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Rugged HVAC Parts for Fleets

Whether you are battling extreme winters, or in the heat of a desert, you need climate control systems to keep you comfortable and safe in your truck. However, when it comes to heaters and AC systems, what usually goes wrong with them, and how can you maintain them?

Recently we interviewed Pat Carroll, the Vice President of Sales for Red Dot.

Keeping Warm in the Winter

If you live in a climate that gets cold weather, you quite often rely on your heater to keep the temperature inside the truck at a comfortable level. However, sometimes your heater may fail. What is a typical reason for a heater malfunction?

“Primarily, as long as the heater core is specified correctly for the application, the only other things to go wrong occasionally are the blower motors, which may wear out, so you don’t get any air-flow through the system, or a water valve malfunctions which interrupts the flow of coolant into the heater core,” said Pat Carroll, Vice-President of Sales at Red Dot.

Technology has advanced when it has come to heaters. Trucks have no-idle auxiliary bunk heating systems. This is very important for several reasons. First off, it is important to give the drivers a good night’s sleep, because that makes it safer for everyone on the road. Also, this innovation of having heaters without the need to idle the truck is tremendously cutting back on emissions, and the wear and tear of a vehicle.

Heaters do wear out over time, and when that time comes, there are many options. When it comes to off-the-shelf heater units, what makes Red Dot’s products unique in terms of quality and performance?

Pat highlighted their quality when he said, “a product doesn’t go out of Red Dot without being fully designed, and validated… They are built to survive.” By having these strict policies when it comes to the quality of parts they manufacture, Red Dot can provide the heavy-duty aftermarket with high-quality parts that last.

Air Conditioning in Summer

Heaters can be lifesaving when it comes to cold climates, but what about when it is hot outside? That is when AC systems are crucial. However, AC systems do eventually wear out like everything else on a vehicle. What causes this wear?

“The number one cause of failure is due to refrigerant leaks. In today’s systems the compressor, which is the most expensive component in an air conditioning system, relies on oil returning to it, in conjunction with the refrigerant. Often, people develop a slow leak in their system, and do not notice until their compressor fails,” continued Pat Carroll, Vice-President of Sales at Red Dot.

The easiest thing to do to prevent your compressor from failing is to do regular inspections of all the joints, and hoses to see if there are noticeable leaks that need repair. Most of the maintenance is pretty simple but knowing how and where refrigerant phase-shifts between gaseous and liquid states can make diagnosing problems pretty straightforward. If you understand this and can do the maintenance, you will save your fleet lots of money.

New Thermal Management Technology

Red Dot has developed new technology like ProTecht that can prevent a failure. ProTecht gives fleet maintenance technicians the ability to diagnose, troubleshoot, and repair HVAC problems quickly and easily. It has charge sensing technology that monitors the refrigerant levels. If your level gets low but is still working, you get a warning. This allows the operator to get to a service center before his system fails.

Above all, when you buy a part, you want to trust that you are getting the best part for your money and that you can rely on it to last. You get what you pay for. By going with cheaper products, often it can end up costing you far more in the long run because of more downtime from failing parts. Going with higher quality HVAC systems and replacement parts will lower the overall cost of operation for fleets and owner/operators.


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Author: Taron H.

Taron is the Marketing Manager at The Heavy-Duty Parts Report.

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