You set a maintenance schedule for each of your vehicles for a reason. You want to ensure trucks are seen on a regular basis so you can find developing problems and an perform manufacturer recommended maintenance procedures at the appropriate mileage or hourly intervals.
But in the course of doing business, things don’t always go as planned and sometimes a truck is not brought in for maintenance when it is scheduled. Not a big deal, you think, and you figure you’ll just catch problems at the next scheduled PM service or the next time the truck is in your terminal.
And while one missed PM may not seem so bad, the reality is that even one missed maintenance service can cause big problems. This is especially true if you don’t have a procedure in place that tracks the missed maintenance appointments and reminds you that a PM service is due. If missing one maintenance service is bad, missing two in a row could be disastrous.
The real danger of overlooking a maintenance appointment is that it increases the possibility of an on-road breakdown. PMs on a regular basis allow you to discover developing problems and to spot problems that if not fixed could cause the truck to break down before its next scheduled visit. And as everyone knows, on-road breakdowns are not only costly, but they tend to take the truck out of service longer than a scheduled maintenance or repair event.
Missing a PM also increases the chance that a problem will be found during a CSA inspection. The truth is, when an inspector finds one thing wrong with the truck, he or she is likely to take a much closer look at the entire vehicle, tying it up even longer.
Even more importantly, failure to follow manufacturers’ recommended PM schedules could result in a warranty being voided, which means you could be “eating” the cost of the repair.
No matter what maintenance schedule you have set for each of your vehicles, make sure you stick to it. Implementing a system that automatically tracks needed PM service is a good way to make sure every truck gets into the shop every time it needs to be there. The cost penalties for missing one appointment are just too high to leave things to chance.
