The Automotive Blog

 The National Association of Police Fleet Managers Conference and Exhibition is now one of the most important emergency service transport events in Europe.

Matthew Burke Sales Director of aide automotive ltd stated ” to exhibit the miss fuelling device to all the emergency services is a ideal, also we intend of promote all our tyre pressure monitoring devices and our latest driver monitor “Driver Eye”.

aide automotive will be exhibiting the latest Miss Fuelling device for desiel vehicles, the RightFuel is a universal device for most diesel vehicles, simple to fit and 100% prevention of mis fueling the RightFuel is bound to be a hit at the NAPFM.

Misfuelling is a costly problem for lots of companies, when employees fill diesel vehicles with petrol. It’s estimated that at least 150,000 drivers put the wrong fuel in their car each year, one every three and a half minutes!

However there is a device that stops misfueling ever becoming an issue. Right Fuel is a smart little gadget that is a direct replacement for a filler cap. The device’s cap incorporates both a vacuum and pressure relief system to enable it to replace almost all automotive filler caps. The device allows a diesel nozzle to be inserted however if someone attempted to insert a petrol nozzle  it would butt up against the device, and quickly alert the user that the wrong nozzle is being used.

With the high cost and inconvenience of a diesel engine being misfuelled with petrol, this device will cut out expensive repair costs and vehicle downtime.

Right Fuel was designed and is made right here in the UK under strict quality guidelines.

Your vehicle’s battery is not very demanding, and most often only thought about when it fails. But just a small amount of care and mantainence will help insure it doesn’t let you down when you need it most.
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Lack of battery care and maintenance combined with cold weather has a way of bringing out the borderline batteries that were fine in the summer, but don’t have the power for a cold weather start. And not just winter, battery care and maintenance is a year round requirement. You want to catch a bad battery before it lets you down, usually on one of the coldest days of the year.

Testing and maintaining a battery is fairly simple and only requires a few basic tools.

If you have a car battery, it is highly recommended that you use a good quality Midtronics tester. There are quite a few types of Midtronics testers. The latest MDX with built in printer are much easier to read and I don’t have to stand there trying techncial information.

Analog (needle type) voltmeters are not accurate enough to measure the millivolt differences of a battery’s State-of-Charge or measure the output of the charging system. A battery load tester is optional.

Midtronics tester of the latest up to date technology for testing car batteries or truck 24 volt batteries.

Also charging a battery is highly recomended,  CTek chargers are an ideal solution to keep a battery recharged.

An out-of-control lorry which smashed into an office and killed two women could have caused a “massacre”, a coroner said. Two women died when the 35-tonne truck crashed through the front of an estate agent’s office in High Wycombe on 14 June 2002. Buckinghamshire coroner Richard Hulett said it had been a lottery which of the many people out in the town centre would be hit when the lorry’s brakes failed at the top of a hill. The driver and his employers DE Transport have been summoned before Wycombe magistrates for failing to maintain the brakes and exceeding the weight limit on a vehicle.

The driver’s statement included that he told police the vehicle had had brake problems four to six weeks previously, but these had been fixed by a garage.

Sales Director Matthew Burke states “With BrakeCheck ( a modern day decelerometer) you have a hard copy print out that is time and date stamped to prove brakes are checked and are to the required braking efficiency, reviewing the above article its always easy to speak with hindsight but this is a warning for today’s vehicle operators to do their up most to check and report on BRAKES”.

Poorly educated and trained company car drivers are causing thousands of breakdowns a year because they are failing to carry out basic vehicle maintenance and are not fully briefed on the vehicle they are driving.

Company drivers are putting petrol into diesel cars, which can cost up to £6,000 to repair, and plugging so many electronic gadgets into their cars that their vehicles’ batteries run flat.

Such common mistakes, which according to the RAC mean fleet vehicles are off the road for 11,757 days annually, could be avoided if drivers conducted simple maintenance checks and undertook driver training.

