Preparing for Spring Rain and Wet Weather
By Richard Kemner, Founder • RDK Truck Sales • Tampa, FL • 40+ Years in the Refuse Industry Exhaust System & Body Maintenance.
✅ SPRING EXHAUST SYSTEM & BODY MAINTENANCE CHECKLIST
☐ Inspect all exhaust pipes, clamps, hangers, and brackets
☐ Check for soot staining or exhaust leaks at joints
☐ Inspect flex pipes for cracks or deterioration
☐ Check DPF for soot loading – schedule cleaning if needed
☐ Inspect DEF fluid – drain and refill if degraded
☐ Pressure wash entire body including underside and hopper
☐ Inspect and clear all body drain holes
☐ Touch up scratched, chipped, or bare-metal areas
☐ Inspect hopper floor for thin spots and cracks
☐ Check packer panel and blade for cracks or wear
☐ Inspect all welds at body-to-subframe mounting points
☐ Lubricate tailgate hinges, pins, and latches
☐ Verify tailgate seals to prevent leachate on chassis
If my Hydraulic System Maintenance blog was about the heartbeat of your truck, this one is about protecting the skin and the lungs. Your exhaust system and your truck body take a tremendous beating during winter, and spring brings a whole new set of challenges. Wet weather, road spray, standing water, salt residue, and humidity all go to work on your equipment the minute the temperature rises. In over 40 years in the refuse industry, I’ve watched more trucks rot from the outside in than break from the inside out. The operators who stay ahead of corrosion and exhaust maintenance are the ones who get the most life out of their equipment. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the kind of work that saves you real money.
Exhaust System & Body Maintenance: What Winter Did to It
Cold starts are brutal on exhaust systems. Every time you fire up a diesel engine in cold weather, you get condensation forming inside the exhaust pipes, the muffler, the DPF, and the entire aftertreatment system. That moisture mixes with exhaust gases and creates acidic compounds that eat metal from the inside out. All winter long, this has been happening on every cold morning start. Now spring arrives. The temperature swings from cold nights to warm days. That cycle keeps the condensation coming. Add in rain, road spray, and the salt and chemical residue from winter road treatments, and your exhaust system is under attack from both inside and outside.
Exhaust System & Body Maintenance: What to Inspect on the Exhaust
Start at the turbo outlet and work your way back to the tailpipe. Look at every clamp, every gasket joint, every hanger, and every bracket. Here’s what you’re looking for: Rust-through or thinning metal on pipes and muffler shells. Tap suspect areas with a screwdriver handle. If it sounds hollow or gives, you’ve got a problem. Loose or broken hangers and clamps. A sagging exhaust pipe will crack at the joints from vibration. Soot staining around joints that indicates an exhaust leak. Black marks on nearby components are a dead giveaway. Cracked or deteriorated flex pipes. These take the most abuse from engine movement and vibration. On trucks with DPF and aftertreatment systems, check for any warning lights or fault codes related to the DPF, DEF system, or SCR catalyst. Winter operation with lots of short runs and low exhaust temperatures is the number one cause of DPF soot loading issues. If your trucks were doing a lot of stop-and-go residential collection in cold weather, there’s a good chance the DPF needs a forced regen or a cleaning.
⚠ ️ RDK Pro Tip: Exhaust leaks don’t just waste fuel and hurt performance. They put carbon monoxide right where your crew works. An exhaust leak near the cab on a rear loader means your driver and helpers are breathing fumes every time they stop at a house. This is a safety issue first, a maintenance issue second.
DPF and Aftertreatment: Don’t Ignore the Lights
If you’ve been putting off a DPF cleaning or ignoring regen warnings, spring is the time to deal with it. A loaded DPF restricts exhaust flow, increases fuel consumption, raises EGT temperatures, and can eventually cause a derate or a shutdown. We’ve seen trucks go into limp mode on route because the operator ignored the DPF warning for weeks.
At RDK we recommend getting your DPF professionally cleaned at least once a year, and more often if you’re running heavy stop-and-go residential routes. It’s a fraction of the cost of replacing a DPF or dealing with the downstream damage that a plugged filter causes.
