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Summer temperatures are soaring, and your cooling system has never been more critical. This July brings not just discomfort but genuine danger when truck cooling systems fail. Commercial drivers facing AC breakdowns or engine overheating find themselves in potentially life-threatening situations – stranded roadside in extreme heat or trying to stay alert in sweltering cabin temperatures.
The financial impact hits even harder. When cooling systems fail, fleets face immediate repair costs of $2,000-$3,000 plus approximately $1,000 per day in downtime. But smart maintenance strategies can prevent these costly disasters. Ken Brandt from Horton and Mike Helm from Arctic Traveler Canada share insider knowledge on selecting the right cooling technology and implementing preventative maintenance that actually works.
Did you know North American July temperatures have climbed steadily, rising from 22.1°C in 2019 to 23.7°C in 2023? This trend makes proper cooling system selection more important than ever. Whether your fleet needs on-off, two-speed, or variable speed fan clutches depends entirely on your specific application. Over-the-road trucks have vastly different cooling requirements than vocational equipment operating in logging, mining, or agriculture.
The experts emphasize starting AC system testing in April before service centers become overwhelmed. Running your AC just 15 minutes monthly during winter prevents dried seals and future leaks. Replacing relatively inexpensive components like dryers ($40-$120) whenever systems are opened prevents much costlier repairs ($700-$1,200) down the road. Focus on total operational costs rather than just immediate part prices – because a truck sitting idle costs significantly more than quality preventative maintenance.
Episode Summary
In this summer-themed episode of the Parts for Trucks Podcast, host Jamie Irvine dives into the critical topic of keeping commercial vehicles cool during the hottest months of the year. With rising temperatures posing serious risks to drivers and equipment, Jamie is joined by Ken Brandt from Horton and Mike Helm from Arctic Traveler Canada to explore preventative maintenance strategies, cooling system technologies, and practical tips for fleets. The episode emphasizes the importance of proactive care to avoid costly breakdowns and ensure driver safety and comfort.
Key Topics Covered:
Heat Risks for Drivers and Equipment: How extreme summer temperatures impact truck drivers, mobile technicians, and cooling systems.
Cooling System Failures: Common causes of overheating, including fan clutch issues and AC system leaks.
Fan Clutch Technologies: Overview of on/off, two-speed, and variable-speed fan clutches and their applications.
Preventative Maintenance: Best practices for inspecting and maintaining cooling systems, including air pressure checks, component inspections, and rebuild intervals.
Remanufacturing Insights: Horton’s high standards for reman fan clutches and how fleets can benefit from reman programs.
Inventory and Support Tools: Horton’s VIN decoder, Quick View tool, and Power BI reporting to streamline parts identification and availability.
AC System Maintenance: Tips from Arctic Traveler Canada on preventing AC failures, including running systems in winter and replacing dryers after repairs.
Vocational Equipment Support: Specialized solutions for off-road, agricultural, and mining equipment cooling systems.
Arctic Traveler Canada’s HVAC support and custom coil manufacturing
Guest Bio:
Ken Brandt – Director of On Road, Horton: With over 40 years in the heavy-duty industry and 25 years at Horton, Ken Brandt brings deep expertise in fan clutch technology and fleet support. He oversees Horton’s On Road division and is a passionate advocate for preventative maintenance and customer training. Ken has played a key role in developing Horton’s remanufacturing standards and support tools for distributors and fleets.
Mike Helm – Arctic Traveler Canada: Mike Helm represents Arctic Traveler Canada, a company specializing in HVAC systems for commercial, agricultural, and off-road vehicles since 1960. With a strong focus on preventative maintenance and customer education, Mike supports fleets across Canada in maintaining reliable AC systems and minimizing downtime during extreme weather conditions.
Disclaimer: The Parts For Trucks podcast is produced by Parts for Trucks, Inc for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content, opinions, and views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or positions of Parts For Trucks, Inc. Read more...
Transcript
Ken Brandt:0:00
But we put the finest standards into our reman fan clutches. You know, if the outside's good, you're getting pretty much a new fan clutch, even though it's called a reman, and it's very high quality to the highest industry standards that we have out there as far as manufacturing and even our customers that rebuild, we offer training to help them do that, so it gets as close to our reman as it possibly can be.
Mike Helm:0:26
I always tell our fleets and everything here locally is, once you hit April, you need to start to truly turn those AC units on. You need to start running them. That's the time when you do the preventative maintenance is you. You start early, you get in early and you get ahead of the game, Cause if you don't, you could be looking at three to four weeks and three to four weeks in a class A truck with no AC. I don't know many drivers are going to drive it.
Jamie Irvine:0:52
You're listening to the Parts for Trucks podcast. My name is Jamie Irvin. I am the National Sales Director at Parts for Trucks and your host. In each episode of the Parts for Trucks podcast, you'll walk away with tools, strategies and knowledge to make your job easier, cut costs and elevate your performance in the trucking industry.
