By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Morning of Friday was our press day. Gathering my bearings on how to start working this issue along with having to beat a legal deadline, I heard the tragic news about another grim accident that occurred at Bokawkan Road the night before. One dead, 5 hurt, 16 vehicles involved including the one that caused it. The reason for the accident? I knew it before I verified the news online. An overloaded ten wheeler truck that lost its brakes. It plowed through the 15 vehicles ahead of it. This will happen again and again.
Why? Let me illustrate. I was with good old college4 buddies for lunch and we had an enjoyable casual talk at the beautiful Pilando Center being run by its equally beautiful owner/manager. As we were waiting for the others, the conversation strayed into car maintenance. A number of them had been bringing their vehicles to Dagupan for these to be worked on by capable mechanics or technicians.
In a way that is good in order to maintain and slow down the depreciation of vehicles. It is also revealing about the sorry state of our vehicle awareness or capability in the city. There is not enough technicians that are up to the times in terms of education and hi-tech resourcefulness. It is still the norm that most or almost all mechanics hereabouts are of the old school. Hardly would they google for remedies that modern cars need. Many of them do not even have passable internet knowledge and skills. This is sad because every knowledge required to maintain popular models can be found in the internet. From valve clearances to computer module specs. You name it, it is there in the internet. Or almost, at least.
In the course of the conversation, I brought out a very important thing that we Filipinos take for granted– a service history log book or record of a car. Everything that was done on the car should be entered there, mainly for monitoring purposes to avoid surprises and problems in the future.
Just like that truck that caused the terrible accident earlier mentioned here, I am sure that it had no service history logbook. Had there been, the part of the brake system that failed could have been monitored and changed before that accident happened. If it was the brake master, the owner should have known the life expectancy of that part. If its life expectancy was three years, it should have been changed six months before it expired. But are owners even aware of the life expectancy of the parts of their vehicles’ parts—even if only the critical ones?
For some parts there are signs if they are about to break down but not others. To repeat, brake systems can fail without warning and can cause the loss of lives. For others that are not as critical, proper monitoring might not be a must as it will just break down and you can have the car towed to the repair shop or to your home.
Other parts like ball joints might not kill when they break down but they leave you helpless in the middle of a traffic gridlock suffering from the leery stares of passersby and the honking of the horns of other irate drivers.
We should take some lessons from the maintenance of airplanes. If an airplane breaks down in the sky it is always a big disaster or “massacre.” How do they avoid break downs?
Airplane operators have a record of the life expectancy of every part of their planes. Each part is replaced before it “dies”. The engines are periodically “blue printed”, meaning they are brought down after so many hours of flying whether or not they sound good. They are dismantled and overhauled to comply with their specifications in the blue print of their original design. They are then installed again almost brand new.
A serice history logbook also enables you not to miss service schedules. Things like changing the oil after five thousand kilometers, changing the fuel filter and air filter after 10,000 kilometers, bleeding out the brake fluid after a year or 10,000 kilometers, etc. A warning. Many mechanics around don’t advise the bleeding out of brake fluid but it should be done as its viscousity is reduced with time and that it also attracts moisture causing some metal parts of the system to rust.
Use also the chemicals as specified in the manual of your vehicle. If you don’t have the manual, there is the internet. High quality cars have special oils and other fluids as prescribed by their manufacturers. One drand I know uses a special brake flued which almost doubles the life of the very critical rubber parts of the brake and clutch systems.
In sum, love your vehicle through proper maintenance and it will love you in return, by not breaking down unexpectedly. Keep in mind Murphy’s Law—if it can break down, it will, at the worst time, at the worst place.**
