A crooked trailer spreads its damage around the fleet
This is the part that makes trailer alignment worth more than it looks, and it only applies to fleets that swap trailers between tractors, which is most of them.
A trailer that tracks crooked drags whatever is pulling it. Hook it to one tractor and it wears that tractor's drives. Hook it to another next week and it wears those. Over a season, one bad trailer distributes uneven wear across several tractors, and every one of them looks like it has its own alignment problem.
Fleets then align tractors, repeatedly, and the wear comes back. The cause was never in the tractors.
Finding it means looking at the trailers, which almost nobody does, because the trailer is the asset with no driver attached to complain on its behalf.
What gets measured
Axle alignment to the kingpin, the relationship between axles on a tandem or tri-axle, and the suspension and mounting hardware holding everything in place.
Where a fleet has a persistent problem, measuring a tractor and a trailer together is what identifies which is responsible, and heavy-duty truck alignment is run from this store.
Finding the bad trailer
- Check which tractors are wearing drives early, and which trailers they have been pulling.
- Look for a trailer where one position is always the one replaced.
- Watch a loaded trailer on a straight road from behind; one running off-center is visible.
- Start with the trailers that have taken a hit, been loaded badly, or worked rough ground.
The casing argument
A trailer position scrubbed on one shoulder will not pass at the plant. This store collects casings for the Boise plant, and trailer casings retread well when they wear evenly. See retreading.
About this store
The Idaho Falls commercial store carries trailer tires and every other Purcell category, and is managed by Bill Goode. Boise and Twin Falls also align trailers.
See the national trailer alignment page for all 36 locations.