Megan Bouchard:1:14
Welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast, where we explore the latest trends, technologies and strategies in the heavy-duty trucking industry. Each episode you'll hear from industry experts to help keep your trucks on the road and your business thriving. Now let's get into gear. Here's your host, jamie Urban.
Jamie Irvine:1:34
This episode drops in July of 2025, which is typically the hottest month of the year in North America. While most people are planning summer vacations, the heat poses a significant risk to three groups of people. The first are the elderly. Chronic illness and medications put them in a higher risk category when we have heat events. Infants and small children are another group. They have unique physiological needs and are very dependent on caretakers, and so they also are at risk when we have heat events.
Jamie Irvine:2:08
The third group of people who are at risk are people who work outside. Now, they're in the elements, they're in this harsh environment. So if you think of construction workers or people who work, let's say, in road repair, they have to work outside all day long. We also could think of mobile technicians, who are outside at this time of year, and we can think of drivers, who aren't necessarily outside all day long, but if they happen to break down, they are put at a risk of heat exposure. So how hot does it actually get this time of year? I thought that'd be interesting to kind of review that, because the trend over the last few years has been one where things are getting hotter in the month of July. So in 2019, the average temperature in July North American wide was 22.1 degrees Celsius. By 2023, it had risen to 23.7 degrees Celsius. The average temperature had gone up that much. In July of 2024, it was hot. In the US, the average temperature was up 1.2 degrees Celsius and in some parts of Canada we saw average temperatures soar as much as 3 degrees Celsius. So the last few Julys have been very, very hot. To put it into context, last year, in July 2024, it was the 11th warmest July on record.
Jamie Irvine:3:34
So while truck drivers may not face the same risks as, let's say, construction workers or people who work on road repair, they do face risks when they have. One of two things occur. So you can imagine you're driving a truck and the AC system fails in your truck. All of a sudden, cabin temperatures go up. Now what could happen? Well, those warmer temperatures could cause the driver to fall asleep and that can be very dangerous for the driver and the public who that driver is sharing the roads with. And then, in another situation, the equipment. If the actual cooling system on the equipment fails and the truck overheats, it forces the truck to the side of the road. This driver is now broken down and stranded. They have to be outside in the elements or in that cabin with no AC, and it is pretty risky to be on the side of a highway. You have vehicles passing by that can be dangerous, but then also, if you're stranded for several hours, you then could suffer from heat exposure, heat exhaustion or even heat stroke, and so all of this is bad news for the driver. Then you have a mobile technician, perhaps a tow truck driver, who has to come out and work in that environment as well. So everybody is at risk, and this is all potentially avoidable if we do the proper maintenance on our vehicles and if we can make the right decisions about our cooling system so that our trucks are not breaking down on the side of the road.
Jamie Irvine:5:08
That's why, in this episode, we're going to talk about these unique challenges of operating commercial equipment during the hottest months of the year, and we're going to try to provide you with some tips from our suppliers on how to cool down. At Parts for Trucks, you have access to a complete line of cooling system parts, which includes rads, thermostats, water pumps, hoses, belts, fan clutches and related parts, ac compressors and condensers and much more. You can buy all of these products at PartsForTruckscom or if you go into any one of our 32 locations, we'd be happy to help you out. In addition to that, if you need someone to service or do preventative maintenance and inspections on your commercial equipment, we have 16 locations that provide service to you, coast to coast as well. So Parts for Trucks wants to keep you cool this summer. Now, to help me keep you cool, I'd like to introduce you to Ken Brandt, director of OnRoad from Horton. Ken has been with the company 25 years, but he's been in the industry for over 40 years. Those years just fly by, don't they, ken? They sure do.
Ken Brandt:6:18
Jamie, and I appreciate you inviting me to the podcast. It's a real honor.
Jamie Irvine:6:22
Well, you know, one of the reasons we wanted to talk to someone like you is because of your many years of experience and, as a distributor of both parts and a provider of service, our job at Parts for Trucks is to take care of our customers. We can't do that without support from vendors like you, so we're happy to have you here, you know. Let's just talk broadly about the kind of environment that fleets find themselves operating in right now. You know it's July, it's one of the hottest months of the year, and when you run hot you can run into a lot of problems. What kinds of issues do fleets have to contend with during the hottest months of the year?
Ken Brandt:7:00
Yeah, it's just going to be. The fan clutch will be engaging a lot more and that could cause overheating in the engine and everything's affected within the system. You know the ECM, electrical systems, tires, brakes, everything gets affected on there. But you know you have to run that fan to cool that engine and if you don't, the engine is going to have issues in there.
Jamie Irvine:7:21
Yeah, when the engine has issues, that stops you on the side of the road. I'm just kind of curious without going too deep into the details just yet, but from a high level what are some of the common causes of a truck overheating in these hot summer months?
