Tag: Winter Trucker Tips

Truckers Keep an Eye on Inflation, Chains, Tread for Winter

A Good Set of Wheels Can Take You a Long Way on the Road. Ensure You're Taking Proper Care of Your Vehicle!
A Good Set of Wheels Can Take You a Long Way on the Road. Ensure You’re Taking Proper Care of Your Vehicle!

Driving in the winter is stressful, doubly-so for those toting a fully-loaded rig. Luckily, you can take a bit of worry off your shoulders with the help of your electric yard trucks and a properly prepped fleet. The right tire, sufficient, even tread, and proper inflation levels can greatly improve traction and handling on icy, snow-covered roads.

Selecting Tires

Performance is intimately tied to tire selection. Look to tread designs to find your ideal winter tire match. The more open the tread, the better tires perform in snow and slush. In addition, look to skid depth: Full skid-depth tires offer better traction than those with shallow depth.

Ensuring Proper Inflation

Maintaining proper inflation positively impacts a number of factors, including tire wear, casing life, the ability to retread tires, and even gas mileage. In winter driving, it provides an ‘enhanced footprint’ essential to navigating snowy, icy roads. Ambient temperature affects inflation levels, with pressure drops proportional to temperature: 2 psi for every 10° decrease. This makes frequent calibration, at least weekly, essential.

Checking Tread

Tread depth ensures tire ‘grip’ on road surfaces. Use retreads? Choose tread designs with numerous biting edges and ‘sipes’ to boost traction.

Chaining Up

Though this process is considered antiquated by some, ‘chaining up’ tires to improve traction and grip remains an effective way to ensure additional stability in snowy, icy road conditions. When properly chained up, no impact on tire longevity should occur. When selecting tires, opt for styles designed for easy chain application. Be sure to apply chains tightly, removing them as soon as they’re no longer needed.

Shipping schedule blowing up? Stay on top of delivery demands, saving time, reducing labor, and preventing injuries with the help of yard trucks from DJProducts today.

Winter Trucking Tips to Revisit with Your Drivers

Keep Your Fleet Safe in Winter with These Tips
Keep Your Fleet Safe in Winter with These Tips

Winter driving conditions require a specific skillset. Big rig operators must not disregard the need to alter driving habits in such dangerous conditions. Before your terminal tractors deliver another trailer for haul, ensure drivers make smart decisions by revisiting these essential winter driving safety skills.

Slow Down

Driving in snow and ice is riskier due to poor traction, increased stopping time/distances, reduced visibility, and the unpredictable nature of other drivers. Slowing down should be a top priority for every driver. Speed is the top cause for at-fault accidents. Speed kills!

Personal Space

Drivers should leave plenty of room between the vehicle in front of the truck (and those beside, when possible). Likewise, avoid moving ‘in packs,’ traveling alone to maximize the distance around your vehicle.

Don’t ‘Follow the Leader’

Remember Lemmings? If the vehicle ahead makes an error, so will you. Besides, when visibility is low, seeing the taillights of the vehicle ahead means you’re too close.

Know When to Get Off the Road

If the weather is so severe you wonder if you should get off the road – just do it. Delivery pressures may be high, but safety and lives are paramount. Don’t feel like you’re letting anyone down by playing it safe.

No Hovering

In low visibility situations, don’t stop on the shoulder. Drivers could mistake your vehicle as in-motion and slam into the back of your rig.

Don’t Wing It

Perform ALL necessary safety/equipment/fluid checks before heading off to prevent becoming stranded in winter storms. (And pack an emergency kit just in case. A smart trucker is always prepared.)

Safety issues or late delivery have you on thin ice? Increase safety and productivity with the help of terminal tractors from DJ Products today.

Fuel Gelling – What to Know When Cold Weather Arrives

Fuel Gelling - What to Know When Cold Weather Arrives
Fuel Gelling – What to Know When Cold Weather Arrives

When rigs stop running in frigid weather, bringing your semi trailer mover to a screeching halt, fuel gelling is often the first thing blamed. Typically, however, it has to be -15 degrees before fuel begins to gel, so what gives?

Is it Really Gelling?

With gelling, ice crystals form from condensation, followed by paraffin wax dropping out of fuel. Only after that does gelling occur. This often starts in fuel filters, when trucks haven’t run long enough to warm fuel. Though many are quick to blame poor fuel and failure to have the right additives, it’s ultimately the result of poor planning.

With the Right Tactics, You Can Avoid the Gelling ‘Blame Game’

Plan ahead.
People driving in the northern states/Canada don’t have issues with gelling because they manage the predictable. Don’t rely on ‘winter blends.’ Know what you’re getting. With frigid temperatures YOU WILL need water-absorbers and kerosene/jet fuel, since additives only work down to 5-degrees. Take control: watch 10-day weather forecasts and TELL fuel suppliers the percentage of kerosene you want:

10 degrees: 10% blend

0 degrees: 20% blend

-5 to -10 degrees: 30% blend

-15 degrees: 40% blend

-20 degrees: 50% blend

Tanks on location?
Keep 80% kerosene on hand for upcoming temperature dips to mix with current tank gallons on-hand.

On-the-road purchases?
ASK for kerosene percentages.

Maintain en-route
Vacuum or drain the condensation buildup (water) from the tanks every night.

Crank-up the heat
Consider the addition of an in-tank fuel heater plumbed via heater core or an electric/coolant-fueled heater.

No shortcuts
Do NOT change micron ratings on fuel filters.

Don’t let downed rigs gum up the works. Keep things moving with proper planning and the help of a semi trailer mover from DJ Products today.

Extreme Cold Impacts Semi Truck Performance – What to Know

Extreme Cold Impacts Semi Truck Performance - What to Know
Extreme Cold Impacts Semi Truck Performance – What to Know

As climate change continues to fuel winter temperature extremes, trucks and truckers shoulder an increased burden. Though your powered trailer movers will push on through such extremely cold temperatures, your hauler may not, pulled down by the weight of fuel gelling.

Frozen in Time

With extremely cold temperatures, diesel fuel and diesel exhaust fluids freeze. More than an inconvenience, this poses a rather large problem as the regeneration process necessary from an emissions control standpoint cannot sustain at certain temperatures. What’s your best chance of keeping vehicles on the road?

Weighty Matter

In colder climates such as in Minnesota and Canada, drivers understand the risks of temperature extremes, swapping their usual fuel for a winter-weight diesel fuel mix and additives that allow them to keep their vehicles moving. Fleet drivers in warm to moderate climates, however, are often ignorant of this need, watching their progress literally freeze as soon as they go north and their vehicles come to a stop.

Half Empty/Half Full

When driving in winter conditions, it is strongly advisable to keep the fuel tank at least half full. This will allow drivers to keep rigs running long enough for the vehicle to hit the temperature necessary to go into its regeneration cycle. Otherwise, haulers may get stuck due to emission controls.

When Push Comes to Shove

In normal weather this is not an issue, however sub-zero weather requires more energy (fuel) to sustain the vehicle’s temperature necessary for regeneration. Idling overnight or warming the block with a heater are not enough – the vehicle must be driven, even if it’s just a few yards at a time.

Are your operations stuck? Get things moving with a powered trailer mover from DJ Products today.