Look What Happens to a Low-Mile Ford Diesel With Tons of Idle Time and No Maintenance
The average car is maintained based on a time schedule or the mileage, measuring the useful life of lubricants and wear items on the engine. Vehicles can rack up hours and hours of idle time while doing very little mileage at all. If ignored, the result can be catastrophic engine damage.
For example, a 2016 Ford F550 with the 6.7L Power Stroke engine with just 27,000 miles did duty as a tow rig for an auction company. Spending much of its time idling or doing low-speed jobs on the lot, it may have been maintained according to a typical time or mileage schedule.
The oil pan had large amounts of sludge and the oil pickup looked almost entirely blocked. The oil itself was a rich grey-black color, showing it had gone far beyond a reasonable change interval and picked up plenty of little bits of engine along the way. The turbo was also destroyed from a lack of sufficient lubrication.
Read the article at The Drive.
NAFA I&E Virtual Experience
September 13-15, 2021
I&E Virtual Experience, which takes place 12 days after the I&E in-person event in Pittsburgh, will provide education, peer networking, and access to the best products the fleet industry has to offer.
This Virtual Experience is not meant to replace the live event, but in fact augment the experience for those fleet professionals who traveled to Pittsburgh as well as provide a taste of the show to those who could not attend the in-person I&E.
I&E Virtual Experience consists of three days of sessions, some recorded at live I&E and some created specifically for the virtual event. Chat features will allow you to connect with fellow attendees. There will be an enhanced exhibitor directory giving virtual attendees access to the exhibitors who displayed at the live event.
NHTSA Faults Risky Driver Behavior for Rise in Traffic Fatalities
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today released the Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First Quarter of 2021.
NHTSA estimates that 8,730 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the first three months of 2021, a 10.5% increase from the 7,900 fatalities the agency projected for the first quarter of 2020.
These increases in fatalities come even as driving declined; preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration show that vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the first three months of 2021 decreased by 2.1%, or about 14.9 billion miles. The fatality rates per 100 million VMT for the first quarter of 2021 increased to 1.26 fatalities per 100 million VMT, up from the projected rate of 1.12 fatalities in the same time last year.
To assist stakeholders in evaluating the trends and identifying countermeasures, NHTSA today also released the 10th edition of Countermeasures That Work. This report supports a proactive, equitable safe system approach to eliminating fatalities on our nation’s roads, and addresses the safety of all road users, including those who walk, bike and drive.
Ram Top Auto Brand in J.D. Power 2021 Initial Quality Study
J.D. Power released the results of its 2021 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS) today, finding that new-vehicle quality has improved two percent overall from 2020.
"Owners are caught in the middle when vehicle and phone technologies don't properly connect," said Dave Sargent, vice president of automotive quality at J.D. Power. He continued to say that "with more vehicles being fitted with the wireless technology owners want, the study reveals an increase in connectivity problems between smartphones and vehicles, leaving many owners unhappy."
For the first time since the study's inception, Ram is the highest-ranked brand in overall initial quality.
Read the article at J.D. Power.
Driving Technology Promises Large Safety Benefits for Teens
Crash avoidance features and teen-specific vehicle technologies have the potential to prevent or mitigate up to three-quarters of fatal crashes involving teen drivers, a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.
Front crash prevention, lane departure prevention and blind spot monitoring could be relevant to about a third of teen driver deaths and a quarter of teen driver injuries. Vehicle features and smartphone apps designed specifically to make teens drive more safely could apply to nearly a third of teen driver injuries and as many as two-thirds of teen driver deaths.
About a fifth of injuries of 16- and 17-year-old drivers and a third of their deaths occurred between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. That suggests that apps that notify parents of curfew violations could deliver safety benefits if parents are serious about enforcing nighttime driving restrictions.
Read the article at IIHS.
