Bendix Testing Confirms Link between Slack Adjuster Performance and Fuel Consumption
According to Bendix, a vehicle with one dragging brake can consume about one extra gallon of fuel per 90 miles. Traveling 400 miles per day could equate to an extra 4.4 gallons of fuel consumed each day.
Every fleet knows that small changes can have a big impact when applied to the number of vehicles and miles traveled per year. A tenth of a mile-per-gallon here or a few pounds of weight reduction there add up quickly. In testing the role that slack adjusters can play in a vehicle’s fuel economy, Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems concluded that minimizing even occasional brake drag can lead to reduced fuel consumption.
“When you consider every drum-braked wheel-end in a fleet, and the cumulative effects of brake drag on fuel consumption, it’s easy to see the importance of spec’ing the right slack adjuster,” said Mark Holley, Bendix director of marketing and customer solutions, Wheel-End. “Once you have a dragging brake, the only way to resolve it is to either burn through the friction to the point where the drag becomes insignificant or have a technician identify it and manually adjust the brake. Either way, this costs the fleet money through an increase in fuel consumption and/or additional labor/maintenance costs.”
A fleet with a unit that has dragging brakes can experience at least a 1.5% increase in fuel consumption, based on drag occurring 25% of the time. According to Holley, “A vehicle with one dragging brake can consume about one extra gallon of fuel per 90 miles. Traveling 400 miles per day, that means an extra 4.4 gallons are consumed each day.”