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Northwest Truck & Trailer
  • Home
    • Shipping companies in Seattle
    • Looking for Trailer Sales in Tacoma
    • The Most Common Trucks Trailers Repairs in Tacoma
    • Should I Lease or Buy my next Tractor Trailer in Tacoma?
    • Repairing a Transmission on an 18 Wheeler
    • Top Reasons for Mechanical Failure on the Road
    • Maintaining Your Fleet of Tractor-Trailers in Road Worthy Condition
    • Starting a Truck Repair Shop
Northwest Truck & Trailer
  • Home
    • Shipping companies in Seattle
    • Looking for Trailer Sales in Tacoma
    • The Most Common Trucks Trailers Repairs in Tacoma
    • Should I Lease or Buy my next Tractor Trailer in Tacoma?
    • Repairing a Transmission on an 18 Wheeler
    • Top Reasons for Mechanical Failure on the Road
    • Maintaining Your Fleet of Tractor-Trailers in Road Worthy Condition
    • Starting a Truck Repair Shop
  • More
    • Home
      • Shipping companies in Seattle
      • Looking for Trailer Sales in Tacoma
      • The Most Common Trucks Trailers Repairs in Tacoma
      • Should I Lease or Buy my next Tractor Trailer in Tacoma?
      • Repairing a Transmission on an 18 Wheeler
      • Top Reasons for Mechanical Failure on the Road
      • Maintaining Your Fleet of Tractor-Trailers in Road Worthy Condition
      • Starting a Truck Repair Shop

Top Reasons for Mechanical Failure on the Road

When a commercial big rig you are driving across the country has a mechanical failure in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma what are you going to do? Most over the road truck drivers put 100,000 miles on their trucks each year. Whether the truck is your or the company’s, that’s a lot of miles.


Preventive Maintenance

Even with the best preventative maintenance, breakdowns can and do still happen. However, if you know the major reasons why the big rigs breakdown on the highway, you can build a better preventive maintenance program and a better preventative maintenance schedule.

Carry this over to your pre-trip inspection plans and policies and you will have much less chance of an on-road breakdown. If you don’t do this and you cause an accident because of a breakdown on your truck then you, your employer, and the truck manufacturer might all be held liable in the accident. You or your company are required by law to prove your truck meets federal safety standards before going on the road.

Trailers sales Tacoma

Top Reasons for Mechanical Failure

Everyone will have issues with their trucks trailers repair in Tacoma at one time or another but there are some very routine things that cause breakdowns for most truckers. If you keep your eye on these things, you should be in good shape on the road.

  1. The number one issue has to be the tires. Not only is this the number one failure it is perhaps the most dangerous failure. Car drivers are used to seeing the remnants of blown tractor-trailer tires on the road. What most of them do not see is how that truck driver maintained his rig without an accident. A tire blowout for a trucker is a dangerous situation for both the trucker and the vehicle drivers around the truck. These 18 wheelers are not easy to stop or control when their center of gravity is shifted. Within seconds the driver must get his truck under control and come to a stop. Replacing a tire is not a challenge. Not having an accident following a blowout is.
  2. The next thing most likely to fail on a big rig is equally dangerous and that is the brakes. You need your brakes checked regularly as the braking system in an 18 wheeler is much more complex than an ordinary car or pick up truck. Many have air brakes these days. If the brakes fail it will be even harder to avoid an accident than a blown tire if you are on a hilly road. You could easily cause a pile-up.
  3. Lights – a tractor-trailer has a lot of lights and you need them all. You need your headlights and brake light for the same reasons everyone else on the road does also. The big rig has an extra challenge as you need the lights that outline your entire trailer or other truckers might not be able to see you at night or in bad weather.
  4. The engine – if your engine fails, again you have to try to get the truck safely out of the roadway and onto the shoulder. This is the law. You also need flares and warning signs to place around the truck while it is on the shoulder and you are waiting for help.
  5. Steering and Transmission – better be sure you know these are good before you leave because your chances of controlling your rig if one of these two systems fail are not good at all. You will likely lose control if the power steering goes out and the truck will just stop if the transmission dies.
  6. The coupling devices that connect the cab to the trailer can fail. If this happens it is likely to be deadly for people in vehicles behind you.


Trucks Trailers repair in Tacoma

Inspections

Pre and post-trip inspections are the way you prevent these things from happening on the road. No matter how good your preventive maintenance is, you need to check all of these items before you pull out on your trip or trucks trailers repair in Tacoma and again when you pull in after completing it. Don’t risk it. Inspect it.

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