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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.

How Your Truck Experiences Winter

As a trucker or fleet owner, you understand how dangerous winter driving can be — especially when it’s an 80,000-pound class 8 truck that’s out there trying to navigate the snow and ice. But also consider that it’s not just you or your drivers that are having to deal with winter — your truck is also experiencing it.

As it gets closer to the heart of winter, it’s important to not only make sure you’ve got the appropriate tires and that your brakes are at peak performance, but to also consider the major systems of your truck or fleet such as the HVAC and drivetrain, and take into account what they might need to help you stay “up” this season.

A Driveline is a Driveline, Right?

Wrong! Although the driveline is responsible for one of the most important processes in your truck — delivering the power from the engine and transmission to the wheels — one size does not fit all. A true line-haul application that needs to achieve highway speeds at least 80 percent of the time does not have the same driveline needs as a truck that does partial line haul and partial inner-city deliveries, for example.

Don’t feel bad if you haven’t thought about your driveline in a while — it’s an easy part of your truck to forget about. The configuration of a driveline is different depending on whether you have front-wheel, rear-wheel, or all-wheel drive, but unless something goes very wrong with it, chances are you’re not climbing up into your undercarriage to pay it a casual visit.

Whether you already need to upgrade your driveline or you aren’t sure if the one you’ve got is serving you properly, there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure you outfit your vehicle with the best driveline parts before a catastrophic failure happens.

What is Engine Downspeeding?

In our industry, things are either up or down, and depending on the situation that can either be a really great thing or a not so great thing. At the end of the day, we want trucks that are up and costs that are down, but there are other ups and downs to contend with in the meantime. For example, keeping fuel efficiency up by keeping the speed of the engine down, or downspeeding.

According to the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), engine downspeeding is one of the primary strategies to improve fuel economy in heavy-duty powertrains. The basic idea is this: when the rear gear ratio is sped up, the speed of the engine is lowered. While this concept was first pioneered a few years ago by Volvo, it is fast becoming a common technology upgrade for many heavy-duty powertrain systems.

Drivetrain Oil Leaks Vs Oil Weeps: Is There A Difference?

A situation where the oil that’s supposed to be inside of your drivetrain is visible on the outside of your drivetrain is less always less than ideal. And in this situation, truck drivers and fleet managers tend to go one of two ways — either high-tailing it to the mechanic or, if the truck is still drivable, letting it go until it truly becomes a problem.

Your first line of defense when there’s an oil issue is knowing what you’re looking at — is it a true oil leak or is it an oil weep? What do those mean and how can they affect your warranty coverage? Let’s talk it out so you can have a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

Why Wash Wheel Ends?

Everyone knows that your truck or fleet needs a good scrubbing and power-washing every now and then, but have you ever thought about paying specific attention to your wheel ends? Don’t feel bad — this part of your undercarriage is typically an afterthought.