In my last blog I ended with the thought that I would look at crowd funding for university research. This blog is about that, but you have got to get though the following idea to get to that idea.

As you may have gathered from my prior blogs, I have taken an interest in all things related to the wheel end, including tires and wheels and because of this blog, I recently got involved with a company that wants me to use my skills to get the word out about a facet of wheel end maintenance that many ignore or totally misunderstand.... Read More

After several discussions about my previous blog entitled “How to Sell Snake Oil and Mouse Milk to Unsuspecting Trucking Companies”, I felt a follow-up blog was in order.

I don’t remember exactly where I read this, but I came across the term, “niche celebrity” in an article about social media. The idea of the article was, through social media, bloggers, like here on Big Truck TV, are on their way to becoming trucking celebrities.

The first trucking industry celebrity, if I had to name one, would be Jim Hebe of International and Freightliner fame. What is funny, not only did I study karate with Chuck Norris, but I sold Jim Hebe on being a pioneer on rebuilding fan clutches in his dealership back in the 1980’s - so I know a little about celebrities.... Read More

Recently I helped sell a top-of-the-line truck seat to an owner operator. Our green program offers a monetary trade-in allowance on any truck seat. The owner operator did not take advantage of the trade-in program. As part of our customer satisfaction follow-up, I inquired as to what happened to the old seat. A green use would have been to refurbish it and reuse it in another truck. At a minimum, it could be stripped of all usable parts and the leftovers properly recycled.... Read More

The first step in selling snake oil is to run this test procedure that that the trucking industry established and updates on a regular basis (the guideline can be purchased from both SAE and TMC):... Read More

Hit the link below to check out this sad story. I would like to see a study that would put cameras on tire service trucks to see what debris could be dealt with using a Gator-Getter (http://www.gatorind.com/) installed on the front of a service truck. If the debris is gone from the travel lane by the time a tire service arrives, then the idea won't work, but what if the gator is still there? If you would be interested in sponsoring the R&D please email me at bob@bobrutherford.com.... Read More