damage tires.Look over all of your wheels for signs of damage - every trip.

Keep radials with radials, and bias ply with bias ply. Don't mix them, or you will see a shorter tire life.

Tires do have a maintenance schedule. Whether you're a single O/O, or have a fleet of trucks, have a plan for replacement and/or repair with an escrow fund and based on mileage and you'll keep those tires from eating your profits alive.

Are You Really Prepared For The Economic Upturn?

It’s coming to a trucking business near you. You’ve felt it creeping up on you for any number of months, but now it seems like it’s right in your face. The economic upturn is going to make your life a wreck if you’re not prepared.

So what’s the big deal about the economic upturn in the trucking industry? Remember those days when you had to cut back, and scrape for loads? Remember all the maintenance you had to let go until you could afford it, or the equipment you didn’t buy because it didn’t make sense at the time? You lost money then, and now you’ll lose more money if you’re not prepared to take advantage of the opportunities available.

What’s going to hold you back? Unless you kept and maintained all of your equipment and drivers from 2010, you’re probably going to be lacking the resources to tackle all the loads you can. The good news is that you’re not the only one. The bad news is that you’ve got some catching up to do. Fortunately, everyone else is in the middle of getting caught up, as well. The longer you put it off, the less revenue you’re going to be bringing in later.

Perform maintenance

Where to start? Maintenance and updates are always the beginning. Bring your existing equipment up to spec, and update how you track your maintenance, your drivers and loads. Without proper maintenance, your fleet dies a lingering, costly death. Some states won’t even let you across their border without certain equipment, so there’s real incentive to make that maintenance happen.

Without proper tracking of your field assets, you have no way to determine where your potentially blossoming profits are spent. Additionally, before you can even consider new equipment, you have to have a way to make sure your existing equipment is being used in the most efficient manner possible. Adding equipment doesn’t justadd capacity, it adds maintenance and man hours.

Update your equipment

The industry, and electronics have improved dramatically since 2010. Electronic logging makes tracking HOS easier, as well as determining when your drivers need to rest. Other computer and phone applications make it easier to find the cheapest diesel in an area, certified CAT scales and rest stops on the road. Look into these if you’re not using them. Additionally, look for an expense tracking software suite. You need to be able to drill down to any expense, anywhere in your fleet.

How Are Your Driving Skills At 100+ Miles Per Hour?

It’s cold and absurdly early on this Las Vegas morning, but 30+ people couldn't be happier. Not just because it’s Vegas, but because East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales is hosting their Richard Petty Driving Experience again. If you’ve never been, the Richard Petty Driving Experience is a thrill ride you control - starting at 100+ mph!

Every year, the folks at ECTTS ask a number of their friends and customers to come out for the driving experience of a lifetime. This is a chance to drive a car as fast as you can – without any fear whatsoever of a ticket. In fact, the faster the better! So much so, we keep track of the stats. 

The day starts with a facility overview of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There’s roughly 1,500 acres to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, consisting of over 10 tracks.  There’s the 1/2 mile World of Outlaws dirt track, the quarter mile NHRA drag racing facility known as “The Strip” and the 3/8 mile “Bullring”, which is the home track of NASCAR superstars Kurt and Kyle Busch as well as Brendan Gaughan – just to name a few.

But before you’re allowed to put a 600+ HP car through its paces, you have to go through safety and instruction and in-car/on-track training. This isn’t just a formality if you’re driving these beasts, this is absolutely necessary. You need to know how the brute you’re going to be doing your best to control will handle in a curve, or “out of the groove.” You’ll hear from the instructors/drivers just what you’re going to feel, and at what speed. They know these finely-tuned monsters; they drive them every day.

Now it’s your turn at the wheel; right? Well, first you’ll be taken on a ride-along to get a feel for the track, and experience the car “at speed.” You get to see what it feels like to take a curve as fast as possible without slamming into a wall. Then you get to feel the acceleration push you into the seat – when you’re already doing over 100 mph! You’ll amusedly remember when you used to get a thrill punching the accelerator on the family sedan to pass a sluggish truck. And this is just the instructional phase.

