Your truck isn’t solely a bit of equipment. It’s your office. Your earnings. Your schedule. Your leverage.
And the second a DPF mild or engine fault reveals up on the dash, all of which will grind to a halt.
That actuality is strictly why this newest episode of The Prolonged Haul hit residence for thus many owner-operators. I sat down with Tyler Robertson, founding father of Diesel Laptops, to talk about one factor most small carriers don’t take into accounts until it’s too late: diagnostics, downtime, and who actually controls the restore course of when your truck breaks.
What bought right here out of that dialog was straightforward, nonetheless uncomfortable:
Prepared on retailers to tell you what’s unsuitable collectively along with your truck is among the many costliest habits in trucking.
Tyler didn’t come from Silicon Valley or an organization R&D lab. He bought right here from a truck dealership.
After getting kicked out of faculty for unhealthy grades, he went to work for his family’s truck dealership and found every aspect of the enterprise — elements, service, product sales, accounting. That’s the place the ideas started forming. Day after day, he watched autos can be found in broken and watched drivers wait. And wait. And pay.
Later, whereas working one different job and buried beneath the an identical type of debt most people carry — financial institution playing cards, loans, cars — Tyler started a aspect hustle. He found a diagnostic software program program out of Canada that might study every laptop computer on a enterprise truck, one factor that wasn’t widespread on the time. OEM software program program was locked down, fragmented, and dear.
He bundled that software program program with a laptop computer laptop and a cable, listed it on eBay, and acquired his first unit in 24 hours.
That was the start of Diesel Laptops.
Considered one of many largest takeaways from the dialog was this: Most breakdown costs aren’t attributable to elements. They’re attributable to uncertainty.
When a truck goes into derate or throws emissions codes, the first question isn’t “what half do I would love?” It’s “how important is that this?”
With out that reply, the whole thing stops. Drivers sit. Lots of get rescheduled. Retailers start guessing. Tyler calls it the “elements cannon” — throwing elements at a problem until one factor works.
And that can get expensive fast.
In step with Tyler, North America spends tens of billions of {{dollars}} yearly fixing enterprise autos. Off-highway instruments — improvement, agriculture, mills — multiplies that amount even extra. However, not like automotive, there could also be nonetheless no true right-to-repair framework for enterprise autos.
That means information stays locked behind OEM partitions, and small carriers pay the value.
Most owner-operators don’t must rebuild engines or change harnesses on the shoulder of the freeway. They solely must know adequate to resolve.
That’s the place Diesel Laptops’ Diesel Decoder is out there in.
It’s a small, cheap system that plugs into the diagnostic port and pairs collectively along with your phone. With it, drivers can:
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Be taught and clear fault codes
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View keep engine information
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Energy a regen when safe to take motion
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Pull a truck out of derate mode to limp to a retailer
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See step-by-step troubleshooting steering
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Decide precise half numbers, along with aftermarket choices
The aim isn’t to point out drivers into grasp technicians. It’s to current them situational consciousness.
As Tyler put it, saving merely one tow bill pays for the system. Nonetheless the true price is avoiding days of downtime attributable to not determining what’s unsuitable.
One of many important elements of the interview was Tyler’s honesty about restore retailers.
Most retailers aren’t trying to tear drivers off. They’re usually under-trained, under-resourced, and missing the an identical information drivers are. Even OEM dealerships battle. Tyler ran service departments himself and described situations the place technicians spent dozens of hours chasing a problem with out options.
Whilst you stroll right into a retailer, you don’t know in case your truck is being handed to a 20-year veteran or any individual modern out of tech school. And as quickly because the clock begins, you’re paying — whether or not or not progress is being made or not.
Proudly proudly owning diagnostics modifications that dynamic. It permits drivers and fleet householders to ask greater questions, verify what they’re being instructed, and understand whether or not or not a restore suggestion is sensible.
The dialog moreover went deep into aftertreatment applications — DPFs, regens, emissions logic — and why so many carriers had been harm when these applications rolled out.
Tyler shared an precise story of a driver who spent weeks and lots of of {{dollars}} chasing DPF factors that turned out to be attributable to an oil leak upstream. The aftertreatment system wasn’t the problem — it was merely the place the indicators confirmed up.
That type of misdiagnosis has put operators out of enterprise. Not because of they refused to handle instruments, nonetheless because of the enterprise failed to produce teaching and devices when the experience modified.
And to be clear: deleting emissions applications is in opposition to the regulation. Tyler didn’t mince phrases on that. Nonetheless understanding how the system works — and what’s actually inflicting faults — can cease pointless repairs and downtime.
One of many forward-looking elements of the dialogue focused on AI and predictive diagnostics.
Diesel Laptops is already monitoring transit fleets in precise time, using AI and human technicians to flag points sooner than drivers uncover indicators. The long-term imaginative and prescient is obvious: autos that inform you what’s about to fail, not merely what already has.
Nonetheless Tyler was moreover honest about AI’s limits. With out appropriate, VIN-specific information — quite a lot of which continues to be locked behind OEM paywalls — AI can solely guess. That’s why Diesel Laptops has spent years setting up its private restore databases and training applications.
AI will get greater. Nevertheless it certainly gained’t change understanding. It will amplify it.
Crucial lesson from this episode isn’t about gadgets or software program program. It’s about administration.
Whilst you don’t private diagnostics, you don’t private your time. You don’t administration downtime. You don’t know if a problem is minor or catastrophic. And in at the moment’s market, that uncertainty stands out as the distinction between surviving a nasty month or shutting the doorways.
Diagnostics usually are not an opulent system for big fleets. They’re part of doing enterprise.
Do you have to’re working one truck or ten, this episode of The Prolonged Haul is worth your time. We barely scratched the ground on this text — from labor time guides to technician shortages to what’s coming subsequent in truck experience.
In the event you want the entire dialog with Tyler Robertson, along with tales, examples, and deeper breakdowns, take heed to the entire episode of The Prolonged Haul. It’s a form of conversations that makes you rethink how uncovered your on-line enterprise truly is when that confirm engine mild comes on.
And if you hear it, you’ll most certainly check out diagnostics considerably in any other case and hopefully, it may present assist to in 2026.
The submit The Most Expensive Part of a Breakdown Is Not Knowing What’s Wrong appeared first on FreightWaves.
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