I had to make a scheduled trip to the new company shop with the owner to discuss what is expected with maintenance intervals plus repair work, a Penske regional and shop manager were giving the spiel. Both spent most of the time talking fast projecting the Penske way of providing service and basically what we need. As soon as one stopped the other would start in they obviously wanted to keep a tight rein on the meeting aiming their discussion at Chris the owner never wanting to make eye contact with me. I let this go on and figured they would run out of gas eventually. I asked how often do you guys pull a full service and how often a short service. {On the Penske profile of full service that is every 55,000 and greased at that time. At Penske we know that oil can be run up to 64,000 and only needs greased at that time. Penske is in full contact with all the manufactures when it comes to maintenance intervals.} Hum, so your recommending we should stop greasing every 10,000 and a full at 30,000 and move our services out to match Penske's? {Yes, your really over servicing the equipment.} Let's see-Chris how long have I been with Tate? {You were here long before my dad and I bought it, 20 years.} Have you guys taken into consideration what this company does and where it runs? You have any idea how many trips a rig will make a week pulling 100,000 gvw over the Blue Mountains in a week? Have you figured in all the mountain passes in inclement weather each rig will run in one month? Have you calculated in the idle time? Have you calculated the gallons of fuel burned in 30,000 miles and how many hours of total run time? Tate Transportation isn't Penske, yes Chris you signed a contract for service work and Penske to lease this building, The service intervals have worked well, there's a old saying Chris {Don't fix what ain't broke}. And by the way has Penske tracked how many air compressors have had to be changed because of extended oil changes? {no} Just before we left Chris told them {service intervals will stay on point, Mike will still be in control of those plus tires right up to the point he says he's done.} So I guess I will stay for a while longer so care stays the course. Company guys-selling the lie.
Its always fun when some one that dosent know thinks they can change every thing and make it better. The was a guy here selling some high dollar oil. A truck came in that was using that oil for a flat tire. It just happen the company owner was hitching a ride in that truck. I cant remember but the driver ask me about a problem it was do to not greasing the truck as often because they were running the oil so long. I took some time and explained what was going on and what the future held. They stopped using that oil. The oil may have been ok and may have lasted longer but the rest of the truck was going to burn up the money it saved.
As it should be. Chris is a smart man.
perfect thread title.
A few other tidbits I said during the meeting. How long have each of you been with Penske? {Service mgr-22 years, regional 16 years} You know I've got both of you put together by just a hair, 12 years. Tell me is there anybody working for Penske that's been at it close to fifty years working the floor or not? {Crickets}. My job is about saving the owner money also but is built around doing constant on time maintenance to catch and stop issues before out of hand. It's not about stretching out service intervals to cut costs. You call your PM's [wet 180 day or a dry service no grease in between at 90 days]. The reason for a short service every 10K and a 30K full-is the oil is toast and the joints/pins are dry or have water in them. Plus I'm looking for all the other issues that happen in only 10K. Oil sampling-we don't need oil sampling because I change the oil at a regular sensible time. Trying to squeeze every penny from a drop of oil has been costly, and proven so by those who have tried it. My final statement before we stepped out. Gee it would have been nice sometime during my years to have a palace like this to work in. One last question to Chris while we were all standing there. Chris would you buy a used Penske truck? He kind of glared at me me. lol.
64,000 mile oil changes? I'd guess thats 1000 hours of pull time, plus, what, 20% more for idle? I'd sure like to see an oil sample result after that run. Equal to 60 wt. due to soot loading?
Pretty close-even at 30,000 on the oil I drain through the year {saved for waste oil furnace} I have to cut 150 gallons with about 35 gallons of diesel so it will atomize and burn. That's including the waste oil pre-heater to thin it. The sales pitch was {the engines these days run tighter tolerance and the oil is so improved from just five years ago} Bu!!****.
Tighter tolerances. Because the 0.004" bearing clearance on my 40 year old CAT is just SUPER sloppy
Penske re-invented the engines just for this purpose! Heaven forbid anyone who knows anything or gives a crap gets near a truck, oh no. Can't have that. The truck might catch mechanic cooties.
They are not saying how they track maintenance and how many go overs happen that they have to chase. They also aren't talking about their failure rates either. Do they turn over trucks at 150K?
John-Companies like Penske/Ryder never reveal their downfalls, it's all about the up-sale. They dump the small vans and class b cargos around 150 to 225 big stuff at 350 to 400 most depends on age. Penske owns 50,000 vehicles plus.
I tend to get a kick out of people when they say they'd rather buy a used truck from one of the large leasing companies or a mega carrier because "they get regular maintenance." Sorry but if a grease gun isn't putting grease into every grease fitting on the truck at least every 2nd weekend and someone isn't sliding under the truck every weekend to look at everything then I really question the maintenance plan. Maybe I'm a bit biased because that's how my dad ran things. On the flip side I'm pretty sure he could count on 1 hand how many loads he missed in 15 years as an owner op due to breakdown.
The fact is Penske is just using Freightliner {talking points}. The oil change intervals are based on over the road, local and severe use. Over the road at 6.5 mpg interval is 60K, then severe is listed at 35K-5 mpg. 5.0 is the breaking point if it gets 5.1 to 5.9 then the interval jumps to 45K. Freightliner does not list it as actual heavy haul instead severe. But those figures are at 10% idle time. Which for the industry is on the low side, actual would be 20% average. But still with 15% idle time on a severe duty situation 30,000 mile intervals is max.