The RAC estimates that over 40,000 fleet breakdown call outs could be avoided this way.
The company’s analysis of fleet vehicle breakdowns revealed that 17 out of the top 20 reasons for breakdowns are beacuse drivers fail to carry out simple actions.

The top call out is for punctures, although this has more to do with health and safety policies than poor driver education, as Debbie Floyd, fleet manager for Bauer, explained.

“The days of a young female sales rep trying to change a flat tyre at the side of the road are over,” she said.

“It is part of our driver health and safety policy that a breakdown service must be called to repair a puncture.”

The most common avoidable call out is for flat batteries.

“Fleet vehicles have become like mobile offices with more and more current-hungry gadgets, such as mobile phones, PCs and navigation systems, and drivers seem to think their cars are bottomless pits of energy,” said Elvin Ravenscroft, tactical development manager for RAC.

“Modern batteries are designed for a high discharge of power when starting the car, but not for a constant, steady power flow as in the case of lights or charging mobile equipment.”

Fleet drivers are continuing to mis-fuel their cars in massive numbers.

Diesel contamination now makes up almost a quarter of the top 20 driver-induced faults.

“If a vehicle is misfuelled, the car should not be unlocked and the key should not be put in the ignition.

“Under no circumstances should the engine be started, since it could result in a repair cost of around £200 to have the fuel tank drained and between £3,000 and £6,000 to repair an engine,” said Mr Ravenscroft.

As well as education regarding their vehicles, fleet managers must continue to ensure their drivers improve their road skills.

RAC data revealed that fleet drivers are twice as likely to be involved in a collision as an average motorist.

“If fleet drivers adhered to road rules, took adequate breaks to avoid tiredness or considered undergoing training to improve driving skills, the number of fleet call outs to a collision could be reduced by as much as 50%,” said Mr Ravenscroft.

The Launch X431 scanner is one of the Most Comprehensive Diagnostic tool in the automotive diagnostic market, providing the best software updates very close to dealer OEM quality, diagnostics for the garage workshop in one affordable unit.

Best of all, the X-431’s vehicle coverage continues to grow, with simple internet-ready updates accessible to you at the click of a button. Unlike other tools and diagnostic equipment, the X-431 is an investment that actually increases in value as time goes by. The LAUNCH X431 internet database features newly added diagnostic interfaces and car models on an almost weekly basis- making this rapidly expanding technology an essential investment for the professional auto technician.

More than just reading & clearing fault codes – goes far beyond Accesses
The complete vehicle, including: drive, chassis, body, and the Data bus networking communication modules
Live data and graphing performs actuations and adaptations, key programming, body module configurations
Technical Support and Training

Matthew Burke Sales Director of aide automotive ltd states “A diagnostic tool is a must for the modern day garage, without a diagnostic tool repairs will be outsourced more and more leaving your fitters and garage redundant, diagnostic is the future of repairing and once trained is not difficult to use and understand. What was once considered a luxury tool is now a necessity to run a productive business.”

Brake efficiency and balance is usually checked on a roller brake tester. In certain cases where a roller brake tester may not be used (for example on certain 4-wheel drive vehicles) it may be necessary to check brake efficiency and balance on a road test, with a portable decelerometer.

What Is It?

The Tapley Brake Test Meter is a scientific instrument, indisputable in its accuracy as it is based on one of the basic laws of applied physics. It consists of a finely balanced pendulum free to respond to any changes in speed or angle, working through a quadrant gear train to rotate a needle round a dial. To damp out all vibration, the instrument is filled with a special fluid not sensitive to changes in temperature. No maintenance is necessary. The same meter can be used to test all types of vehicles, from heavy trucks and buses to vans and passenger cars. It needs no electrical connections and it’s so portable that you can take the Tapley Meter to the vehicle instead of the other way around.

How Does It Work?