Ken Brandt:7:36
Generally it's improper fan clutch technology, for example. There's probably five different types of fan clutches on-off, two-speed, electric, electric trucks, electromagnetic and now variable speed and that's kind of the kind of controllable viscous the technology coming over from Europe. So if you pick the wrong technology you may have overheating issues.
Jamie Irvine:7:58
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I guess also, even if you have the right technology, if you're not maintaining it, that could be an issue too. So if you find yourself in one of these situations where you're on the side of the road, the hood's up, your truck's overheated what does that cost? Customers that Parts for Trucks takes care of fleets, owner-operators, drivers what's the true cost of this kind of an overheating event?
Ken Brandt:8:24
It could be $2,000 to $3,000. You have the cost of the tow right and then you're going to have the cost of the repair and going back in and then we try to get the availability but there's not availability for that fan clutch or fan blade. It could cost you a lot of money in downtime. I think they estimate $1,000 a day per truck when it's down. So I can add up pretty quick.
Jamie Irvine:8:43
Yeah, sure, ken, and those are just the direct costs. I think of also the indirect costs. If you're a fleet, you have customers. Maybe you didn't deliver the load on time. Now they're upset. You could lose business there. On the other end of the spectrum, it's so hard to get drivers and if the equipment's always breaking down the driver may decide. You know what. I want to go drive for somebody else. So there's a lot of things to think about. So the stakes are very high for Canadian fleets operating in the summer months. Let's get into a little bit more detail. So when you specifically talk about picking the right fan clutch for the right application, those kinds of things, if you're an over-the-road application, how do you avoid this costly downtime?
Ken Brandt:9:26
Well, one of the things you can do is prevent a maintenance before your truck leaves and goes out on the road. Even the other thing that we kind of left out is that getting another truck out there to get the load and then taking it out, that's going to cost you even more money. But you want to check the liner. You want to check for any air leaks. Treat the whole fan clutch as a system, not just as an individual component. So there's different things that you want to check out. Which would be a solenoid valve, the number one cause of failures. You have airlines that go over hotspots and get crimped. You want to check those out.
Ken Brandt:9:55
There's a $5 compression fitting that goes in the back of most fan clutches. That leaks also and you can catch that. And then the fan blades. I lift up a lot of hoods and you'll see them cracked, chipped and a piece could go in the radiator and really cost you a lot of money. And the heat exasperates that. Up in Canada you guys get very much extremes. You get extreme cold, you get extreme hot and at extreme heat the fan clutch, or the on-off type fan clutch, is going to engage more during the summer, which means there's going to be a lot more wear on the wear items, so it's imperative that you do prevent and maintenance on that.
Jamie Irvine:10:29
Yeah, so we talk about over the road, but what about vocational applications? I think about Alberta, for example. There's a lot of oil and gas, there's a lot of forestry and logging in both British Columbia, Alberta, and in the East. So when you're in that vocational application, what might you be thinking about?
Ken Brandt:10:47
I'd be looking at a two-speed or variable speed. Because what happens with an over-the-road truck say you're going from Montreal to Vancouver, as an example? That fan clutch is going to be off probably 75% of the time and only operating 25%. But on those type of operations you've described, logging could be concrete. It could be concrete, it could be waste. There's not much ram air coming across in the summer during the heat, so the fan clutch is going to be constantly coming on and off to try to cool that engine.
Ken Brandt:11:18
And what a two-speed does? The back of the fan clutch is similar. In our case we've dropped in two magnets around a steel ring and it works off of eddy current and it works at half speed like four to 500 RPM, and then when you need more cooling, it'll come on at about eight to 900 RPM for about 60 seconds and then go back into the non-engaged eddy current mode. So what this does? It saves your fan clutch from engaging all the time. It will not wear. It'll save you some fuel, it's great for the fleet and it's perfect for those vocational type of applications that you run into.
Jamie Irvine:11:47
So if a fleet wants to have precision cooling for their equipment, what's the best option then?
Ken Brandt:11:54
Probably would be variable speed, and that's technology coming over from Europe. A lot of people call it controllable viscous. So there's a tether that's hooked into the engine. Ecm sends a signal inside a valve, into the fan clutch, and it just releases viscous fluid. So in the summer when it's hot, it'll release more viscous fluid through that valve and the fan blade will turn quicker and as it gets colder, like an extreme cold up in Canada, that valve will shut down and it'll go down as low as 100 RPM For Canada. It's a really nice item. It's good in the extreme heat and it's good in the extreme cold and it'll give you precise, accurate cooling that a pneumatic fan clutch will not give you.
Jamie Irvine:12:33
With these style of clutches? Are they kind of like reverse compatible, Like could we decide to retrofit an older vehicle or a vehicle with another style of fan clutch with this technology if we're having problems?
Ken Brandt:12:47
In some cases you can. At certain OEs you probably can because they're coming out on the first fit side with a variable speed and some you wouldn't be. We'd have to use the on-off or two-speed technology because in the aftermarket we could theoretically do it, but it'd be a lot of applications to create variable speeds for that Right On the pneumatic side. Obviously we, you, you have remands or you have rebuilt kits because of the messy, viscous fluid and variable speed. It's not that you can, can't rebuild it, but it gets kind of messy. Yeah, Fair enough, Fair enough.
