How Often Should You Service a Truck’s Hydraulic System?
As a general rule, inspect hose condition and oil cleanliness every 3 months or 500 operating hours for trucks in regular tipping or lifting use — more often for mine-haul or continuous-duty vehicles.
Why Interval Depends on Duty Cycle
A tipper doing a handful of cycles a day wears very differently to a mine-support truck cycling continuously through a shift. Duty cycle, not just calendar time, is what should set your inspection interval.
What an Inspection Should Actually Cover
A proper check looks at hose condition (cracking, bulging, chafing against the chassis), oil level and colour, filter condition, and whether any rams are drifting down under load when they shouldn’t be.
Oil Condition Tells You More Than the Level
Cloudy or dark oil often signals water contamination or internal wear generating metal particles, long before a pump or valve actually fails. Catching that early is far cheaper than a full pump replacement later.
Set a Reminder, Not a Memory
The fleets that avoid unplanned downtime are the ones with a fixed inspection schedule, not the ones relying on someone noticing a problem. We can set up a regular visit schedule for fleets running side tippers, tankers or cranes.
Need this looked at rather than just read about? Our Hydraulic Repairs & Maintenance service covers exactly this.