A Business That Did Not Exist Yet In 1997, if a fleet needed a repair, the truck went to a shop. That was the entire menu. That was the year Bob Dickinson started what became Dickinson Fleet Services out of a small operation in Indianapolis, and his grandsons Kyle and Kevin Coltrain grew up around […]
On July 3, 2026, President Trump pardoned early a dozen people who were convicted under the Clean Air Act for tampering with diesel emissions, months after the Justice Department stopped prosecuting diesel cases entirely. The technology is still bolted to every truck on the road, and nobody in Washington wants to discuss the “what now” of who pays for it.
How maintenance frequency maps to violation patterns, and why the carriers stretching their service intervals are the same ones showing up with brake and hub seal failures at roadside.
Pre-trip inspections are the first line of defense against mechanical failure on the highway. For most of the industry, they are a 30-second checkbox exercise completed in the cab. That gap between regulation and reality is showing up in courtrooms.
Why This Matters More Than It Did Two Years Ago Trucking insurance is expensive and getting more so. According to ATRI’s 2025 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, insurance premiums hit a record 10.2 cents per mile in 2024, following a 12.5 percent increase in 2023 and an additional 3 percent rise in 2024. […]
As the freight cycle recovers and utilization rises, the industry is confronting a massive accumulation of deferred maintenance from the prolonged freight recession of 2022–2026.
Every year, roughly the same time, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance runs its International Roadcheck. Three days. Thousands of inspectors. Tens of thousands of trucks. The dates get announced months in advance, the focus areas get published, and somehow, fleets still get caught off guard.
The difference between what a driver should catch on the pre-trip and what a PM program should catch before the truck ever leaves the shop tells two completely different stories about where the failure lives
The Fullbay State of Heavy-Duty Repair Report 2026 shows 68% revenue growth since 2023 amid a deepening structural technician shortage. With 54% of shops understaffed and culture outranking pay for retention, fleets face long-term challenges.
Many fleets are losing money in ways they can’t easily measure, whether it’s through driver behavior, equipment failures, or incomplete complete dispatch data. RoutMate approaches fleet management from a fundamentally different angle: maximum control equals maximum revenue growth
When new trucks became impossible to source, fleets had to push assets past a million miles. The ones that survived did one thing right: they greased.
In this episode of What the Truck?!?, host Malcolm Harris sits down with Kenneth Hanover to break down how Fleetguard’s engineering approach and industry-leading warranty services help owner-operators keep trucks rolling.
The two fleet maintenance arms of Cox Automotive are being put together under one banner.
If you run trucks for a living, your maintenance records are more than paperwork. They’re your defense in a DOT audit and your bargaining chip when it’s time to trade or sell equipment. Yet too many carriers treat documentation like an afterthought—tossing receipts in a shoebox or relying on memory. That works right up until […]
Preventative maintenance is one of those areas where carriers either run a disciplined system or they run themselves into breakdowns that bleed cash. Too often, maintenance is treated like a disruption instead of a controllable part of operations. A truck goes into the shop and revenue stops. Loads are missed. Customers are frustrated. But here’s […]
If you’re running trucks and not pulling oil samples, you’re missing a critical opportunity to catch something before it becomes a bigger issue. Oil samples are one of the cheapest, most reliable ways to see inside your engine without tearing it apart. Too many small fleet owners and operators look at oil changes as a […]
On paper, a 35,000-pound load and a 45,000-pound load might not seem that far apart. But in the real world, that 10,000-pound difference could be the reason your bank account feels thinner at the end of the month. The heavier the freight, the harder your engine works, the more fuel you burn — and the […]
A transmission doesn’t just wake up one day and blow itself out. It wears down in silence. It warns you in whispers—until the whisper becomes a breakdown. Slipping gears. Delayed shifts. Rattles, vibrations, burnt fluid, rising temps—these are all clues. And if you catch them early enough, you save thousands. But if you wait until […]
Tires are one of the biggest operating expenses for any trucking company, but some carriers don’t treat them like the diagnostic tool they are. They see tread loss as the cost of doing business, when in reality, tires are trying to tell you what’s wrong with your truck. Every wear pattern—feathering, cupping, shoulder wear—has a […]
Brake problems don’t start at the roadside—they start in the yard with poor maintenance. One of the most overlooked pieces of a truck’s braking system is the slack adjuster. Many small fleets and drivers either ignore it completely or, worse, adjust it at the wrong time. The result is uneven braking, premature wear, out-of-service violations, […]
