Should I wash my truck/trailer every other week?

I stopped washing my truck. The dirtier it gets the more and more DOT just looks in the other direction.

 

All of the trucks in the fleet I drive for get washed every or every other week at the yard while the driver is on a 34 hr reset.

 

Mine gets rinsed daily, scrubbed about every three days, usually Monday, Wednesday and definitely Fridays. But doing what we do it's just a necessary evil. Part of the job.

However, we have some here that do the bare minimum. Their attitude is "Hey it ain't my name on the door". But they're the first to complain when I get a new truck every 3-4 years, and they get my hand me downs. Or worse. And maybe I am the idiot here, I don't get any more money for washing and keeping it clean. But, I'm particular about such things, and it shows when they fight over my hand me down equipment.

Just last week the boss and I were talking. There's a new glider in our shop right now, it has some goodies on the engine that mine don't have. I jokingly asked why I can't have such things. He said "this one can be yours if you want it, the guy I bought it for wants your truck anyway". I told him no thanks, I'll keep my current truck, and the locking rears, 6.5 mpg, chicken lights and chrome, and the luxury of having something different than the rest of the clowns around here.

 

Nothing wrong with taking pride in the ride and yourself. Need more drivers in this industry like that.

 

I prefer every week and wipe it down during the week when I’m sitting around. Keep the wax and polish up and could skip a week if you avoided the elements.

The price of cool ain’t cheap.

 

Do yall have a yard to wash the trucks at or u spending all that time at the streakin beacon or other truck washes ? Where do u find all that time to do that stuff

 

If you plan on keeping it a while. We do ours every week or so, either the Beacon or run em up to the house

 

I do mine at the house on the weekend or if I happen to get by during week. Around an hour to do the truck and 3 on the trailer. Every once in a while I’ll hit a truck wash and it’s always a disappointment. The pride truck wash I found did better than the beacon, but at 150$ I really gotta be pressed for time to hit them up.

 

My company asks that we take the trucks in every 15 days to get them washed. Our owner takes pride in his fleet and wants them to look good on the road. Most of them are 2019s or 2020's and he wants them to glisten.

But since he doesn't pay us to sit at the streakin beacon waiting to get them washed I usually wash mine once a month. I don't go in many crappy places where it gets super dirty anyway. During the winter I'll try to hit it every 15 days but in the summer where a good strong rain storm in the afternoon makes it shine pretty good at 70mph I'll do it once a month.

 

Cement gets everywhere lol. The portable silos in the oilfield we had dust socks we'd hook to the elbow on the back side. Couldn't dump em on location so they went in sidebox per company rule. Dirty dirty dirty

 

I give mine a good hand job at home once a week in the summer. In the winter I'll quickly spray it off in a wash bay, just long enough to get the crap off. I don't get too carried away though because its dirty again in 10 minutes. But knowing you did it.... that's what counts!