How A Small Trucking Carrier Saved Money On Repairs

Leonard Payne & Son Trucking Company is a small, family-owned corporation based in Bakersfield, California. They specialize in hauling heavy, oversized equipment for farming, construction, and other applications. After 60 years in business, the company decided to incorporate Teletrac’s GPS Tracking Solution, Fleet Director. And Vice President William Payne couldn’t be happier.

Payne unequivocally cites help with tracking and maintenance as the most valuable dimension of Teletrac’s service as he experienced immediate savings:

“Your equipment picked up two codes in the ECM (Engine Control Module) causing problems with [a particular] truck that we have been trying to fix for two months,” said Payne. Fleet Director even helped the company find and fix problems they didn’t know they were experiencing, “We also found out the reasoning behind [an additional] trucks' after filter burn off issues. Teletrac has already paid for itself, and it’s only been a week!” exclaimed Payne. Not only do repairing small maintenance issues improve fuel mileage, it also makes the repair of larger mechanical problems much easier.

Payne can get data on his vehicles if their routes take them into coverage gaps. The codes saved from the ECM were tracked by Teletrac's Prism TM470, an advanced GPS device that automatically saves information such as vehicle speed, direction and ignition on/off status as needed and then transmits the data to Fleet Director when the vehicle returns to a coverage area.

With the ability to detect and record problematic issues in his vehicles, Payne considers maintenance one of the most important factors in running an efficient fleet. He states, “If your trucks aren’t going all of the time, you’re losing money.” While some might be tempted to try to cut costs by delaying maintenance, that only increases the chance that a vehicle will break down on the road, which can turn into an extremely expensive proposition.

“The more you know about your vehicle,” says Payne, “from [getting insight into] what it is doing, to the problems that may arise—if you can get them fixed earlier, then you’re going to have a [more efficient fleet] in the future.”

Additionally, California’s new environmental regulations mean that Leonard Payne & Son Trucking will have to take some of their older vehicles off the road in a few months. Being able to get the bugs out of the newer trucks ahead of time is going to be key to the company’s ability to offer uninterrupted service. Without a GPS tracking solution, detecting faults were difficult, “Before I would have to wait for those problems to arise and fix them. And by that time I’ve already lost thousands of dollars on my trucks sitting on the road,” said Payne.

But thanks to Teletrac, Payne can save time and money, “Now I am able to find out what is wrong with my new trucks and get them fixed before my old trucks even leave the road,” said Payne.

Overall, Payne was so impressed with the way Teletrac’s solution helped the company’s larger trucks, he got the service for the company’s fleet of 16 personal vehicles as well.

With Teletrac, customers are given data that increases visibility into each of their vehicle’s mechanics, helping them save in repairs and unseen problems. This insight is beneficial information to have on hand in order to maintain a strong-performing fleet.