How to Prevent Truck Breakdowns

It would be nice to sail through the year without any truck downtime at all, but we all know that that’s unrealistic, unfortunately. Although many truck or fleet owners do bake some unexpected downtime into their budgets, it’s still a super high priority to keep these costs and delivery disruption as low as possible.

But while completely preventing truck breakdowns may not be possible, it is possible to maximize your uptime by doing some routine checks and inspections. Whether you train your team to commit to these inspections or perform them yourself, knowing what to keep an eye on throughout the year can help the life cycle of both your parts and your expense account.

How to Tell If a Truck Heater is Broken

We’re into the part of winter where temperatures have already started to dip into either very cold or freezing, and whether you live or just operate a fleet that drives in areas that experience true winter, a fully operational heater core is crucial.

Whether your business is long-haul or short-haul trucking, keeping drivers warm is important not only for comfort but for safety as well. Any seasoned person in the industry knows that when it comes to trucks, there’s almost always something that needs to be looked at or tweaked, but knowing the signs of a broken heater core can help you and your truck or fleet get back up and back to business.

1. There is Little or No Heat in the Truck

It’s a common scenario but also a frustrati

Important Truck Parts Terms for 2020

Now that the holiday festivities are over and it’s back to business as usual, chances are you’ve got at least a few trucks that need some parts replaced. With all of the ups, downs, booms and drops that happened within the trucking industry in 2019, it’s valid to want to err on the conservative side when shopping for replacement truck parts. But being careful about how you spend your first quarter budget doesn’t have to mean buying cheap and crossing your fingers that it fits.

Aftermarket truck parts can seem like the Wild West, but clicking and ordering the cheapest options is a strategy that can come back to bite you. Knowing these different categories of truck parts can help you enter 2020 with more confidence and knowledge in your buying experience.

Thank Trucks, Buses, and Waste Management This Holiday Season

The holidays are a good time to take stock of our blessings and all of the things we have to be grateful for. Sharing a rich holiday feast with the people we care in a warm, decorated house with gifts under a bright Christmas tree is the scene most of us have in mind this time of year, and in order to make that a reality, there’s a lot of work that happens behind the scenes.

While it’s important to thank those who cook the food and buy the gifts that we enjoy, it’s also important to remember those who brought these things across the country for us to enjoy — the trucking, public transportation, and waste management industries.

When the Best Gets Even Better: PreSet Plus Hubs

It’s no industry secret that Consolidated Metco has been one of the largest pioneers in wheel hubs since 1964, but the continued dedication to innovation and modern trucking needs is what keeps ConMet blazing trails in the commercial vehicle industry.

What are Wheel Hubs?

When you think about the most important parts of a truck, chances are you’ll consider the engine, the transmission, and other large parts. But a key player and undercelebrated hero of truck performance also lies literally where the rubber meets the road – the wheel hubs.

Although a truck’s engine and transmission are essential for it to move, it’s not going anywhere without the wheels. A wheel hub’s job is to connect the wheel to the rest of the vehicle body. Hubs work hard to make sure your truck not only moves where you need it to, when you need it to but they are also responsible for the smoothness of your journey. If you’ve ever experienced the noise or feeling of your truck with a wheel hub that’s gone bad, then you understand just how important it is to find ones that last, like conventional hub assemblies and PreSet hub assemblies from Consolidated Metco.

Shocks are one of the most important parts on your truck. They literally keep you grounded as a driver. But the selection of shocks are vast and wide and can get a little complicated. We want you to buy shocks from your vehicle that will fit, perform and last you a long time.

What do shock absorbers do?

Remember the cartoon where the character is biking through rolling hills, and his body stays level but his legs dip real low to keep the wheels on the ground? That’s what shock absorbers do. They guarantee a smoother and safer ride for the driver when driving on uneven ground.

The Importance of Buses In Winter

Whether we’re talking about city buses, school buses, or shuttle buses, the importance of buses to safely get people from one destination to another cannot be understated. Safely navigating a bus through city and highway traffic on a regular basis is tricky enough, but during the winter, the stakes are higher with driver, passenger, and road safety.

While driver training and intuition can make a big difference in winter bus driving, it’s also critical to not forget about the bus itself — namely, the parts that go into ensuring that buses can safely and effectively handle the adverse conditions of the season. As we head full-speed into a long winter, there are a few key parts and systems to keep in mind.