Being close to I-4 and SR 408 has drawn many small industrial businesses to Pine Hills, marble and flooring companies among them, and the Silver Star subarea next door is one of the places MetroPlan Orlando names as a concentration of freight land use. Small operations have the same maintenance problem as big ones, just with less slack: when 1 of 4 trucks is down, a quarter of the fleet is gone. A fleet of 4 box trucks needs the same discipline as a fleet of 40.
RDI Fleet is RDI Power’s fleet program. It puts your units on a written schedule, and for a Pine Hills yard, technicians drive out from the Brooksville shop and do most of the work on site.
Heavy loads, short hops: maintaining Pine Hills box trucks
If your trucks carry stone, tile, flooring or anything else dense, they often run close to their weight ratings. That changes where the wear goes:
- Brakes. Heavy loads and city stops eat linings and heat drums and rotors. Brake measurements are taken at every visit, and air brake trucks get adjustment and leak checks.
- Springs and shocks. Loaded weight works the suspension constantly, so leaf springs, hangers, bushings and shocks are looked over each time. Our shocks page covers that side.
- Tires and wheel ends. Tread, sidewalls, inflation and bearing play all suffer under weight. Uneven wear is caught early.
- Driveline. U-joints and driveshafts carry more torque when the box is full.
The intervals for those trucks are set by miles, hours and what the inspections show, starting from the factory schedule and adjusted for how hard the work is.
How a Pine Hills plan comes together
We begin with a list of your units and a conversation about how they work: what they haul, how far, how much they idle, and which days they can come out of service. A technician then walks the yard, records each truck’s details and condition, and flags anything that cannot wait. From there you get a schedule that shows what is due and when, built around your operation and your budget.
Light, medium and heavy duty trucks all fit, along with trailers and buses. If you run buses, our bus service and repair page explains what they need beyond a truck PM. Fleet accounts get priority service when something breaks between visits.
Light duty vans and pickups in a Pine Hills fleet
If your box trucks share the yard with diesel pickups or vans, those units get their own intervals. A Power Stroke, Duramax or Cummins pickup, a Nissan Titan XD or a Sprinter van starts from the factory schedule, tightened when it tows, idles or makes short trips all day. The technician watches the items that strand light duty diesels most often: fuel filters and water in the fuel, glow plugs on hard starts, batteries, and the DEF and exhaust aftertreatment systems that can put a van into a derate. Ford IDS and WiTECH give dealer-level access to Ford and Ram trucks, and back in Brooksville, our Ford specialist, with more than 30 years at a Ford dealership, takes on the harder Power Stroke problems.
Yard visits instead of Pine Hills trips to the shop
The technician brings the diagnostic software and equipment to service and repair on site, so routine PM, inspections and many repairs happen where the trucks already sit. Several trucks can be serviced on one trip, which keeps the rest of the fleet on the road. Work that needs a lift or a teardown, such as an engine or transmission job, is booked into the Brooksville bays on a date that suits you, and its other open items are handled during the same stay.
Reports, DOT dates and warranty for Pine Hills accounts
Each visit leaves a digital vehicle inspection per truck, with photos of what was found and the technician’s notes. Over time, those reports become the service history you use to budget, to answer a customer or an auditor, and to decide when a truck has cost enough.
The yearly DOT inspection for each Pine Hills truck rides along on the same schedule. Interstate trucks heavier than 10,001 lb GVWR need one inspection a year under federal rules; hold each report for 14 months, and the pre-trip still belongs to the driver. See DOT inspections for the details.
Work done on a Pine Hills fleet account is warrantied for 2 years or 24,000 miles. Roadside assistance is there for fleet customers 24/7, whether a truck stops on Silver Star Road at dawn or on West Colonial Drive after dark.
Start with the RDI Fleet maintenance overview, and operators along US 441 to the northeast can read about Lockhart fleet maintenance. Call (352) 433-3800, even if your Pine Hills fleet is only 2 or 3 trucks.