Chevron on what coolant sampling can tell fleets about engine health
Summer has officially ended, and it was the hottest on record for the contiguous U.S., according to NOAA. That means trucks' coolant had to work overtime to keep their engines from overheating.
And to prepare the system for any summer, maintenance departments need to focus on coolant-related PMs. This may be something you overlooked until you received a call about one of your trucks smoking on the side of the Arizona highway.
Coolant health is critical to winter operations as well, so we caught up with Max Cundiff, industrial sector manager at Chevron, an expert on coolant maintenance who breaks down everything you need to know about maintaining these systems.
This includes explaining how summer heat can expose cooling system problems that have been developing for months, and how fleets can use trends in coolant sampling results to identify potential problems before they become failures.
"[Coolant sampling is] honestly one of the easiest diagnostic windows into the health of your cooling system, and the same can be said for engine oil in terms of the easiest diagnostic window into the health of your engine," Cundiff said. "So stop treating these fluids as just fluids and start turning them into a reliability competitive advantage."
About the Author
John HitchJohn Hitch
Editor-in-chief, Fleet Maintenance
John Hitch is the award-winning editor-in-chief of Fleet Maintenance, where his mission is to provide maintenance leaders and technicians with the the latest information on tools, strategies, and best practices to keep their fleets' commercial vehicles moving.
He is based out of Cleveland, Ohio, and has worked in the B2B journalism space for more than a decade. Hitch was previously senior editor for FleetOwner and before that was technology editor for IndustryWeek, and managing editor of New Equipment Digest.
Hitch graduated from Kent State University and was editor of the student magazine The Burr in 2009.
The former sonar technician served honorably aboard the fast-attack submarine USS Oklahoma City (SSN-723), where he participated in counter-drug ops, an under-ice expedition, and other missions he's not allowed to talk about for several more decades.