Jamie Irvine:13:17
Well, we'll talk about remand in a little bit Before we get into that. You know you talked about preventative maintenance and the importance of that, but really what I'd like to understand, or have a better understanding, is what can fleets do to get the most life out of their cooling system? Walk us through the kind of procedure that Horton recommends fleets operate under to get that long life out of their system.
Ken Brandt:13:42
Well, you want to walk around the truck. There's a kit available that we usually give out for free. But you want to test the air at the solenoid valve with the fan clutch. If it's less than 90 PSI, you know you need to change that valve. That valve on any type of pneumatic clutch us or any of our competitors is critical, but you have to have proper airflow on that stuff. You know, just the fan blades, all that stuff plays into it. You know just the fan blades, all that stuff plays into it. You know, just before it leaves the garage and gets out on the road, you have to do a walk around on that truck and probably, as far as the fan clutch goes, you should probably look at rebuilding it, maybe every 300,000 miles.
Ken Brandt:14:19
And as I always say a lot of the seminars, when a fan clutch comes in, let's say, you know you guys are selling somebody a fan clutch, the fan clutch has 300,000 miles. Well, so those ancillary components also. So you have to change those out and that will really help the fleet with their preventive maintenance. But we actually have a. We have a checklist for the fleets, a preventive maintenance checklist they could go through. You know, for example, checking the liner if it's below one quarter of an inch, as an example. And then we do training, you know, with you guys no-transcript.
Jamie Irvine:15:17
these best practices and like in your experience, how important is it for the fleet to invest in that training with their people?
Ken Brandt:15:25
Very important because you know this, you go to a lot of the shows, like I do, and we're getting people with all various experiences out there. Some guys are really new. So, yeah, we really have to bring that level of training down to the appropriate level. Some of the guys are new, but when we do training we emphasize service after the sale. I think that's the key thing. But I like to teach rebuilding because then you see what's on the inside of a fan clutch. It's kind of important. Even if you're going to change out a remand, it's good to know what's inside that fan clutch so you can diagnose it. Is it air cartridge? Is it an O-ring? What is it? And when you open it up, there's not that many parts in there. It's pretty easy. When you pull it apart, it's not the most complicated thing. But you get all levels of experience out there and we try to get that experience down to whatever level we need to.
Jamie Irvine:16:14
That's kind of how we do it. Yeah, and how does Horton specifically support remanufacturing of their fan clutches? Go into details more about that actual side of the business.
Ken Brandt:16:24
So we have facilities in our main one. Our main offices are in Roseville, Minnesota. That's our head office, but our fan clutch and reman facility is in Britain, South Dakota. We follow ISO 9001 and 14001 guidelines on that, which are the highest industry standards Clemson, South Carolina. We also have a plant in Schweinfurt, Germany, and then we have one in China also. So we're a small, privately owned company but we're worldwide. But we put the finest standards into our remand fan clutches. Essentially, when you're doing a remand you reuse the shaft and the pulley. If they're at a mic or whatever, they get tossed into the scrap bin and a lot of times in our remand program we'll use some new ones if we don't have the core back, but everything else is pretty much new inside of there the bearings, the O-rings, everything. So if the outside's good, you're getting pretty much a new fan clutch, even though it's called a reman, and it's very high quality to the highest industry standards that we have out there as far as manufacturing.
Jamie Irvine:17:24
I think that's an important thing to just emphasize, because when you are remanufacturing components, you do that failure analysis and you get to see what's happening with the product over many, many millions of miles driven by all of the equipment. And so when you're manufacturing the aftermarket components that we would sell to our customers, or a complete reman unit, the customer can have real confidence in the fact that you've done these failure analysis, you understand where the failure points are and then you've proactively been solving those issues, wouldn't you say? That's true?
Ken Brandt:18:00
Absolutely. And even our customers that rebuild we offer training to help them do that. So it gets as close to our remand as it possibly can be. Of course, you know ours is almost like a military. You know inspection. We have inspectors that come in and check the facility, make sure that we're checking all the boxes and we're doing everything right. So it's a little bit higher level. At our level. We want to make sure we put out the best possible product for our fleet customers and our distributors.
Jamie Irvine:18:25
Yeah, and it's important. I think, when you are a fleet and you're operating in these difficult environments whether it's the extreme cold of the Canadian winter that's why they call it the great white North or if it's this extreme heat in the summer when you are purchasing parts, when you're thinking about, okay, what parts am I going to put on my vehicles, you want to choose distributors who invest in you. You want to choose distributors who have vendors who are going to invest in you. So let's talk about some of the things that Horton is doing specifically to support customers, like Parts for Trucks, and then, of course, the fleets and the owner operators and the drivers who buy from us. So, first of all, talk to me a little bit about the VIN decoder on your website.