“OK, this should be easy”, you convince yourself, as you climb into the driver’s seat. What you don’t understand – until you try it for yourself, is that the instructor made it look easy because of their experience. For you, getting this race car up to something even close to 130 mph is taking some work. Not that the car won’t do it, but because you’re having a tough time getting up the nerve to go much faster. Way too soon, this thrill ride is over, but you get a chance to see just how much bravado you had. After it’s all over, you get a packet that includes a time sheet with a breakdown of every lap you drove on the track.

Finally, at the end of the day, ECTTS holds a dinner for their customers, friends, and employees. The food’s good, but the stories and laughter are even better. Let’s face it, half the fun of this type of outing is comparing how you did with the rest of the guests. The only problem lies with the inevitable request to see the hard copy of your exploits, to confirm those “enhanced” tales of the track. Chris Kelly, one of our customers, posted this year’s top speed at 141 mph! We’ll keep the lowest speed to ourselves, so as to keep the embarrassment to a minimum.  As we said earlier, we do keep track of the stats.

Keep Your Diesel Particulate Filter From Dying an Early Death

You’re 25 miles out of the truck stop; settling into the long haul, and then the regen warning light comes on - again!You know you just did a parked regeneration to clear the diesel particulate filter yesterday, and you’ve been driving this rig at speed today, so shouldn’t the filter be clean? Well, probably not. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re running a disposable filter system, which are a must in the mining industry and some off-road equipment, the DPF is probably still clogged, but not with soot. The DPF works by trapping soot and other particulates in a network of cells before releasing the smaller gasses through the pores in the filter structure (usually cordierite or silicon carbide). The DPF, like any filter, eventually gets clogged with this material. Unlike other filters, this filter can usually be easily cleared – either while you’re on the road, or parked, by simply heating the filter to the point where the soot burns off to become gasses that pass through the filter. The problem arises when other particles besides soot become trapped in the filter. While hydrocarbons burn, metals and other contaminates from oils in the exhaust don’t burn off at the temperatures used for regeneration, so you end up with a clogged filter – even though you’ve just done yet another regen.

• Why does this happen? The heat from the regen can cause the metal particles to simply fuse into solid masses (sintering), and like the metals, the non-soot particles aren’t going to burn off either. In some cases the filter itself is damaged by the heat being created by the regen. As regeneration happens at temperatures around 850 to 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, and damage happens to some filters at 1200 degrees, the range between clean and damaged can be fairly narrow.

•When the filter becomes clogged with metals and ash; from burning contaminates, it creates high backpressure and triggers a warning on the dash that gets progressively more severe until the truck computer finally throttles back the power – in some cases severely. Filters that become substantially clogged with ash go through what’s called compacting, which can cause filter and engine damage, if not corrected quickly. Overriding the regen causes this compaction. To avoid those consequences, regen every time, on time. Note that the filter will still eventually become clogged with particles other than soot. So what’s the solution? It’s time to have the filter professionally cleaned, as opposed to just clearing the soot.

• Sometimes known as de-ashing, the filter cleaning process begins with an inspection, and then moves through the steps of testing, pneumatic cleaning, thermal regeneration (about 12 hours) and a final air flow test. At the end of the cleaning the air flow test will tell whether it passes for continued use, or needs to be replaced. How often you regen, vs. letting your filter compact with particulates and ash, can greatly affect the usable life of your filter. Similarly, having your filter removed and cleaned regularly increases its lifetime, so this step should be an important part of your regular maintenance schedule.

• Finally, this is not a do-it-yourself job you want to tackle. Unless you have the proper equipment, and knowledge, it will just end up being a very expensive lesson in what not to do yourself. Dealerships and service centers nationwide offer DPF cleaning services; take advantage of it on a regular basis to keep your filter and engine operating at its best.

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East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales Equipment Specials. Click picture above for parts specials. Click picture below for car hauler deals.

