Agriculture around Brooksville means cattle, hay and family farms spread across Hernando, Pasco and Sumter counties, and the trucks that do that work run on diesel. The 1-ton pickup pulling a gooseneck stock trailer, the flatbed hauling round bales, the tractor-trailer taking cattle to market: when any of them goes down, the work it was doing does not wait. RDI Power keeps farm trucks and trailers working from our Brooksville shop and out on the property.
The trucks a farm runs
- Diesel pickups. Super Duty, Ram and GM heavy duty pickups with Power Stroke, Cummins and Duramax engines, pulling gooseneck and bumper-pull trailers every day. See our light-duty diesel repair.
- Flatbeds and dump trucks. Hauling hay, feed, fertilizer, fence materials and fill.
- Tractor-trailers. Moving cattle, hay and equipment over longer distances.
- Trailers. Livestock trailers, flatbeds, goosenecks and equipment trailers.
Tractors and other off-road machinery are a separate conversation. Call and tell us what you have, and you will get a straight answer on whether it is work we take on.
Where farm trucks wear out
Dust and chaff
Hay dust and field debris pack radiators, charge air coolers and condensers, and they find their way past a tired air filter. On a Florida summer afternoon, an overheating farm truck often starts with a radiator that cannot breathe. Cleaning the cooling stack and checking the intake for leaks is part of every farm PM we do. See radiators and cooling.
Short trips and idle time
A truck that idles while gates are opened and cattle are loaded rarely gets the long, hot run a diesel particulate filter needs to clean itself. Soot builds up, regenerations get interrupted, and eventually the truck goes into derate in the middle of a job. Our exhaust and emissions work starts with finding why the filter is loading, not just forcing another regen.
Heavy towing
A full stock trailer behind a pickup puts the load on brakes, wheel bearings, the transmission and the hitch. Transmission fluid that runs hot and dark is an early warning worth acting on.
Trucks that sit
Seasonal trucks can sit for weeks between jobs. Batteries run down, fuel picks up water, and mice and rats find wiring harnesses. A truck that sat all summer deserves a look before it is asked to haul.
Hard-working trailers
Manure, washdowns and rough pasture are hard on trailer wiring, brake parts and bearings. A trailer with a dragging brake or a dry bearing can do more damage than the truck pulling it. Our trailer repair page covers what we check.
How RDI Fleet works for a farm
A farm with several trucks and trailers can run on an RDI Fleet plan the same way a trucking company does:
- PM intervals set by hours as well as miles, and timed to land before the busy season
- On-site service at the farm through mobile diesel repair, so a truck with a problem does not have to make a trip it may not finish
- Annual DOT inspections for the trucks and trailers that need them
- Digital inspections with photos, so you decide what to fix now and what can wait until after the season
- Trailer brakes, lights and bearings checked during the same visit as the truck
Why downtime hurts on a farm
On a farm, timing is the job. Hay has to come in while it is dry. Cattle have to move on the day the buyer, the vet or the sale has set. A truck that fails that day costs more than the repair. It costs the window, and sometimes the window does not come back for a while. Planned maintenance moves the repair work to days when the truck is not needed, which is the cheapest place for it to be.
Keep the farm trucks ready
Tell us what you run and when your busy season starts. We will help you get the trucks and trailers ready before it, and come out to the farm when something goes wrong during it.