From traveling through daily routes to participating in a dangerous high-speed chase, police vehicles endure a lot of wear and tear. This can pose a challenge for fleet maintenance operations that are tasked with keeping these vehicles on the roadways.
Get tips for how to keep your squad cars well-maintained.
One of the keys to keeping your fleet of police vehicles on the roadways is to follow an organized preventative maintenance schedule. During these routine checks at specific mileage markers or dates, technicians should check and change the oil and air filters, as well as check the levels of other fluids.
Operations should also inspect the brakes, lights, chassis, the undercarriage and all emergency equipment.
To keep your fleet operation running smoothly, it’s important to be efficient when creating work orders. One of the easiest ways to create WOs is to have technicians start them while performing preventative maintenance services. If a technician notices an issue that needs to be repaired, he or she can create the work order right then, while the information is fresh. This also allows the operation to start the process of checking for parts and estimating the time to complete the job. This can help eliminate additional downtime later.
Police vehicles need to be able to accelerate to high speeds and make quick stops during an emergency. Because of this, it’s important to ensure the vehicles meet all safety standards. The vehicles should be fully inspected to make sure the brakes are functioning, air bags are working, seat belts are in-tact, and more. Specific equipment like emergency lights, sirens, radios, cameras, K9 equipment, barriers and other equipment should also be examined.
Checking a vehicle’s tire pressure is important for several reasons. For one, having properly inflated tires is important for safety, as they can allow you to stop and accelerate as needed. Tire pressure can also impact your fuel usage and the lifespan of a tire. A properly inflated tire can increase a vehicle’s gas mileage by 3 percent. However, under-inflating a tire by just 10 percent can reduce its lifespan by 7 percent.
At times it can be necessary for police officers to quickly accelerate to chase down a car or get to an emergency as soon as possible. However, doing this on a regular basis can impact the vehicle’s fuel mileage. According to TrafficSchoolOnline.org, after your vehicle reaches speeds of about 50 mph, the drag on the vehicle can cause it to use more fuel. Because of this, officers should try to limit their high-speed driving.