Fleet
Work Truck & Fleet Outfitting in Terrell, TX
Spec it once. Fit it the same. Put it back to work.
Kaufman County runs on vehicles that earn their keep: contractors, ranchers and service companies with more than one truck on the road. Fitting them out has been a large part of what this shop has done since 1994. It is a different job from a weekend truck. The vehicle has to go back to work.
Work trucks and work vans
Outfitting work trucks and fleet vehicles is a large part of what the shop does. Most of it is the same work as a personal truck, held to a different standard of usefulness. The question is not what looks right. It is what the vehicle has to do on Monday, and what stops it doing that.
Vans come through too, in smaller numbers. For vans, it is shelving, bulkheads and roof racks. It is not a big part of the work here, but it is work we do.
Everything is fitted here on East Moore Avenue by the same people who quoted it. That matters more on a work vehicle than on anything else. When something needs looking at, there is nobody to hand it to. It comes back to the bench it left.
Patrol vehicles
Patrol vehicles for local agencies come through the bay, though they usually arrive already outfitted. We are not naming them — which agency puts its vehicles where is their business to publish, not ours.
What we do on them is the additions: fixing something on the lighting, or adding a small accessory to what is already fitted.
Towing, which is most of it
A work truck that does not tow is unusual out here. The setup is a receiver hitch rated for what is actually behind it, trailer wiring that matches the plug on the trailer rather than the one the last truck had, and a brake controller if there are electric brakes on the axle. Get the rating wrong and the truck is either overloaded or carrying a hitch it did not need.
Stock and equipment trailers need a different hitch. Gooseneck and Fifth Wheel hitches go in the bed and put the weight over the rear axle instead of hanging it off the back. That is what makes a heavy trailer tow straight. A loaded gooseneck also squats the back of the truck, and air bags put it back level without changing how the truck rides empty.
The bed, which is the office
A bed that gets loaded every working day needs a sprayed liner sealed to the metal, so the seams and bolt holes stop being where rust starts. Above the floor, it is tool boxes, locked and off the deck, and a transfer fuel tank on trucks that cover ground between fuel stops. A headache rack goes on the ones carrying pipe and ladders. It is what stops a load coming through the back window under braking.
Where the load needs to stay dry or out of sight, a cover does both. Where it needs tying down, bed rails give you something to hook to that is not the sheet metal.
Getting in, and staying in one piece
Somebody climbs in and out of a work vehicle thirty times a day. At that rate, running boards and nerf bars are not a styling question. They are a knee question, and on a crew that includes people who are not twenty-five, they are the difference between an easy day and a sore one.
The protection side is arithmetic. A replacement bumper or a grill guard costs less than a body shop bill and far less than a truck off the road for a week, and a vehicle that earns money while it is moving is a vehicle where downtime is the real expense. Mud flaps and fender flares keep the gravel off the paint of your own truck and the one behind it.
Running more than one
If you run several vehicles, spec them the same. The same hitch, the same plug, the same controller, the same box in the same place. It means any driver can get into any truck and find things where they expect them, a trailer hooks to whichever vehicle is free, and when something needs replacing you already know the part number.
Trucks usually go through one at a time, not as a batch. Pricing is the same as it is for anyone else. Nearly everyone settles up at the counter. We do give terms to some of the bigger companies.
Common questions
Do you do work vans as well as trucks?
Yes, but vans are a smaller part of what comes through here than trucks. On a van, it is shelving, bulkheads and roof racks. Tell us what it has to carry and how it is used, and we will tell you what we can fit to it.
What does one price for parts and labor mean on a work vehicle?
It means the figure we give you at the counter covers the part and installation together, not the part with fitting quoted separately afterward. On a work vehicle, that is the number that matters because it is the number that goes on the job.
What towing setup does a work truck usually need?
A receiver hitch rated for what it is actually pulling, trailer wiring that matches the plug on the trailer, and a brake controller if the trailer has electric brakes. If it is pulling a stock or equipment trailer, that is usually a gooseneck or a Fifth Wheel instead, which goes in the bed and sits the weight over the rear axle.
What goes in a work truck bed?
A sprayed liner so the bed floor survives being loaded every day, a cross-bed or side-mount tool box so the tools are locked and off the floor, and a transfer fuel tank if the truck covers ground between fuel stops. A headache rack goes on the trucks carrying pipe and ladders.
Do you work on patrol vehicles?
Yes, though they usually arrive already outfitted. We handle additions: fixing something on the lighting or adding a small accessory to what is already fitted. Call the shop with what the vehicle needs, and we will tell you what we can do with it.
How far out do you work?
We are on East Moore Avenue in Terrell, and we look after trucks and vans from across Kaufman County and the towns around it — Forney, Kaufman, Rockwall, Crandall, Mesquite, Talty, Wills Point and Canton.