How to Prepare Your Fleet for the Cold Season: Our Guide

Fleet vehicles play a crucial role in many companies across various industries. Whether for delivering goods, transporting materials, or accommodating passengers, these machines need regular inspections and maintenance to ensure their efficiency and to foster the utmost safety of products and people.

Keeping in mind, vehicle checkups and upkeep are all the more necessary during the fall, to ensure your fleet is ready for the winter. There are a few vital steps to take to ensure that your vehicles keep up with the seasonal changes while avoiding additional wear and tear.

In this article are four vital maintenance tips on how to prepare your fleet for the cold season:

1. Inspect the coolant system

For the uninitiated, this system regulates the heat and keeps the vehicle's engine cool. It works by sending the liquid coolant through various passages to pick up the heat. For the past months, it served to keep your engine temperature down. But come the cold season, its anti-freezing properties become rather important. This is why you must check and maintain your coolant system, as this also affects your truck's heating system.

2. Keep the pneumatic system's air clean and dry

The air system of your truck is typically designed for non-braking functions. It serves to provide automatic transmission, driver assistance, and other safety systems and emissions controls. It’s imperative to keep it always clean and dry as it affects a wide range of components. Ultimately, doing so before the winter helps you avoid moisture build-up and prevents contaminants from getting into your truck's system.

3. Replace the air dryer cartridge yearly

Always remember the rule of thumb of changing your air dryer cartridge on an annual basis. Likewise, it's best to have the yearly replacement in the fall to prepare for the winter, which is all the more necessary for trucks, such as vocational trucks, that utilize a high air volume. While you're at it, check the purge valve and heating harness for excess corrosion on the dryer and address it immediately. Know that it's highly recommended you replace and use OE cartridges as the most effective moisture-removing solutions.

4. Lubricate the engine components

Keep in mind that coolant and water are not the only fluids you should monitor during a cold season; a far more critical aspect is the lubrication of your engine components. The chances are that your truck parts or components are under lots of stress and pressure during winter. Along with this is the fact that the lubricant's viscosity takes longer to warm up and work. For this reason, you need to pay particular attention to the lubricant to ensure it flows as smoothly as possible. You will also want to opt for a lower viscosity oil appropriate for your engine during the cold season.

Conclusion

At this point, you now know how to prepare your fleet for the cold season. All it takes is to inspect the coolant system regularly, keep the pneumatic system air clean and dry, replace the air dryer cartridge yearly, and lubricate the engine components. With all these maintenance steps in place, you'll make your trucks more resilient during the winter season, avoiding business downtime and unnecessary repairs along the way!

Are you looking for mobile fleet servicing? We've got you covered! We provide red-dot heating and air conditioning services in Canada with climate-based solutions for on-road and off-road heavy vehicles. If you need fleet maintenance services to get ready for the cold season, get in touch with us today to see how we can help!