“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” is usually good advice, but when it comes to regular spring and suspension maintenance, you can’t afford to wait until something breaks. Pushing off truck spring repairs, which extends the life of your trucks and maximizes your vehicle ROI, costs you more money and time in the long run. When getting on the road and staying on the road is what keeps you in business, you can’t afford a sudden breakdown and the work stoppage that results.
How Your Trucks Will Suffer
We won’t sugarcoat it. Neglecting springs and suspensions on heavy duty trucks or trailers in construction and logistics is not good for you or your drivers. All those uneven surfaces, punishing odometer mileage stats, and the literal tons of materials in the backs of trailers and truck beds break down springs much faster than in, say, your sister’s Subaru carting Junior back and forth from pee wee football practice. Even extra fortified leaf springs can still collapse, which could make your fleet dangerous and difficult to drive at best, and totally inoperable at worst. Severe spring damage also causes the back end of a truck bed to sag, which harms fuel efficiency and makes the truck difficult to control during emergency situations or bad weather. Spring and suspension wear and tear can contribute to lower back pain for your drivers, and it’s important to keep up with spring maintenance in order to avoid terrible traffic accidents, potential regulatory violations, and business shutdowns.
How Your Budget Will Suffer
Beyond the safety concerns, neglected springs are a major liability for your budget. First of all, emergency repairs are generally more expensive than regularly scheduled ones. A truck that’s still operable can easily make it to a mechanic’s repair shop, but a totally broken down one could require an emergency on-site repair, and you are at the mercy of current availability. Second of all, poorly maintained trucks typically require replacement parts a whole lot sooner than vehicles that get regular maintenance. Bad springs in particular also cause damage to other parts of the truck from all the jostling around and the truck’s body sitting on the wheels, which results in even more maintenance costs for you down the road. All these extra vehicle repair and replacement costs will show up in your P&L reports over time, and keep you from doing more with your money, like adding to your team or purchasing a new warehouse.
For more information on spring damage and repair from a team of experts who won’t beat around the bush, get in touch with National Spring using the Contact page. Let’s keep you on the road and in business, okay?