Preventive maintenance schedules for semi trucks in Canada

What NSC Standard 11 Part A asks of a carrier

The National Safety Code is a set of 16 standards that every province and territory uses as the base of its commercial vehicle rules, either adopted by reference or copied into provincial law. Standard 11 covers maintenance and periodic inspection. Its Part A is the maintenance program; Part B is the periodic motor vehicle inspection that Western Canada calls the CVIP, covered in our CVIP and periodic inspection guide. Driver trip inspections sit in Standard 13 and facility audits in Standard 15.

Part A applies to every commercial vehicle under the NSC: a truck, tractor or trailer, or a combination, registered over 4,500 kg gross vehicle weight, and a bus with more than 10 seats including the driver. Some jurisdictions exempt particular vehicles, such as units leased for 30 days or less, fire trucks or ambulances.

The core duty is short. Each carrier must systematically inspect, repair and maintain every commercial vehicle under its control, owned or leased, trailers included, at regular intervals. Parts and accessories must be in safe and proper operating condition at all times, replacement parts must meet the original maker’s or an industry specification and be properly installed, and every unit must be properly lubricated and free of fluid, oil and grease leaks. The wear limits in the standard are guidelines; where the maker’s limit differs, the maker’s limit is the one to use.

How it is enforced

Part A has no roadside enforcement. It is checked in the facility audit: the auditor chooses a number of vehicles at random, asks for their files and looks for records that are current and complete and a program that covers the standard’s minimum. A missing program or out-of-date files is recorded as a violation on the carrier’s profile in its home jurisdiction and affects its safety rating. In Ontario that profile is the CVOR record, which also tracks CVSA roadside inspections, reportable collisions and convictions, and audit results can change it.

The standard also treats roadside and periodic inspections as a test of the program. Infractions found at those inspections can be a sign that the maintenance program is not adequate and may prompt an audit, which is one more reason to read your roadside results alongside your PM records.

What each vehicle file must hold

Standard 11 asks for an up-to-date maintenance and repair record for every truck, bus and trailer. Read together, its general requirements and its compliance section call for:

• Identification: licence plate, unit or company number, make, model, year, serial number (VIN) and tire size, plus the lessor’s name if the unit is leased.
• The schedule: a way to show the nature and due date of each inspection and maintenance job, and a description of the type and frequency of regular maintenance.
• The work: the date and nature of every inspection, repair and maintenance job, with the parts replaced, the invoices and the odometer reading at each visit. The standard suggests marking measurements on your inspection forms.
• A lubrication record.
• Modifications: any axle or suspension change that affects the gross vehicle or gross axle weight rating.

Files are kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained for at least two years, and for six months after a unit is sold, destroyed or returned to its lessor. The standard warns that many jurisdictions want proof of maintenance, such as brake repair invoices, kept four or five years, and that some require a safety plan that includes a maintenance plan. Our guide to truck maintenance records goes through filing in more detail.

How Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta apply it

Ontario

Ontario’s preventive maintenance inspections must be part of the operator’s maintenance plan and schedule and be done by a qualified technician at prescribed intervals. Section 16 of Regulation 199/07 under the Highway Traffic Act lists what operators keep for each commercial motor vehicle, trailer and converter dolly. It tracks Standard 11 closely and adds a few items: for a unit you do not own, who supplied it and the first and last dates you ran it; the name of the person who did each inspection, maintenance job or repair; the invoice from any outside shop and for every part bought; the closing odometer reading; the types and frequency of inspections and maintenance under your own system; and copies of safety standards and annual or semi-annual inspection certificates.

Ontario keeps those records at least two years or, for a unit that leaves the fleet, six months after it stops operating, whichever is shorter, at the principal place of business or another terminal. Electronic records are allowed. The periodic inspection itself falls under Regulation 611.

Quebec: mandatory maintenance and the PEP

Quebec writes a maximum interval into its own rules. Heavy vehicles of 4,500 kg gross vehicle weight rating or more, along with tow trucks and some others, must have mechanical maintenance at least once every 6 months. The owner can do the work in house or send it out, but stays responsible for it being done correctly and on time. Each maintenance sheet shows the vehicle’s VIN, plate or unit number, the odometer reading, the service date, a checklist for the vehicle class marked compliant or not compliant, any repairs needed and the signature of whoever did the work. From 7,258 kg, the brakes are measured every 6 months (lining thickness, or camshaft rotation where the linings cannot be measured) and recorded on the sheet or in the SAAQ’s brake and tire measurement record. Sheets stay in the vehicle record covering the last 2 years of use and 12 months after the vehicle is disposed of. The SAAQ is clear that this maintenance does not replace the periodic mechanical inspection.

The alternative is the preventive maintenance program (programme d’entretien préventif, or PEP; the SAAQ’s English pages call it the PMP). A heavy vehicle owner may have its own program recognized by the SAAQ, and the vehicles in it are then exempt from the mandatory periodic mechanical inspection. In exchange the owner uses qualified mechanics (from 7,258 kg they must have passed a preventive maintenance exam the SAAQ recognizes), affixes compliance stickers, fills out and keeps maintenance sheets, makes the repairs and follows the maintenance interval schedule. When a mechanic finds something that could fail before the next service, it is repaired at once or planned before that service. A vehicle taken out of the program must pass a periodic mechanical inspection within 3 months of the SAAQ’s written confirmation. The SAAQ also expects the vehicle record to show the upcoming inspection schedule based on the owner’s recall criterion, which is a PM schedule by another name.