Ken Brandt:19:07
Yeah, we have a 17-digit VIN decoder on our website, which you know parts for trucks a lot of our distributors use. Our distributors, like yourselves, are the backbone for Horton. You guys are a big help, helping us with our fleet customers and you know it's key that we give you and the fleets the proper tools, and the 17-digit VIN decoder is one of them the proper tools and the 17 digit Vindicator is one of them. Now we're a tier one first fit supplier, but not at all the OEs. So we're into aftermarket parts also and we have the competitors parts and stuff like that.
Ken Brandt:19:36
So occasionally, especially for you guys, you're getting everything in there. You're getting all kinds of makes, models and stuff like that. So with the Vindicator, if you have the 17 digits, we can give you the make, model year and then the part number and then below that we'll have the reman option, we'll have the kit option and then we'll have the fan blade option, sometimes on that also. So it's real easy for the guy to find. He doesn't have to make phone calls. All that information is right at his fingertips, along with cross-references. Also. There's a lot of good stuff on the Horton website Along with cross-references.
Jamie Irvine:20:07
Also, there's a lot of good stuff on the Horton website. So it's one thing, and it's a very important thing, to be able to identify the parts that are needed. It's totally another thing to have it in stock, ready to go for your customers. What investment has Horton made in the way of reporting to ensure that they help their distributors get the right inventory in the right regions at the right time?
Ken Brandt:20:27
Great question. There's two things that we really have. We've invested in 3PL quick ship warehouses, of which we have four in Canada. We have Calgary, montreal, toronto, winnipeg, but we have 16 overall. Purpose of that is to get next day ground to the distributor and then out to the fleet within like a day. You guys obviously have a great inventory on there, probably the most popular parts and what we try to provide for parts for trucks. We use a program called Power BI and we can see, for example, all the Horton parts that come into Winnipeg. So in that case we'll let you guys know about it. We'll work at the branch level. We'll also make sure our QuickShip Warehouse has a backup of those parts and the key is downtime with fleets, that we have that part for our fleet friends out there and it's available for them from our 3PL warehouses If for some reason you know it's an oddball that you may not have on the shelf.
Jamie Irvine:21:17
Yeah, knowledge is power, and being able to identify where a part is in the supply chain is a really important part of making good quality decisions. I think there's nothing worse for a fleet to bring a truck into their shop and start tearing it apart and then it sits for days because the part's not available. Talk to me about how Horton offers a quick view to people so that they can kind of get an understanding of where a maybe hard to find part is in the supply chain.
Ken Brandt:21:46
Yeah, the quick view is a really nice thing. It has no pricing in it, but you can get a username and password from Horton. You can then go in, put that part number in and you can actually see its location and the quantities, for example in Calgary or Winnipeg or something like that. It has no pricing, which is really nice, because a lot of people you don't want to give out all the information and stuff like that pricing, obviously, but it'll. It'll have where, where to get all that stuff.
Jamie Irvine:22:11
Well, and that's an important piece to it, cause, let's say, I'm working in a shop and I'm, I'm, you know, I know that it takes a day to ship from, from Winnipeg to me and you can see, oh, it's in the Winnipeg warehouse. That means parts for trucks can get it and ship it today, I'll have it tomorrow. Now I can plan when to fix that truck. So that's an important piece to it. With over 60 reps and direct personnel to help, what role do they play, working in the field alongside distributors like Parts for Trucks, to help fleet customers?
Ken Brandt:22:42
Yeah, we're available for training, obviously, at Parts for Trucks to work with your counter guys outside sales and to get full training in there. But we're also there to work with Parts for Trucks, to go out to the fleets and do fleet training, make calls and stuff like that. You know, as you know, jamie, it's a relationship business, so I think it's key. You know, sometimes the fleet managers they get very busy out there and we understand that we're not always out there selling. We're out there with good information, updates on fan clutches For the fleet maintenance manager. Knowing your distributor and supplier I think is critical because sometimes you get in those gray areas and we can help you out with policy and also we can help you out with warranty. I mean, to cut costs, the fleet should know their warranties from every supplier. For example, our reman is three years, 300,000 miles, so you want to take advantage of that and that's just. You know if it's within that warranty, not just go out and buy a new fan clutch when you can take care of your warranty for you?
Jamie Irvine:23:36
Yeah Well, when you're talking about remanufactured product, you're talking about cores. A lot of people say that cores is a four letter word, but when you think about managing your cores and you're returning them to parts or trucks, they're going back to Horton. What kind of assurances does Horton put in place to give customers confidence to stick with the Horton brand?
Ken Brandt:24:00
We have the easiest core program I think out there. So the way it works is pretty much. Any core is worth $400. Years ago we had a bad core where if it got shipped or it didn't turn you get dinged for $200. We got rid of that because that's what the customers wanted. So now it's real easy. The other aspects of our core program it's not like for like. So let's just say you're upgrading a truck using an on-off to a two-speed because now it's logging, you can send back that on-off core. It doesn't have to be the same exact part that you bought. And number three we take back any competitive cores.
