The Importance Of Brake Maintenance For Heavy Duty Trucks

The brake system is one of the most essential parts of any vehicle. Although some heavy truck companies may tend not to prioritize truck brake maintenance, it plays a significant role in sustaining the safety of your truck. Most road accidents happen due to brake system failures, so you need to keep an eye on your vehicle's brakes to ensure they function well at all times.

The braking system is even more critical for heavy trucks since they are heavy, oversized, and challenging to stop. Even though truck accidents may not be so rampant, they tend to be fatal due to the nature of these vehicles, that’s heavy and large, and their difficulty to stop. Read this post to find out the importance of brake maintenance for heavy trucks.

1. Prevent Roadside Emergencies

If you've ever driven on a congested highway, you know how difficult it can be to deal with a situation where your brakes go out unexpectedly. Many accidents globally result from failed brakes. Imagine the mayhem that can arise if your brakes fail and another road user experiences the same. The situation can be unbearable if this is to happen when there is congested traffic.

Therefore, the best way to avoid such is by ensuring your truck’s brake system is well maintained. Regular inspection allows the brake technicians to catch the potential trouble before they escalate to such emergencies, which would be costly and time-consuming. Additionally, dealing with road emergencies can be costly. If your trucks are not insured for roadside assistance, you will end up using a lot of money to solve these problems.

2. Cut Off Unnecessary Expenses

Regular brake system maintenance might not cost as much as replacing the whole system. Keep checking and dealing with minor issues before they escalate to become more manageable and cheaper. When you leave until the whole system is completely broken, you'll have to replace all the parts- brake pads, shoes, rotors, calipers, and lines- and also meet the service cost, and this becomes too expensive, especially if you own or manage a fleet. Therefore, it is a habit to inspect your truck brake system for its effectiveness regularly.

3. Maintain Safe Driving Conditions for the Operators

As you've seen, several road accidents result from faulty braking systems. As much as you are interested in making the truck serve you longer, you must also be concerned about the operator's safety and working conditions.

Let your brake technicians inspect and change brake fluid regularly, check on the performance of the master cylinder, examine the rotors for warping, and much more, assure the machine operators of their safety, and boost their morale. Given that's their workplace, taking care of the brakes to ensure they are perfectly functional boosts their morale and improves their performance.

4. Manage Costs

Whether you're managing a fleet or operating your truck, cost efficiency is always an aspect to consider. You need to do anything that ensures you complete the required workload at a minimum cost. One of the proven ways to ensure you reduce the cost of maintaining your vehicle is by making sure you check on its braking system alongside other aspects of your truck regularly. In other words, you need to keep checking and dealing with the problem that may arise before it's too late.

5. Increase Tire Lifespan

Brakes and tires work together to keep your truck on the road. While the only function of the brakes is slowing down your vehicle, tires ensure the truck remains stable under tough situations such as emergency braking, quick acceleration, taking sharp corners, and more.

Generally, when your truck brakes, the brake pads are pressed against the rotor by the calipers, a process that slows down the rotation of the tire. With time, if the system remains unattended, the clippers come in contact with the tires and can cause damage to the wheels of your truck in ways such as:

• Unbalanced tire: when the calipers come in contact with the rotor, it shaves off some material affecting the rotor as well as the calipers. This leaves one tire heavier than the other, which affects the vehicle’s balance.

• Causing uneven wear and tear: no matter how insignificant the weight change may be, it’ll cause uneven tear and wear on the tires.

• Extensive damage: Besides damage to the tire, unmaintained brakes can cause more significant damage to other parts of the vehicle, affecting fuel efficiency.  

6. Reduce Legal Liability Risks

There are many chances of trucks with faulty brakes causing unexpected troubles on the road. When your drivers are operating trucks with perfect braking systems, you might not have to deal with such risks as legal liabilities.

When the braking system is well maintained, everything else is likely to fall in place. Essential aspects such as braking lights are kept perfectly functional when regular brake checkups are done. In doing so, there will not be many complaints about the truck that is likely to bring you to the wrong side of the authorities.

7. Prevents Truck Damage

Regular brake system maintenance is one of the ways to avoid damaging your vehicle. If the problems are noted earlier, that means you'll not need much work to rectify them hence less damage to the truck. In the case where your brakes are completely damaged and need a complete replacement, it means the whole system needs to be replaced. Therefore, there will be unavoidable damage to the interior or exterior of the truck.

Inspecting the system regularly allows you to deal with more minor issues where the technicians can use special tools to access and replace the affected parts without having to tamper with the many parts of the truck.

A Final Word

As you can see, there are quite many advantages to regularly maintaining your brake system. It's one of the ways to ensure your truck is free to hit the road. Also, regularly inspecting your truck’s braking system and rectifying minor faults before the whole system is damaged is cost-effective.

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