For Volunteers, Do your engineers work on the apparatus?

When I started 30 years ago our engineers did minor maintenance on our engines. Now the guy we have favorite words are, "get it towed to the dealer" I understand things have changed since then but are there engineers that still change the oil and stuff?

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Permalink Reply by Mike Holden on May 2, 2009 at 11:13pm

Not in our department, although 90% of all repairs and preventive maintenance are done in house the work is completed by our maintenance officer and/or his assistant. Our chief officers will pitch in and help when our maintenance officer it tied up with his regular job. Other than that we don’t people who think they are mechanics working on the trucks.

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Permalink Reply by Fire Capt. 1304 on May 3, 2009 at 1:58am

We do alot of small stuff in house we have different people that are familiar with different areas of the equipment. Like I work on any light or siren issues with any of our equipment and even some stuff for our PD. We have some guys that drive semi trucks and are more familiar with the maintenance of larger trucks. But we also have a contract with the city garage in our nieghboring town to fix anything that we cant do ourselves which is really only major repairs.

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Permalink Reply by T.J. on May 3, 2009 at 7:43am

Yes we try to do all of our own work unless its something major.

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Permalink Reply by Tony P on May 3, 2009 at 8:31am

All of our vehicles are controlled by the FRS, and we are only allowed to do very minor work. The instruction is to call for the engineering department and let them fix the issue.

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Permalink Reply by Russ Griffith on May 3, 2009 at 8:44am

We only do minor repairs in house, anything else is done off-site by someone certified as an emergency vehicle technician,this is strictly a liability issue.If we service brakes, for example, in house and there is a failure causing damage or harm, the liability is ours to bear.

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Permalink Reply by Matthew J Strausbaugh on May 3, 2009 at 8:54am

Like most of you we do minor things in-house. Oil, filters, batteries, alternators, packing, lights, broken brackets, etc. Major engine work always goes out, and we never touch the brakes. We also have some truck drivers who know maintenance, and a number of farmers, and a few industrial maintenance guys so it makes for a nice mix to have the right information.

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Permalink Reply by Mick Shelley on May 3, 2009 at 9:45am

We don't do anything mechanical to the engine or transmission, however we do a lot of maintance
on ever other part of the trucks, and all the equipment on them

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Permalink Reply by Engineer k7 on May 3, 2009 at 10:23am

My dept., our chief engineer does about 90% of the maintaince on our vehicles, only about the other 10% goes to the dealer.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on May 3, 2009 at 11:37am

We used to do almost all PM/ etc in house. But then came along OSHA/EPA/ etc and a now retired chief became paranoid of being fined. Don't even refuel at the station anymore.