5 Things You Should Never Do To Your Truck

there are literally thousands of things drivers can do to damage their trucks but when I compiled this list I came up with five of the worst things that I thought that would do expensive damage to the truck that were unnecessary and could be avoided with a little time and Care number one crossing the battery cables now if you're not paying attention this is relatively easy to do and in the winter time like it is now all sorts of guys will have sat their trucks over the weekend or something like that and have to come and jump start their trucks or even if they're just installing their own batteries in a truck after switching out some dead ones but you've got to be very careful that you hook the positives to the positive and the negatives to the negatives because if you cross those terminals in any one of a series of batteries that are in line and in series you're going to do damage to the engine now these new truck engines are specifically electronically designed to function so if you damage them when you're crossing the wires the damage is going to be severe you'll you'll screw up the electronic control module you'll screw up some of the sensors so you've got to be very careful when you're connecting batteries hooking up batteries or trying to jump start a truck because you just can't cross them because the damage is easy to do and it's often extreme and very expensive now if you're not comfortable with jump starting a truck get someone like like a towing service to somebody to do it for you because it's cheaper than messing up the electronics in the engine number two mixing up the fuel tank with the DEF tank now you wouldn't think this would happen but it happens a lot lately with these new trucks and the new DEF fluid and all the new drivers out there if you're not paying attention you can be putting the wrong fluid into the wrong tank and once it's in there it's damn near impossible to get it out and this happens a lot you'd be surprised there's a fleet I know of down south of here that recently bought five new Kenworths three of those trucks went in for damage because the drivers had mixed up the fuel tank and the DEF tank their the repair on those trucks brand new trucks was over seventeen thousand dollars a piece and of course there was no warranty on that because that's just stupidity so pay attention when you're fueling or when you're adding DEF fluid make damn sure you're putting it in the right tank number three abusing the Driveline now lots of you will see it on YouTube guys doing speed shifting and power shifting or you've seen these big hill poles at Cameo de Nord or something like that where these guys are just torquing on the trucks and the trucks have got the front wheels coming off the ground or in this kind of weather sometimes you spin your wheels and you wipe your feet but you don't want to have those Wheels spinning when the power lock is engaged because you'll do damage it's all right when they're not spinning that's how it's supposed to be used but you don't want to be constantly spinning your wheels with the power lock engaged because that does damage It generally takes out the power divider after a little while so the drive lines in these trucks are not designed to take a whole lot of abuse they make them light so the truck can scale more product and that's part of the reason now you see the industry going towards automatic transmissions because truck companies in the past have experienced so much Driveline damage from guys that don't shift properly or they just don't know how to shift that they just got sick of absorbing the damage or replacing the clutches and gone to these automatic transmissions but whatever you've got automatic or manual be gentle with the Driveline don't spin the wheels and take care of the truck it's hard on the Driveline number four it's winter time and they cover the road with salt and these days a lot of the states use that chemical stuff and they spray it on the highways and that stuff is highly corrosive it's to the point where the Departments of Transportation in various states have determined that that stuff is damaging concrete overpasses on the highways so imagine what that can do underneath your truck it gets in the wiring chews up the frame it chews up the aluminum it gets into the electronics stuff is highly corrosive so you've got to regularly wash your truck in the wintertime particularly the underneath to get that stuff out because it is so corrosive now all sorts of the good truck washes have installed underneath sprays to do the undercarriage and stuff like that I know it's a lot of money to wash the truck especially when you're just going to go out and get it dirty shortly afterwards anyway but it's worth it to get that stuff off the frame and everything like that because corrosion is a huge expense in trucking and that stuff is just multiplying it that much more so wash your truck regularly and do the truck washes underneath wherever possible finally number five you've all heard the expression you get what you pay for and that's particularly true when you're buying oils or grease or lubricants for your truck so don't cheap out don't buy the the cheap stuff because God knows what they've done to to refine it and process it sometimes it's so recycled it's still got metal filings in this in the old stuff that they've recycled I've been using shells since 1984 never once had a problem not ever now I know company drivers don't necessarily get to choose what kind of oil or grease they use but for owner operators and Lease operators it's particularly important because you've got a huge investment in a truck and you want to take care of it so don't cheap out and just buy the cheapest stuff you can to save a few bucks because you'll pay the price down the road get the good stuff you'll never regret it it only takes a little bit of time and a little bit of caution and care and thinking things through to protect your truck so be careful when you work on your truck or do anything to your truck because you want the old girl to last as long as possible they never quit at home they always quit out in the middle of nowhere somewhere and you don't want to be in that situation if you take care of the truck it'll take care of you and you'll be able to get home every time stay safe keep the rubber side down and I'll see you on the back hole foreign [Music]

Channel: Smart Trucking

Views: 82,857

Keywords: 5 things you should never do to your truck, truck maintenance, truck repair, semi truck, big rigs, truck driver, truck driving, smart trucking, smart trucking videos, trucker videos, peterbilt truck, shell rotella, shell rotella products

Id: a9VFYOM-kD8

Length: 6min 56sec (416 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2022