Optimal Service Life of Vehicle on Example of MAN Truck

Methods of determining the optimal service life of a vehicle differ in the choice of a criterion. In this article, using the example of MAN heavy-duty truck, the determination method of an economically optimal period of vehicle usage has proposed, indirectly taking into account the peculiarities of its operation. As the criterion, the indicator of unit costs at a particular trucking company has been selected. The service life of vehicles largely depends on operating conditions. In temperate climates, after the short period of early failures, new vehicles have the long period of normal operation with a stable number of random failures, and only then the aging period with an increasing number of wear-out failures begin. The seven years’ experience of MAN truck operation in the extreme natural and climatic conditions of Yakutia shows that during all this time, there is an exponential growth in the failure number. When calculating the vehicle operating cost, the exponential function is used to estimate the number of failures within and outside the actually achieved mileage. Another feature of this method is consideration of only those costs of the trucking company that depend on the mileage, which reduces the amount of information required for calculation.