Your trucks work hard to travel long distances, carry heavy loads, and traverse roads that are often treacherous & damaged. Looking after your trucks is a wise investment that’ll pay you back in productivity and lower overheads, but only if you know what condition they’re in at all times.
Stats SA reported that within a period of 3 months (from Nov 2023 to Jan 2024), truck logistics contributed over R55 million to our country's economy. In only 3 months! And as MiWay Insurance rightly states, "...trucks are the lifeblood of industry and commerce."
But the expenses to maintain these trucks are high. Not only is fuel going up, but so is everything else—including truck servicing, parts, and repair costs. If you want a proactive way to keep your trucks healthy as a solid fleet investment, keep reading as Cartrack explores this important topic.
The strategies truck owners should be implementing to ensure a longer life span for their trucks begin with: remote maintenance monitoring, driving behaviour, and routes. These three combined can add months or even years to your trucks’ lifespans, but only if you have the data to make the right decisions when it counts.
AI has become very proficient at predicting the maintenance needs of your trucks. IoT devices send pertinent information to your software platform that warns you of low fluid levels, worn tyres, or engine problems as soon as they become an issue.
Because you get an early warning, you can either schedule a service or set up the system to auto-schedule it for you. This is an excellent money-saver in three ways:
However, it’s up to you to make sure your drivers continuously stick to these guidelines, which is why you should invest in driver monitoring software. This gives you a more focused coaching strategy, because then you’ll only be training them on individual problem areas.
This coaching will prove invaluable to your organisation, because it’ll incrementally reduce wear & tear on your trucks and keep your drivers safer too.
Let’s further reduce wear & tear on your trucks by making sure they avoid those pesky potholes. Route optimisation is a real-time & dynamic way of directing your drivers that keeps them on roads that are in the best condition.
It’s about more than just giving them the “shortest” route—it’s also about keeping your vehicles in top condition on smoother road surfaces.
The wear & tear of a truck accelerates when you don’t maintain it during those times when it needs it most. Ensuring that essential fluids are always at acceptable levels and driving the truck appropriately are also important for keeping it in good health.
The challenge with maintaining your truck is that you’re never aware of what needs to be fixed unless you take it to a mechanic. While large fleets employ onsite mechanics, many rely on the expertise of outsourced professionals.
If the truck doesn’t need maintenance, you lose money by taking it to a truck mechanic who does a few routine checks and sends you on your way. If there IS something wrong with your truck, it may be weeks or even months before its scheduled service, which leads to further breakdown and safety issues before it’s checked.
This is a major cause of accelerated truck wear & tear. Because maintenance isn’t managed properly, the truck’s most essential components suffer damage. This means they need to be replaced when they could’ve been fixed to avoid extensive wear & tear.
Each truck has a set capacity, placement, and type of load it can carry. These loading guidelines are prescribed for a reason, but many truck owners & drivers ignore them.
You’re not there to see how your drivers treat your trucks, and too many truck drivers are ignorant to the fact that their driving can raise your maintenance expenses and total cost of ownership (TCO). Constant speeding, unnecessary idling, or dangerous cornering are all habits that should be weeded out of your driving staff’s habits.
Many countries deal with bad infrastructure, and South Africans are keenly familiar with this problem. Large potholes or crumbling roads increase the wear & tear of your trucks quicker than you’d like to think. Avoiding these roads isn’t always possible, but if you can cut down on routes with damaged roads, it can make a huge difference.
Now that you know you can automatically and proactively diagnose truck issues before they become a crippling issue, the next question is, “Which diagnostics?” Let’s highlight some of the many truck diagnostics Cartrack’s AI-powered predictive maintenance offers you.
Temperatures, strain, RPM, and other factors tell you exactly when your truck engine is in danger of overheating or ceasing. By catching these problems early, you can save your fleet thousands by intervening before the problem escalates.
Brake pads endure various levels of friction and gradual wear. How would you like to ascertain their condition without having to check under the proverbial “hood”? With predictive maintenance software, this information is fed to your laptop or phone, and the information is in real time.
Don’t worry about relying on your drivers to fill up the radiator or do an oil top-up. Our software tells you when fluid levels reach critical levels so you’re always in the know.
To traverse the roads of South Africa, you need your trucks’ suspension to be in good condition. But you’re not the one driving those trucks, so having suspension data on-hand is invaluable in case your drivers don’t notice anomalies.
The clutch of a truck is one of the more subtle components that doesn’t always indicate damage or wear. But our software detects things you can’t see without doing a thorough inspection, giving you enough warning to do maintenance.
Should you be continuously checking each tyre on your multi-tyre trucks? No, that would take way too much time! Simply rely on accurate data that detects tyre issues so that replacements can be made when & if they’re necessary.
Keeping your trucks healthy is important, but not ONLY because of how much they cost as individual investments. These trucks are the lifeblood of your company, and when one isn’t operating, this causes downtime—which costs you money!
Now, you could rely on old methods: keeping your trucks on a set schedule and paying for check-ups.
You could even rely on cheap methods: getting your trucks serviced by mechanics who do the bare minimum to keep them roadworthy.
Or… you could invest in AI-driven predictive maintenance, focused driver coaching, and preventative route optimisation to keep your trucks going for longer.
Truck longevity is one of the surest ways to preserve profits, so prioritise your assets and look after them with diligence to reap the rewards. Call Cartrack for a full quote on running your truck fleet the way experts do.
Learn the proven maintenance strategies that extend your trucks' life span, no matter what SA's demanding road conditions throw at them.