Ken Brandt:24:35
We've all run into situations where we walk into a fleet and maybe a gentleman has one using as a doorstop or a barrel full of them, you know, and maybe they're getting rid of them, you know. You pick them up if it's fine with him and bring them back to the distributorship. If one of your good customers comes in doesn't have one, you can help them get out of a jam. It's probably 70% remands right now and 30% kits 10 years ago it was 30% remands and 70% kits. Because of the availability and the ease of doing business with cores. It's changed quite a bit. You're 100% right. Cores can really kill you if you're not careful the fleet and the distributor. So we're trying to make it easy for you guys with that.
Jamie Irvine:25:15
Go figure right. Make it easier for your customers and they do more business with you. Talking about making it easy, freight is a big cost for everyone. It's definitely gone up a lot in the last few years. So what has Horton done with their prepaid freight policy to make it easier to get Horton product in the hands of the customers who need them the most?
Ken Brandt:25:37
Yeah, believe it or not, during COVID, when everybody else went up with freight, we actually went down. So we were at $2,250 US, I think it was $2,500 Canadian dollars, and now we're at $1,000 US and was 2,500 Canadian dollars and now we're at a thousand dollars US and 1,300 Canadian dollars. So again, with that, combined with the availability on our quick ship warehouse, you know, it gives you guys more flexibility, gives the fleet more flexibility. We do care about your terms very much. We care about, you know, making sure the fleet has what they need, you know at the fleet and then you can, we can, give you the parts that you need to deliver those. So that's, it really counts for us, that's for sure.
Jamie Irvine:26:12
You know, I like to hear a story about how all of these elements came together to help out a customer. So tell me a story about, you know, one of the customers that you saw. Maybe you worked with a distributor and you were helping a fleet. You know what was the situation, what were they up against, how did Horton help them solve the problem and what was the outcome.
Ken Brandt:26:33
Yeah, we had a customer, I remember, down in Orlando and they had a original it was originally an on-off style fan clutch and they were going from probably Orlando out to California and back and then he repurposed that truck and he's doing delivery, starting and stopping all the time and that's where we kind of outfitted them with. He had probably 10 trucks that were doing that. So we gave him a free sample on the two-speed to check out. And the interesting thing with the two-speed one of the things, a couple of things we didn't mention two-speeds are pretty interesting in that if you're south of the Mason-Dixon line and a lot of your truckers from Canada go down there too, down to Florida and back to run in north-south Right, the criteria for using a two-speed is if you're minus 45 miles an hour average vehicle speed or south of the Mason-Dixon line. No-transcript. Uh, two speeds.
Ken Brandt:27:24
The only bad thing with them, uh, the pneumatic ones. Sometimes you can get a little bit of over cooling if it gets very, very cold in the winter time and that's where that variable speed aspect comes in. But generally in those Southern, the Southern hemisphere, you know that that thing's running because you you're talking about heat. There's heat all the time down there, even in February, uh, in Orlando. So you know we got him hooked up he's. You know we got him hooked up he's. You know they've had some really nice fuel savings down there. Their fan clutch is lasting a lot longer because it's not engaging all the time and hitting in and out, so that liner's saving and he's doing better preventive maintenance and those fan clutches are lasting a lot longer right now.
Jamie Irvine:28:02
Yeah, and you know you think about all of those little things that added up to savings. I mean, in a competitive environment where fleets are struggling at times to be profitable we've seen the whole environment over the last couple of years with the freight recession and other economic pressures on the trucking industry every little bit helps. So if you're listening to this right now and if you think that you could really use some help from both Parts for Trucks and Horton, reach out to one of our 32 locations, talk to your outside salesperson, talk to our counter, you know, hit us up on the website. We would be so happy to be able to bring out an expert and look at your situation and see if we can help. You have a similar experience. Thanks, ken, for coming on the show and sharing a lot of details about how people can keep cool this summer with Horton.
Ken Brandt:28:53
Thanks, jamie, it's a real honor.
Jamie Irvine:28:54
Well, I really enjoyed my conversation with Ken Brandt from Horton and I thought that he shared a lot of really great tips on making sure that your fan clutch is matched correctly to the application and is going to operate at peak efficiency and performance on your behalf. There's more to the cooling system than just fan clutches. You've got to think about the entire HVAC system. So I wanted to talk to one of our suppliers, arctic Traveler Canada. They've been in business since 1960. They're a trusted specialist in this space and they really have developed products and a great deal of expertise in industries like the trucking industry, agriculture, logging, mining, some of the vocational applications. So these are the people we need to talk to when we're talking about keeping cool in the hottest months of the summer. I'd like to introduce you to Mike Helm. Mike, welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast. So glad to have you here.
Mike Helm:29:51
Thank you very much for having me. I look forward to helping in any way I possibly can.