British Columbia

BC’s Motor Vehicle Act Regulations require every NSC carrier, one truck or a hundred, to keep a safety plan and a scheduled vehicle maintenance plan. The CVSE’s safety plan guidelines say the vehicle plan should include a maintenance schedule (A, B, C and so on) and check sheets for each type of vehicle and trailer, covering at least the power train, suspension, brakes, steering, instruments and auxiliary equipment, lamps, electrical system, body and frame, tires and wheels, and couplers, with brake lining or pad, rotor or drum and camshaft rotation measurements. The same guidelines list maintenance records, repair and parts records and CVIP reports as kept three years, and records for a vehicle you no longer have at least six months.

Alberta

Alberta requires carriers to have an effective maintenance and inspection program. The province’s summary of program requirements (last updated July 2016) shows a written maintenance program and complete vehicle files for carriers holding a Safety Fitness Certificate, whether they run only inside Alberta or across its borders, and Alberta requires training for all applicable staff, mechanics included, in the safety laws, maintenance program policies among them. A provincial carrier that needs a certificate must cover every commercial vehicle it has registered over 4,500 kg in its program, not only those over 11,794 kg.

Other provinces apply Standard 11 through their own regulations. Before you settle intervals and retention periods, check your own province’s rules.

A, B and C service levels in kilometres

Standard 11 calls the original equipment maker’s service schedule the single best piece of advice for designing a maintenance program, and says the maker’s minimum schedule should be followed. On top of it, many carriers run tiered cycles that combine elapsed time and distance. The examples below come from the standard itself. They are illustrations, not legal limits.

Whatever cycle you choose, by time or by distance, the standard says you must follow it. The duty is ongoing, unlike the periodic inspection with its fixed date, so a schedule that exists on paper but drifts in the shop is the gap an auditor will find.

The brake work pays twice. The periodic inspection is meant to measure internal brake components, which can mean pulling wheels, but a carrier that measures brake components and keeps the repair invoices during normal maintenance can use the alternative brake inspection methods in Part B and avoid much of that time and cost. The standard calls it best practice to measure and record drum diameter and shoe lining thickness, or pad and rotor thickness, at every comprehensive brake inspection.

Kilometres or miles

Standard 11 gives its measurements in metric and its example intervals in kilometres, so a program written to it naturally runs in km. Some engine and component manuals quote miles instead. Convert once, write both numbers into the program, and make sure everyone in the shop reads the same column.

Worked example

Unit 27 is a highway tractor on a B service every 20,000 km or 90 days, whichever comes first, inside the range the standard gives. Its last B service was on August 4 at 618,400 km, so the next one is due at 638,400 km or on November 2. The truck covers about 3,000 km a week, so it reaches 638,400 km around September 20, six weeks before the date. Distance wins, and the shop books it for the week of September 14.

Sample PM checklist by Standard 11 system

Start from this list and add every item your engine, transmission, axle and trailer manuals call for. The rows follow the system sections of Standard 11 Part A, so a unit that clears its C service should be close to ready for its periodic inspection. Where a figure appears, it is a Part A guideline and your maker’s limit comes first.

Before winter

Standard 11 has no seasonal service. Schedule 1 of Standard 13 does make two cold-weather items major defects: a defroster that cannot keep the windshield clear, and a wiper or washer that fails to clear the driver’s side when the weather calls for it. Checking the heater, defroster, wipers and washers at the service that falls before the first snow keeps those defects from showing up on a driver’s trip inspection in January.

Building your schedule, step by step

1. Open a file for every unit. Plate, unit number, VIN, make, year, tire size, lessor if any, and the current odometer reading. This doubles as the identification record Standard 11 and your province ask for.
2. Gather the makers’ schedules for the engine, transmission, axles, aftertreatment and trailer components, and pick the one that matches how hard each unit works.
3. Sort the work into levels so each visit has a fixed checklist and a predictable bay time.
4. Set a trigger for each level: kilometres, months, or whichever comes first. Trailers usually run on months.
5. Add the provincial dates. Put each unit’s periodic inspection on the calendar with the C service ahead of it, and in Quebec make sure no heavy vehicle goes more than 6 months between maintenance visits.
6. Write the program down: the type and frequency of maintenance for each class of vehicle, as auditors and BC’s and Alberta’s rules expect.
7. Close the loop with drivers. Defects from trip inspection reports get corrected and filed, and each PM visit starts by checking that they were.
8. Review every quarter. Compare breakdowns, roadside results and repeat repairs with the schedule, and change an interval only with the reason written in the program.

A complete file per unit is the evidence for every interval you shorten or stretch. RigMD runs on the TruckerPro TMS, and TruckerPro’s fleet maintenance software keeps each unit’s schedule, service history and documents in that one system.