Drastically Extend the Oil Drain Intervals for Your Rig

Every mile counts. As a hauler you probably hear and say that often. Miles are money, and when you can keep rolling, instead of paying for yet another oil drain - in money and downtime; those miles can pay for more of what you really want.

So, how do you go about extending your rig’s oil life? If you’re like some, you keep idling to a bare minimum. Others depend on advanced formula oils, and expensive synthetics that extend the life of the oil with formulation and additives. While this works, to a certain degree, still others have found a way to keep from draining their oil unless absolutely necessary. The key to long oil life is an oil bypass filter.

Oil bypass filters (OBF) are a proven way to keep your oil clean and dramatically reduce the wear on your engine. This isn’t new technology. Having been around for close to twenty years, this is an established equipment system you can use to make more money in the field immediately. Haulers using oil bypass filters change their oil infrequently and still have the maximum protection from their oil. Oil’s life is dependent on just how badly contaminated the oil becomes. It tends to gather any number of pollutants throughout its usable life - soot, fuel, metals and moisture. All of which can considerably shorten that oil life, and the life of your engine.  An oil bypass filter virtually eliminates those contaminants because it puts your oil through a filter the removes particles down to 1 to 3 microns, and evaporates others so they don’t reduce the oil viscosity. This is far superior to only having a factory installed full flow filter, which only filters down to 20 to 25 microns. Even particles that size can damage your rig’s engine.

The OBF works in conjunction with your standard full flow filter; not in place of it, so there is no loss in oil pressure.  Typically, an OBF will filter about 6 gallons of oil per hour, and is connected to the engine oil supply downstream of the standard engine oil filter. In turn, the oil is treated by the bypass filter system and gravity fed back into your oil pan. It has a separate housing for the filter unit, with a replaceable filter medium, as well as a heat chamber to evaporate fuel and moisture from the oil; thus removing even more contaminants that can affect the ability of your oil to reduce friction.

It is an additional piece of equipment to buy for your rig, and you will have to purchase and replace your filter at certain intervals. Additionally, you will have to have your oil tested to maintain the best possible oil condition. You will find, however, that oil testing and filters are readily available at the maintenance facilities you’re probably near on a consistent basis.

The system, on average, should pay for itself in under a year with the benefits of extended oil drain intervals, reduced oil purchases, reduced waste oil costs and reduced rig downtime. That said, this system seems like a no-brainer. So, keep your oil cleaner, rack up those miles, and spend your cash on something besides oil.

Keep safe, and keep rolling.

East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales

2906 Elmhurst Lane

Portsmouth, VA 23701

800-849-2178

http://ectts.com

https://parts.ectts.com

#eastcoasttruckandtrailer

Check out our web specials, too. 

Hawaii Department of Transportation News

• Pali Highway, H-1 Freeway Eastbound On-Ramp Nighttime Lane Closures
05/28/10 - Oahu motorists are advised of a right lane closure on Pali Highway in the Honolulu-bound direction from Pahoa Road to the H-1 Freeway Eastbound/Punchbowl Street On-Ramp, from Tuesday night, June 1, through Friday morning, June 4, from 8:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m., nightly, for fence repairs. The H-1 Freeway Eastbound/Punchbowl Street On-Ramp will also be closed during this same time period. Motorists wishing to access H-1 Freeway may stay on Pali Highway, turn left on Vineyard Boulevard, and access the freeway from Punchbowl Street.
 
• Free Motorcycle Rider Courses Offered Through Leeward Community College In Recognition Of Hawaii Motorcycle Safety Month In
05/08/10 - Lt. Governor James R. “Duke” Aiona, Jr. and the state DOT kicked off Motorcycle Safety Month with a proclamation signing at Leeward Community College (LCC). It was announced that LCC will be offering free motorcycle rider courses to the public throughout May and two weekends in June. This marks the beginning of various events throughout the month to educate the public on motorcyclist and driver responsibilities along with the launch of a statewide radio campaign.
 
