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September 20, 2000 10:24 AM, EDT

Fleet managers and owner-operators know “winterizing” isn’t what it used to be. Where it once meant installing special fluids and equipment, that’s pretty much passé if they’ve spec’d the vehicle properly and maintained it year-round.

Innovations in components and improved manufacturing techniques have helped to reduce many of the worries about breakdowns because of parts. They also have enabled vehicles to travel longer between maintenance checks, with most truck makers increasing their recommended intervals for inspecting or changing fluids and other items.

However, a trucker tooling down the road during cold weather is presented with some different considerations. Anyone who lives in the chilly winter climates knows that if something is going to break, it will break in bitter cold weather.

For a company drivers or an owner-operator concerned about getting a load delivered on time and safely, winter is not the time, and the road is not the place, to be crawling under the truck fixing something that should have been caught before.

For the full story, see the Sept. 18 print edition of Transport Topics. .