While the varied landscape of our province means we can enjoy everything from badlands and forests to prairies and mountain views, it also means that driving across it can be dangerous. Whether you’re near northeast Calgary and battling giant hailstones, struggling in a blizzard in the Crowsnest Pass, or navigating the steep grades of an eastern river valley, here are some of the most dangerous routes a driver can take in Alberta.

Canada is a country of weather extremes, and especially here in Calgary, it can get absolutely sweltering in the summer. While the warm weather is great when you’re relaxing, it’s not so much fun when you’re stuck in traffic in the city, or staring down hundreds of miles of hot prairie highways. Overheating in a vehicle is not only a cause of minor irritation and drowsiness, it can even lead to dehydration and danger – which isn’t a good combination with big tractor-trailers or heavy utility vehicles. And that’s why a functional heavy truck air conditioning unit is a must for drivers on these blazing summer days.

Here at West Tech Mobile, we’re always after cutting-edge products that make engines run better. From better fuel efficiency to less particulate emissions, we try to stay informed about the latest developments that will help us deliver excellent service and results for our clients. And now, we’ve got some great news about a product that will help do just that!

We are proud to announce that we are a newly authorized dealer for DynaCERT products and their proprietary HydraGen technology!

If you’ve never heard of them, DynaCERT is a Canadian company that does incredible work on emission reductions for diesel engines. In fact, the last part of their name stands for Carbon Emission Reduction Technology. Winner of many awards for innovation and design – including a Gold Medal for the 2018 Edison Best New Product Award™ and a prize for Energy Solutions in B2B at the 2019 German Innovation Awards, among others – they are now expanding around the world.

    One of the hardest parts of owning a diesel vehicle is making sure that all of the parts of your fuel system stay clean, and that your filters are catching all the particulates from the exhaust. With variable quality of diesel fuel and off-the-shelf filters, and many different factors contributing to engine performance, there may be plenty of soot, precipitate, and other fine particulate matter accumulating in your engine. We see a lot of it in the diesel engines we work on – so we made sure we can fix the problem at the source.

We live in an interconnected world, and there is a truly massive amount of trade that goes on between nations. We are accustomed to seeing many of the products we use every day made in China, Mexico, or other countries, but when it comes to semi trucks, there are many die-hard drivers who have trucks made in the United States.
 
You might be surprised to know that many of the most recognizable brands of semi trucks in North America are manufactured somewhere in the USA. Almost all of the thousands of trucks crossing the continent at any moment originated somewhere within it. Here are some of the most common American semi trucks.

With everything going on in the world right now, it can be hard to remember that in some ways, the world is continuing on like it was before: our power is still on, our internet still works, and the goods we rely on are still being hauled around the country.

In fact, the importance of shipping has hardly ever been felt as strongly as it is now. Commercial trucks are among the only vehicles allowed across the border, and they’ve been delivering food and other goods to supermarkets and stores, keeping the shelves stocked. It’s clear that the trucks are important to the supply chain – but what about the truck drivers themselves?

​In the last few weeks, the world has changed completely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and daily life has been shaken to its very core. With almost everyone staying at home to practice social distancing, many businesses have suffered massive setbacks – some of them overwhelming – and some industries are laying off thousands.

However, all of those people – working or not, healthy or sick, at home or sheltering away from others – still need essential supplies: medical equipment, food, electronics to work from home, cleaning supplies, and much more. And that means the trucking industry, which delivers all of those and more to communities all over the country, is more important than ever as it keeps supply lines moving.

​Here at West Tech Mobile, we get asked a lot of questions about the vehicles we work on – everything from heavy industrial rigs to semi trucks and tractor-trailers. And we’re always more than happy to answer them! Since they are the most common, we decided to put our responses to some of Google's most frequently asked questions about semis all here in one place, for easy reference. Read on if you’ve been wondering these for yourself.

Mostly, it comes down to horsepower, as diesel engines create more horsepower than gasoline ones. Also, in the past, diesel was cheaper than gas, so it became popular as a more cost-effective alternative. And one more big reason is that truck drivers, who are constantly guiding top-heavy vehicles – and large tanks full of fuel – know that in the event of a rollover, diesel isn’t nearly as combustible as gasoline. If you’re always hauling large volumes of it in a tank underneath you, that makes a big difference.

 A Webasto Thermo Top C is a high-tech (and highly welcomed) engine warmer that fits into your fuel line and keeps your engine from freezing up – all without having to idle the engine itself. As with any technology, it’s amazing when it works, but there are a lot of components and sometimes they fail for what seems like no reason.
 
While doing all of the heavy truck repair we do here at WTM, we see a lot of these Webastos, and some of the reasons for failure are far more common than others. Here are the top three that we see again and again in the course of our work.

                  If science fiction shows and movies from decades ago were to be believed, by 2020 we’d all have jetpacks, butler robots, and autonomous cars that flew us from place to place. And, while many of those wilder fantasies are still just that, the world is getting closer to futuristic vehicle technology that looks like it’s part of a sci-fi novel of its own.

                  A big player on this stage is the company Tesla, run by eccentric billionaire (and previous driver of the first car in space) Elon Musk. While their electric cars, like the Tesla 2 and 3, have been around for years, the company made waves in November when they announced the forthcoming release of their pickup, the blocky-looking Cybertruck. But a lot of people don’t realize that years before that, Tesla was in the news for a different truck on their list, which is due to arrive by the end of this year. Have you ever heard of the Tesla Semi?

Over the last few years, a new craze has popped up in cities all over North America – the food truck. Once just a hallmark of places like New York and Los Angeles, the food truck phenomenon has now spread to every corner of the continent, including right here in Calgary.
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Food trucks are the ultimate win for a sole proprietor that loves the business: portable, efficient, and on a small scale, they can quickly be moved to a new location as needed. But what happens when the “truck” part of the business starts to show more than the “food” side?

In the modern age of tight deadlines and high efficiency, it isn’t always easy to take time out of your schedule to keep up with the maintenance on your heavy equipment – even if you know that preventative maintenance is an excellent way to extend the life of everything from your engine to your axles. Aside from being needed on the job site, your trucks and other machines can also be inconvenient or too large to move easily. As a result, if they get pushed too hard for too long, they may stop working altogether and break down on site or become unsafe to operate on highways or city streets. It’s costly to tow, and to spend weeks waiting for repairs that cost valuable productivity. What can be done to prevent this?