• Kamehameha Highway Traffic Detour At North Kahana Stream Bridge Begins Wednesday, 4/21
04/20/10 - Kamehameha Highway traffic over the North Kahana Stream Bridge, near the Kahana Bay Beach Park, will be rerouted to a temporary bridge beginning on Wednesday, 4/21, as part of the North Kahana Stream Bridge Replacement Project. Short-duration, intermittent traffic stoppages will take place at both ends of the bridge on Wednesday until approximately 3:00 p.m. as crews restripe lanes on each entry side.
• DOT Responds To Kawaihae Community Concerns Regarding Speeding At Busy Highway Junction
04/16/10 - After careful evaluation and community input, the state DOT will be reducing the posted speed limit on sections of Akoni Pule Highway, Kawaihae Road and Queen Kaahumanu Highway, from 45 M.P.H. to 35 M.P.H. to address community concerns over speeding on the downhill portion of Kawaihae Road approaching the highway junction near Kawaihae Village. The new speed limit will take effect on Tuesday, May 4, 2010.
 
• State DOT Calls For A Higher Level Of Transparency For The Proposed Rail Transit Project
03/25/10 - The state DOT is increasing the level of transparency in its collaboration and cooperation with the City and County of Honolulu by posting all correspondence from the DOT to the City regarding the proposed rail transit project online at: hawaii.gov/dot/railtransit. Please click on the link above for more information.

Towing company under fire for inaccessibility to people with disabilites

Article Summary

• A disabled man in Texas could not see the towaway sign in the dark and thought he was exempt because of the disability sticker on his vehicle.
• When the disabled man went to the towing company, he could not access the office due to the face he was in a wheelchair.

Key Quote from Story

"Travis County Constable Bruce Elfant says all business operating in Travis County has to comply with the American Disabilities Act or A.D.A. Elfant says there are a few exceptions."

 for link to story click here

'News and Specials from East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales!'

'News and Specials from East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales!'

We have a winner!

Tow truck battle brewing in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania may settle fight over truck parking

Article Summary :

• Truckers are being towed away for parking their trucks in the once free Wal-Mart lot.
• Wal-Mart has no control over property management enforcing the laws.
• The laws are there to keep truckers from causing property damage or deterring customers.

Excerpt from article

"Norita Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association, said a shortage of parking across the U.S. is causing problems for long-haul truckers. She said statistics aren’t kept on the number of truckers towed from parking lots or the total paid in fines."

To read more..click here

 

Tow Truck Driver Turf War

Drivers bashed at gunpoint in tow truck turf war

By Francis Tapim

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) says tow truck drivers have been bashed at gunpoint in an apparent turf war in Brisbane over lucrative towing contracts. TWU secretary Hughie Williams is calling for an inquiry into the industry after serious allegations by drivers of violence and standover tactics by some operators.... Link to article

Tow the car before the accident

With all the press and bad statistics about roadside work, their are beacons of light. Yes, there is actually some positive news. This page is a tow service being used to keep people off the road BEFORE they have had to much to drink. It makes perfect sense..why not tow the car before its wrecked and before anyone gets hurt.

Story Link

Come join us at the ESTRA NY Tow Show

This looks to be a really good time. We are bringing thousands of towing parts, and carhauling parts to the show in one of our trailers. If you need cables, recovery straps, winches, winch cables, towlights, L.E.D.'s and other towing parts come to the show and save shipping costs!

Student sued by towing company nearly wrecks the company via social media

Student sued by towing company nearly wrecks the company via social media

Im sure everyone has heard about the tow company that was smeared on facebook for towing
someone and the impending lawsuit. This is an update on a new peril of being a tower-bad press
on a social network...

New Federal Truck Regulations special report 2010

CSA 2010 brought to you by East Coast Truck and Trailer Sales

Moreno Valley City Council to consider budget, tow service | Local News | PE.com | Southern California News | News for Inland Southern California

Moreno Valley City Council to consider budget, tow service Local News PE.com Southern California News News for Inland Southern California

6" Oval Amber - PARK/CLEARANCE/AUXILIARY TURN $30.85

SKU: 5234

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Pete Light - Clearance Marker - Amber $10

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• 15 LED's
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• Mounting Surface
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