The Automotive Blog

The April issue of Commercial Vehicle Workshop features aide automotive in an article explaining the new Health and Safety (offences) Act. The article talks about the new law and how the maximum penalty has increased to £20,000 from £5,000 and an imprisonment of up to 6 months. 

This new act emphasises the need for businesses to demonstrate that they have health and safety procedures in place. Such as regular tyre pressure monitoring and brake tests. aide automotive has three products that can assist . BrakeCheck is an inspection sheet tester, designed for testing and reporting on brake efficency. For tyre pressure monitoring PressurePro and Air Alert are the answer.

The May issue of Caravan has a article describing AirAlert the excellent tyre pressure monitoring device for cars, vans, motorhomes and commercial vehicles.

AirAlert is as a stand device or as an anti theft version, to install check the pressure of the tyre, once set to the correct pressure screw the AirAlert on to the valve, once on the AirAlert will be calibrated to the pressure of the tyre.

When AirAlert sees a drop of 4 PSI a distinctive blink will flash until the valve is removed, the pressure is reset and the AirAlert is returned to the valve.

For more information go to to AirAlert at the aide automotive website.

Link to the aide automotive website.

Link to Caravan Magazine.

In these hard times, the FTA have announced a report on fuel duty increases and the effects to many road haulage business in the UK.

The FTA Say…

Increases in fuel duty – the second in just five months – will push many businesses already struggling with the economic downturn over the edge, according to the Freight Transport Association (FTA), which is warning of a sharp increase in insolvencies and job losses in the logistics sector.

Further more the  FTA suggest that insolvencies will also increase as they have done in the last few years.

To read the article in full please truck & CV .com by clicking here. 

Fuel is a massive commodity to any vehicle operatoring business, those that are yet to secure this commodity should consider fitting an anti siphon device.

To protect your fuel from thevies fit an anti-siphon device today!

ATS recently conducted analysis on it’s business that highlighted alarming statistics on tyres.

Over 25% of commercial vehicles inspected showed faulty tyres.  A quarter of vehicles were driving with faulty tyres. This goes to demonstrate that monitoring tyres and in particular tyre pressure on a  regular basis helps eliminate the risk of accidents occuring. 

aide automotive’s PressurePro product helps eliminates the need to check tyre pressure on a  regular basis as the monitor does it for you. Alerting the driver when any of the tyres falls below the recommended PSI.

Since tougher penalties have been introduced when the Heath and Safety Offences Act 2008 was introduced with minimum fines being raised from £5,000 to £20,000 and sentences starting at 6 months imprisonment, companies should seriously consider testing their brakes and monitoring the tyres of their vehicles on a regular basis. By demonstrating that a business has undertaken regular checks should alleviate any blame in the event of an accident taking place. However Fleet News believe there is still a lack of understanding of the new laws and the Corporate Manslaughter Act.

Conventional wisdom has it that problems with EBS / ABS systems fitted to trucks, trailers and buses, are best diagnosed via the vehicle’s Electronic Control Unit (also known as the ECU). However, since 80% of all EBS / ABS problems are sensor related*, by connecting to the sensor socket on each wheel rather than the ECU, you are, in effect, taking the quickest and most direct route, by going straight to the heart of the problem.

Designed with ease of use in mind the Sensor Master takes minutes to set-up, and, once connected, the Sensor Master undertakes a complete test cycle of the six most common causes of EBS / ABS faults,  in just 15 seconds – a fraction of the time it would take to perform the same tests manually.

*Source: Knorr-Bremse and Wabco

Information source abs trouble shooting.

Drivers who mis-fuel their diesel cars with petrol can expect a costly bill to repair the damage, according to Lex Vehicle Leasing.

The Lex maintenance department, which spends around £50m a year on the upkeep of its 123,000 vehicle fleet, is seeing repair costs range from £300-£3,000 depending on the type of diesel engine fitted to the car.
Most at risk are the modern common rail diesels which are built to more exacting tolerances than standard diesel engines. If petrol fuel gets into the common rail diesel system it can mean replacing both low and high pressure fuel pumps, injectors, rail, line filters and tanks, which can easily cost a few thousands pounds to fix.

