A 30 minute chat with a fleet manager in Boise made me rethink how I quote labor

I had a fleet manager pull me aside last week after I replaced a fuel pump on one of his Kenworths. He said I was the only mechanic who actually told him what could fail next instead of just fixing what broke. That hit different because he showed me his spreadsheet of repair costs across 14 trucks, and the cheap fixes were costing him twice in downtime. Now I'm asking every customer about their typical routes and load weights before I write an estimate. Anyone else started doing maintenance forecasts instead of just repair quotes?

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the_blair2d ago

Ran a similar number once on a dump truck that kept blowing brake chambers, turned out the guy was hauling wet gravel up a 6% grade every day and nobody ever asked about that. Funny how a ten minute question about their routes saves everyone a headache later.