The days are getting darker and heads are filled with tales told round campfires – or maybe just round the toolbox or in the break room. The world of heavy-duty truck repair is often fraught with mishaps, but even the most extreme examples hold important lessons.
A chilly autumn breeze is blowing through this issue of Truck Parts & Service. We combed the industry, collecting truck repair horror stories, culling them for lessons to be learned. The following tales from your peers and manufacturers are not meant to point fingers or to name names. We all have our off days, after all. Many of the following mishaps simply are the dramatic results of neglected preventive maintenance, poor training or simple human error.
The Little Voice In Your Ear
Big problems almost always start out small. But, human nature being what it is, we often dismiss little problems, thinking, “My windshield wipers seem to be dragging, but I’m sure it’s no big deal.” Then one day you find yourself driving through a torrential downpour with dead wipers, white-knuckled, cursing yourself. It’s the, “I wish I would have (blank),” moment, and we all experience it far too often.
It takes on even graver meaning when it’s not wiper blades, but multi-thousand-dollar engines. The following tale came to us courtesy of Stede Granger, OEM technical services manager, Shell Lubricants.
“I used to work with a large U.S. fleet that did oil analysis on most of its on-highway trucks. I went over the collected data, looking for coolant leaks. We came across the oil analysis records for one truck that clearly indicated and identified a coolant leak. For whatever reason, the shop chose to ignore it and ignore it
