Hills put a load on a pickup that flat roads never do, and St. Leo has them: rolling ground from about 100 to 187 feet above sea level. A diesel that tows a trailer, a boat or a load of equipment over that ground every week works its cooling system, transmission and brakes harder than the same truck on level highway. RDI Power diagnoses and repairs diesel pickups and light commercial trucks from St. Leo at our Brooksville shop, about 25 road miles from the middle of town.
Heat, brakes and cooling on St. Leo’s hills
Most towing trouble announces itself as heat. A few symptoms and where they usually lead:
- The temperature gauge climbs on grades it used to take in stride. Look at the radiator and any charge air or transmission coolers for packed debris, then the fan clutch, the thermostat and the coolant itself.
- Coolant disappears with no puddle. On a diesel, that points toward an EGR cooler, an oil cooler or a head gasket until testing proves otherwise. Ignore it and a small internal leak can become a large one.
- The fan roars constantly. A fan clutch locked on wastes power. One that never engages lets the engine overheat in traffic.
- The brakes feel soft or smell hot after a downhill with a trailer. Pads, rotors, fluid and the trailer’s own brakes all deserve a look.
- Transmission temperature runs higher than before on the same load. Fluid condition and cooler flow come first, because heat is what kills automatic transmissions.
Ford, Ram and GM trucks from St. Leo
The trucks are the usual mix: Ford Super Duty with the Power Stroke, Ram with the Cummins, Chevrolet and GMC with the Duramax, plus the Nissan Titan XD, Sprinter vans and chassis cabs. Each platform has known weak spots, such as the plugged oil cooler that kills EGR coolers on a 6.0 Power Stroke or the high-pressure pump failures on CP4.2-equipped trucks, but a known weak spot only tells us where to start testing. Our Power Stroke service and light duty diesel repair pages go engine by engine.
The software matches the badge: Ford IDS on Fords and WiTECH on Ram trucks. Our Ford specialist brings more than 30 years at a Ford dealership, and our service advisor spent 35 years as a technician at a Chevrolet dealership before he moved to the front counter.
The trip from St. Leo to Brooksville
A healthy truck makes the drive easily: County Road 52 west toward San Antonio, then Curley Road, St. Joe Road and Lake Lola Road to Spring Lake Highway and SR-50, about 42 minutes in all. A truck that is overheating, losing coolant or stuck in reduced power should stay parked. Call, and a mobile technician can meet it at a yard, a job site or the roadside, scan it and repair what can be repaired there.
At the shop, every pickup gets a digital vehicle inspection with photos and the technician’s notes, so you see the cracked hose or the leaking cooler before approving the fix. Labor is warrantied for 3 years or 36,000 miles, and active military, veterans, police and fire receive 10% off. For an overview of the town and our other pages, see diesel repair in St. Leo, and San Antonio owners have their own truck repair page.
If the truck is running hot or acting strange, call (352) 433-3800 and describe what it does on the climb.