“The cost of the repair depends on whether the driver has simply started the engine or they have driven it for a few miles with the wrong fuel in the system. The longer the petrol has been in the system, the more money it will cost to repair,” said Jamie Wiseman, Lex Vehicle Leasing’s maintenance manager.

“Manufacturers are now giving their dealers detailed advice as to which stage the mis-fuel has reached and the correcting action they must take. We had two Mercedes common rail diesels to repair recently which cost £3,000 per engine,” he added.

All costs to repair mis-fuels have to be met by the consumer as manufacturer breakdown cover does not cover mis-fuels, although they are likely to come out to your car and take it to the nearest dealership. Also if a car is on a PCP or contract hire agreement it will still be up to the driver to pay for the damage, rather than the finance company.

RightFuel is now the common device to stop diesel mis fuelling.

Actricle taken from carpages.co.uk

There’s an interesting article in Fleet News  debating the issues around businesses taking on young drivers and the implications on companies insurance. GM motors have taken a brave step of not employing drivers under the age of 22, in a step to reduce their insurance costs which they claim to have come down by £1.2 million in the first two years of introducing this policy. However there is a less drastic alternative, aide automotive have  introduced a new product called the Drivers Eye , an electronic sensor that monitor’s employee’s driving habits, giving immediate feedback and empowering companies to take responsibility for it’s drivers.

This product enables a company to monitor it’ employees whatever their age, however in particular it helps with younger drivers who are less experienced.  Not only does it enable companies to monitor driving habits but it also acts as a deterrent against dangerous driving if an individual knows they’re being monitored!

With tougher restrictions from the Health and Safety Executive regarding driving on business and corporate manslaughter, how can managers state they are doing everything reasonably practicable to reduce the daily road risks their drivers face?

Matthew Burke of aide automotive believes this product has the answer “This excellent device offers companies the ability to monitor drivers whilst they’re out on the road. Low cost and very easily installed The Drivers Eye captures key driving data in terms of speed, distance and sudden braking. This enables managers to assess employees driving habits and take proactive actions to improve the safety of other road users and there own  drivers”.

Daily walkround check or first use inspection

The check should consist of a walkround look over the whole vehicle or combination. The check should cover the external condition, ensuring in particular that the lights, tyres, wheel fixings, bodywork, trailer coupling, load and ancillary equipment are serviceable. Assistance may be required at some time during the inspection, for example to see that lights are working. A check of wheel nuts must be included as part of a driver’s inspection routine, if wheel trims are fitted, they will have to be removed in order to allow access. Loose wheel nuts feature regularly in the issue of prohibitions (PG9s) and are an obvious and potentially fatal road safety hazard.

Preventative Maintenance Inspections (PMI)

You must also ensure that vehicles are subject to preventative maintenance inspections (PMIs) in line with the time basis specified in your maintenance contract. Your PMI regime must include brake testing. Advice from the Vehicle Operator Services Agency (VOSA) states that reliable brake testing will require access to either a decelerometer or (preferably) a brake roller tester, the latter being available for public use at all goods vehicle testing stations subject to a nominal axle fee.
Operators who do not implement a full maintenance regime, but rely instead on annual test presentations as their main inspection indicator, will be reported to the Traffic Commissioner for non-compliance with an important undertaking attached to their licence. A poor annual test pass rate is indicative of an inadequate forward planning maintenance system.

Link to Transport Friends for further info: CLICK HERE

Manchester United footballer Wayne Rooney filled his wife’s Range Rover up with the wrong type of petrol and subsequently broke down, it was reported today.

Rooney, who is married to model and TV presenter Coleen McLoughlin, was driving from Liverpool to Prestbury in Cheshire when he was forced to pull over on the M62.

The customised Range Rover Sport V8 has a turbo-diesel engine – but the 23-year-old filled it up with unleaded petrol. This mistake can cost in the thousands to rectify.

An onlooker said the traffic was going quite slowly at that time so “we got a good look”.

“The hazard lights were flashing on the car and Wayne was standing talking to a Highways Agency patrol driver,” the driver said. “He looked pretty sheepish.”

Rooney has an extensive collection of cars including a BMW M6, Aston Martin Vanquish and a Bentley among others. Keeping up with the footie stars cars would reportedly be worth over £1 million.

All Wayne had to do was fit RightFuel the preventive miss fuelling gadget.