Jamie Irvine:29:55
So, as we're recording this right now, your area in Ontario has been hit with some pretty hot temperatures. You guys are really feeling it, so this is great timing to have this conversation. So let me ask you something, since July is often the hottest month of the year and we think of all the summer months as being these really high temperatures, and we got to run those commercial pieces of equipment regardless of what's going on outside. What would you say are some of the most common problems trucking outfits run into in the hottest part of the summer? Well, usually in the hottest part of the summer.
Mike Helm:30:29
Well, usually in the hottest part of the summer, you're going to run into a lot of what you're running into is small leaks, and small leaks eventually lead to oil being drained out of the system, which eventually leads to problems further down compressors, condensers and that's all done through preventative maintenance, of which we can talk about in a little bit. But it's usually that because the other problem people run into is when they turn their air conditioning on. They think it's going to be extremely cold. Well, as you mentioned here, we're sitting at 39 to 41 right now. The AC can only do so much. It will not ever reach the temperature that you think it should, and that's because of the ambient temperature that's outside that's affecting the airflow that's coming into it. So a lot of people don't understand that part of it. So the small things like that are what?
Jamie Irvine:31:16
mainly is happening right now, when we're in the middle of the heat wave. So let me ask you something. You mentioned preventative maintenance. Oftentimes I know my experience has been a lot of times people don't even think about it until they get a hot day, they turn their AC full blast and it's not working right. So what steps could have been taken prior to this heat wave and what steps should be taken on a regular basis to keep the system working properly?
Mike Helm:31:38
Well, there's two different questions in there, so I'll answer the first one. The first one is what steps you should do on a regular basis, yearly basis, monthly basis. One of the biggest problems is that the oil isn't circulating, which means the seals aren't getting lubricated, and every fitting, every connection on an air conditioning system has a seal or an o-ring that's keeping it sealed in and tight. So what happens is if you don't start your AC unit in the winter and you let it sit for six months until you hit that hot day and then you turn it over, Well what's happening is the compressor's engaging, it's moving the oil, but now you've had your seals and your oil rings dry for six months. So, as anything, if you're not going to run it, it's eventually going to dry up.
Mike Helm:32:19
What happens is it cracks, and a small crack when you understand AC, it's a gas and a liquid and a small crack in one of those that leads to it leaking out, and then that's what leads to cast-off failures further down the road. So the simplest thing I tell everybody is run your AC system heave when it's minus 15, run it to defrost your car window before you get in the car, things like that. It removes your moisture. It helps defrost your window anyways, so run it for that 15 minutes. Even if it's 15 minutes a month, that allows 15 minutes, even if it's 15 minutes a month, that allows it to stay lubricated and will solve a lot of your problems coming into the hot weather that we're going to experience and we're experiencing right now.
Jamie Irvine:32:54
Okay, and now the second half of my question. What happens when we get to this spot and it's not working? What do we do?
Mike Helm:33:00
Well then you're calling people like Parts for Trucks and like myself, and saying do you have availability of things? I always tell our good, our fleets and everything here locally is, once you hit April, you need to start to truly turn those AC units on. You need to start running them. You need to run them not for 15 minutes, you need to run them for a day, you need to run it for two days. And the reason being is when you hit a heat wave, like we are in June, july, right now, your garages and your stock levels and everyone is already backed up.
Mike Helm:33:32
So trying to find a mechanic that you can get in within a day or two is a lot more difficult now to get AC done than it would have been in April or at the beginning of May. That's the time when you do the preventative maintenances. You start early, you get in early and you get ahead of the game. Because if you don early, you get in early and you get ahead of the game, because if you don't, you could be looking at three to four weeks, and three to four weeks in a Class A truck with no AC. I don't know how many drivers are going to drive it. So you need to look at that ahead of time and try and get ahead of the game when it comes to any repairs or any issues that you're going to face, because the hot weather will always come and if you wait until it's too late, you're just far too late at that point in time.
Jamie Irvine:34:12
Yeah, exactly. So let's talk specifically, then, on some key products that people should be thinking about when they are inspecting these systems.
Mike Helm:34:22
You can do the bubble test, which is just, basically it's just water and soap and if it's bubbling up, you know there's a leak. That's a good one for condensing unix, same as spraying that mixture around the fittings and around the connections to see if there's anything that's bubbling out. That's a clear sign that there's air. One thing you never want an ac system is air. It is a closed system. When air gets in, the dryer, which is an integral part of the AC system, essentially becomes useless, because the dryer is to take the moisture out of the AC system. And what happens with moisture is moisture causes high head pressure on the compressor, which in turn causes it to eventually blow out the coil, which in turn causes the clutch to seize, which in turn rips out the belt.