To set the instrument for a brake test, start by loosening the two butterfly nuts at the sides of the swivel-mounting bracket. Tilt the head until the main needle (with arrow) is set at 3.5 if the unit is in meters or 13.4 if in feet with the face of the instrument JUST BACK FROM THE VERTICAL. This is important because it can be set with the face nearly horizontal, but it would then be near the end stop and would not move anticlockwise. When set in this manner the butterfly nuts can be tightened again, and the instrument is ready to start the test as pictured to the left.

With the main needle set, the recording needle (without arrow) should be turned clockwise by means of the chrome knob in the middle of the dial until it is against the left hand side of the main needle. The vehicle is then driven along a level road at about 20 miles per hour or 30 kph, and the brakes fully applied by means of the foot brake pedal only. When the vehicle has stopped the brake efficiency reading can be taken from the figure shown by the recording needle on the inner brake scale. Stopping distance readings are taken from the outer scale figures. A similar reading should now be taken from a lower speed using the handbrake only.

Tapley Testers have now been replaced with mordern electronic testers such as BrakeCheck from aide automotive ltd

Benefits of Tyre Pressure Monitoring

Unparalleled safety. Better fuel efficiency. Longer tyre life. Maximum performance … and you thought tyre pressure was just a bunch of hot air.

Convenience – Full-time tyre monitoring means you can check your tyre pressures from the safety and comfort of the driver’s seat. It also reduces the possibility of time-consuming tyre repairs and ill-timed flats.

Pressure Pro & AirAlert tyre monitoring systems deliver the same benefits to drivers whether they are behind the wheel of a passenger car, a powerful off-road mining truck, or a high speed race car.

Safety – Incorrect tyre pressures can compromise the stability of a vehicle, its handling and braking and, in extreme cases, could contribute to an accident. Also, most non-crash auto fatalities occur while drivers are changing flat tyres.

Fuel economy – Under inflated tyres are costing you money. According to the Society of Automotive Engineers, a tyre with an inflation level just two psi below the optimum level measurably increases fuel consumption.

Protection – tyre monitoring protects against damage to expensive tyres and wheels.

Performance – When tyre pressure is kept at proper levels, optimum vehicle braking, steering, handling and stability are realized.

Visit www.aideautomotive.com for the AirAlert & Pressure Pro Tyre Pressure Montioring System

In the week when a leaked letter from the Home Office predicted that as the credit crunch bites, the levels of crime in the country could rise, the police in Lincolnshire have revealed that fuel siphoning has risen by 30% in the county in the past three months. The Home Office research said that as the economy takes a downturn, crime is likely to go up.

It points out that in the last recession, violent crime increased by 19%, something that Home Office minister Tony McNulty describes as “blindingly obvious”.

The evidence of how a slow economy can impact on crime figures is all too clear to see in Lincolnshire, where poilce expect fuel siphoning to continue rising as winter approaches. This warning comes after the theft of 250 litres of diesel from a foreign lorry, which was parked up on the A1 at Dry Doddington, near Grantham.

The fuel was stolen from the Volvo tractor unit as the Hungarian driver slept, between 11pm on Friday 22 August and 5am the following morning. A spokesman for Lincolnshire Police claims that fuel siphoning between May and August has risen 30%, compared to the same period in 2007. “There has been more of a problem since the hike in fuel prices and it will be more common in the winter with longer, darker nights. Drivers must avoid isolated lay-bys.”

Other firms in Lincolnshire have fallen victim to fuel siphoning, such as Swineshead-based HS Logistics. Assistant transport manager for the company.

Steve Pickering, states that before installing CCTV systems and fences, the crime was occurring on a daily basis. He says: “It was getting ridiculous.”

Anyone with any information regarding the Grantham fuel theft is asked to call Lincolnshire Police on 01476 402222.

 

To help protect against fuel theft and siphoning please review the TP Anti Syph and FuelKeep @ www.aideautomotive.com