Maintenance Day

A day in the life of an owner operator and being the trucking company owners of Virago Transport LLC is never over. When we aren't rolling Obsidian from city to city, state to state, we are working on her keep her *hopefully* in tip top shape. It's never a matter of if something will go wrong, but when!

That brings us to maintenance!

With a company truck, a driver will put in an order for repairs and in the shop it goes at the expense of the company.

When you are your own company, the work (and labor) is on the owner and thanks to YouTube and Google many of the minor repairs and upkeep can be self taught and completed during downtime.

One of the biggest expenses, aside from fuel and payroll, is maintenance.

Each day begins with a mandatory "pretrip" where the major components of the truck are looked over for any visible issues or concerns based on a checklist of items..

Similar to healthcare, preventative screenings and annual follow up with the doctor keep us in check, same goes for the truck.

It's a wise idea to budget a percentage of each load payment to a "maintenance fund" , if you will, for unexpected major repairs or shop needs.

It all comes down to preventative monitoring to get ahead of any small problems that may become big expensive problems in the future.

Over the last week Daryl has wrenched on our APU (and is still tracing down a problem with it not charging the batteries so we don't have to idle and waste precious, expensive fuel ), replaced all 4 of our batteries and kept all the fluids within manufacturer specs. We also found out that the windshield washer fluid reservoir has a minor leak. This will require being removed and sealed, which Daryl plans to tackle tomorrow during our downtime (that's a requirement by DOT to be good working order or results in a violation during a road side inspection).

In today's market, with supply chain issues availability of parts along with the costs of labor, it's not uncommon for a trip to the shop to range in price starting from a few hundred dollars and quickly rise into the thousands.

For example this evening we decided to change out the batteries. The battery cost today with labor would have cost us over $1170 with installation, but thanks to a bit of mechanical inclination, Daryl was able to install the batteries (while I supervised and prepared to dial 911 should anything dangerous happen lol) for just under $700.

Should, god forbid, anything major happen in the next several months, until our maintenance fund has been established, I will be sending out a panic GoFundMe account link and pulling every networking connection I can find

Here's a few pics of Daryl doing manly things and keeping our small little fleet of 1 up and running!

We'll be calling Loveland, CO home for the weekend until our Monday delivery! A hot bowl of veggie chili on a cold Colorado evening is what on the menu! Hope everyone has a great evening!

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