Mike Helm:35:07
All of that is done through water and condensation. So anytime there's air in a system, anytime any piece of your system is replaced a condenser, a TX valve, even a hose line you need to replace your dryer. And I tell everyone this, and I say it, I preach it because you're opening the system and it doesn't matter what vacuum you put on there afterwards, you're never going to get the moisture back out. You're placing the dryer, which will cost you anywhere from $40 to $120, is going to save you on a $700 to $1,200 bill down the road, and you've already had the truck down. Your system's already open. There's no reason to not put that money out there at that point in time. Get it done, get it fixed right the first time, so you're not back in the shop in 8 to 12 months and now you got a much more expensive bill. Those are the small things that you need to know.
Jamie Irvine:35:56
It sounds to me like that's also part of the overall strategy, then, to like focus on total cost of operation as opposed to just the purchase price of some replacement parts.
Mike Helm:36:05
Absolutely it is. I always tell my bigger accounts is that, and my bigger accounts will tell me the same thing A truck down costs them a lot more money than bringing it in for the day and doing the AC. The AC repair itself and parts and labor doesn't compare to what the fact of that vehicle not being on the road and making money, or that piece of off-road equipment or that piece of ag is not out there making money, it's sitting. If they have to make that sit for more than a day because they can't get a part or they're not doing the replacement parts that need to be done the first time and it comes back in. That is overall cost way more than just doing it right the first time and taking the time to do it right the first time. So you're absolutely correct. The overall cost is much more beneficial to do the small things right when you first take that machine or that truck off the road.
Jamie Irvine:36:59
Mike, you mentioned other applications. A lot of our customers at Parts for Trucks we are coast to coast 32 stores from Newfoundland to British Columbia so we cover a lot of different vocations. A lot of our customers aren't just over the road. Can you talk to me just for a moment about maybe some of the unique offerings that your company has for those customers who maybe have some over the road highway equipment but they also have some vocational equipment? What do you offer them?
Mike Helm:37:27
Well, I mean, the good news is, between the partnership at Omega and Parts for Chucks is we do cover, naturally, we cover the Class A Chucks and we cover that extensively. But we also have the off-road and we have the egg. We do deal with the Ford New Hollands, the Ducens, the Komatsus, the Cats, the John Deeres. We even go as far as dealing with the Yarmouth and some of the Bobcat and we have the replacement parts for those as well. And the one thing I will say about this when it comes to off-road equipment, it's just as expensive to have down, but the product line is usually a little bit more pricey if you go through a dealership, comparatively speaking to coming to a Parts for Trucks. And the reason that is is it's 24 volt, it's a little bit more involved and there's a little bit more in-depth on it. But again, we do have and we do offer the product lines to backup, whether it be a hose line, whether it be a compressor or condenser. We also have the ability, through our coil manufacturers, to manufacture coils directly specific to replacement coils. So if it's not available anymore, whether it be through us or through our supply lines or through parts for trucks, we can take the coil and make it rate two spec from the original. So those are some of the different avenues that we have and some of the different backgrounds that we do.
Mike Helm:38:45
We naturally are strong, like I said, in class eight and the bigger on-road vehicles. But we've grown over, I would say, the last eight to 10 years and we've got much stronger and we have much more knowledge on the off-road and the mining and the forestry equipment. So if you do run into those, please do not hesitate. Call your parts for trucks. They're going to have the knowledge, they're going to have the backing and they've've always got us. Just in case they ever need to back it up, they can call us and we'll do what we can do to find it for you.
Jamie Irvine:39:12
We really appreciate having suppliers like you who support us in taking care of the heavy duty industry. It's the backbone of society, and so it's a real privilege for us to be able to support them, and we wouldn't be able to do it without suppliers like yourself. So, mike, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Mike Helm:39:30
I appreciate you having me. I thank you and, like I know, we're very grateful to have the working leadership and the partnership we have with Parts of Trucks and we continue to work with you and grow the business, and that's from coast to coast. So I look forward to 2025, 2026 and beyond. Bring, and you know, enjoy the hot while while we have it, cause it doesn't always last the longest. So enjoy it while we got it.
Jamie Irvine:39:51
So up here at the great white North the winter will return sooner than later.
Jamie Irvine:39:57
Thanks, mike. Thank you Appreciate it Well. This brings us to the conclusion of our episode about cooling systems and staying cool in the hottest months of the year. You've been listening to the Parts for Trucks podcast. I'm your host, jamie Irvin. In this episode, we learned about how to cool down in the summer with our commercial equipment.
Jamie Irvine:40:17
If you want to buy the parts that we discussed today, head over to partsfortruckscom and feel free to sign up for an account so that you can buy these parts online nationwide. But you also have the support of 32 locations. We'd be happy to have you come into the store and buy what you need. We have our 16 service locations as well, which are there to take care of your equipment if you don't want to do the repairs on your own. Also, I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to the Parts for Trucks podcast if you like what you've been listening to. You can do so by visiting partsfortruckscom slash podcast, you can go to our YouTube channel or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for tuning in to the Parts for Trucks podcast and, as always, I want to thank you for being heavy duty.