Also check your DEF fluid. If it sat in the tank all winter and was exposed to freeze-thaw cycles, it may have degraded. DEF that has crystallized or separated will not perform properly and can damage your SCR catalyst. If there’s any doubt, drain the tank and refill with fresh DEF.
Exhaust System & Body Maintenance: Where Body Corrosion Hides
Spring rain and wet weather create a whole new corrosion environment for your refuse body. Water pools in packer chambers, sits in the hopper floor channels, collects around tailgate hinges, and finds every scratch, nick, and bare-metal spot on the body. Salt residue from winter operations or treated roads accelerates the damage.
Here is what we recommend for every truck in your fleet coming into spring:
Wash the entire body thoroughly, including the underside, inside the hopper, and all the hard-to-reach areas behind the packer panel and around the tailgate mechanism. You’re removing salt and chemical residue that will eat your steel. Inspect the hopper floor for thin spots and cracks. Get down underneath and look. This is where leachate sits and where corrosion does its worst work. Use a flashlight. Check the packer panel for cracks, bends, or signs of stress. A cracked packer panel will only get worse under load. Inspect all welds, particularly at high-stress points where the body meets the subframe. Look for rust bubbling under paint around all the edges, corners, and drain holes. That’s corrosion starting underneath the coating. Verify all drain holes are open and clear. Clogged drains mean standing water inside the body, and standing water means rust.
Rain, Mud, and Wet Routes: How They Affect Daily Operations
Spring wet weather doesn’t just affect the truck sitting in the yard. It affects the truck on route every day. Wet loads are heavier loads. A rear loader or front loader packed with rain-soaked yard waste or wet garbage can easily exceed weight limits that the same volume of dry material would not. That extra weight puts more stress on the hydraulics, the body, the chassis, and the brakes.
Mud and standing water on unpaved roads and at landfill sites get thrown up into every gap and crevice on the truck. That mud holds moisture against the metal and creates the perfect environment for corrosion. It also packs into brake components, wheel ends, and suspension parts.
We tell our customers: if your trucks are running wet routes in spring, bump up your wash schedule. A truck that gets washed twice a week during wet season will last years longer than one that only gets washed when someone remembers.
Exhaust System & Body Maintenance: Leachate Management in Wet Weather
This is a big one that gets overlooked. In wet weather, the volume of leachate coming out of your truck body increases significantly. That liquid is acidic and corrosive. If your drain systems aren’t working properly, that leachate sits inside the body and eats the steel from the inside. Make sure your body drains are functioning and that the seals around the tailgate are in good condition to prevent leachate from running down the back of the truck and onto the chassis. Leachate on chassis components, especially on frame rails and crossmembers, causes corrosion that’s expensive to repair and can create safety issues.
This Is Blog 2 of 3 in Our Spring Maintenance Series
Blog 1: Hydraulic System Maintenance – Getting Your Fleet Ready for Spring
Blog 2: Exhaust System & Body Maintenance – Preparing for Spring Rain and Wet Weather
Blog 3: DOT Inspection & Chassis Readiness – A Friendly Reminder That Could Save Your Fleet
Subscribe to our email list or follow us online so you don’t miss the rest of the series. And as always, if you have questions or want to talk shop, give us a call.
Let’s Talk Trash
After 40-plus years in this business, I can tell you one thing for sure: I’m still learning. Every fleet we work with teaches us something new. Every season brings a new challenge. That’s what keeps this industry exciting. If you’ve got a trick that works for your fleet, a question about something we covered here, or you just want to talk trucks, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line, give us a call, or stop by the shop in Tampa. At RDK, our customers aren’t just customers. They’re family.
“We Service What We Sell”
Disclaimer: The information in this blog is based on over 40 years of hands-on experience in the refuse industry. It is intended for general informational purposes only. Every fleet, every route, and every truck is different. We strongly encourage you to conduct your own due diligence, consult with qualified technicians, and follow your manufacturer’s specific maintenance guidelines when making equipment servicing and purchasing decisions. If you have questions or want to talk shop, give us a call. We’re always learning and we welcome your feedback.
