Going the Extra Mile - UI’s Automotive Service Professionals

June was Automotive Service Professionals Month and we wanted to share a nice article the Parking and Transportation department wrote highlighting their important role on campus. The University employs nine full-time technicians with a combined 273 years of combined industry experience and 11 part-time student staff that maintain and repair the university’s fleet of buses and vehicles. The article explains our maintenance philosophy of identifying problems before they result in a breakdown and includes some interesting facts and stats about the work done by our techs. Read the full Automotive Service Professionals article.

Fleet Services Orientation For Your Group

As fall approaches and you bring on new staff that may need to use our services, we would be happy to come to one of your staff meetings and provide an overview of Fleet Services or you can bring your group to us. We can talk about accident procedures, breakdown procedures, how to reserve vehicles, who is allowed to drive/ride in University vehicles or other topics that you would find beneficial. You can call our office to make those arrangements.

How To Avoid Being Scammed by a Skimmer

Gas-station fraud most often occurs with the use of skimmers, small devices that thieves place on or above the card readers at gas pumps to copy and steal your credit card information. In the past, Skimmers were really only common in urban areas but the scam has spread into rural areas as well. Everyone should be on alert for these devices and follow these easy steps to protect yourself from this common scam:

• Use a highly visible pump closest to building, skimmers are most likely to be installed on pumps not visible to station employees
• Don’t use Debit cards, if you must run it as credit to avoid having to enter PIN
• If at all possible, always use the chip, tap to pay, or an Apple Pay–type payment system
• If you visit the same gas stations frequently, buy gas-station gift cards. They don’t have any of your personal information connected to them, and since they have a limited value, your potential losses would be relatively minimal.

Read the full card skimmer article from Reader’s Digest.

Rental Reminders

When returning your rental vehicles please remember to fill out and bring back the form that tells us your return date, return time and ending odometer. This helps us bill your department correctly. Vehicles returned after hours may be parked in front of our building in lot 64 and the keys and paperwork can be returned to our key drop in the entryway of our building on the right, beside our front door. Also remember that if you are going to leave a personal vehicle in lot 64 during your reservation have your license plate number, state, and make ready to provide to Fleet Services. We ask that you park your personal vehicle in the east half of the lot closest to Madison Street.

Vehicle Reservations for Fall

The Fall semester is one of our busiest times. Some weekends are already booking up for Large SUVs and Mini Vans. Enterprise is also experiencing vehicle shortages so they may not have the availability to fill all of our gaps. So, if you know what your fall vehicle rental needs will be it is not too early to make those reservations so you get the vehicles you need.

Fleet Factoid

Last month we shared some fuel saving tips from fueleconomy.org. One of the things we mentioned is how each 5 mph you drive over 50 mph is like paying an additional $0.35 per gallon for gas. This month we wanted to highlight a specific tool on the site that allows you to quantify this speed/cost relationship and its effect on your specific vehicle.

The section called “Observe the Speed Limit” includes a tool that allows you to input your specific make, model, year, and powertrain to see a personalized graph showing the relationship between cost per mile of your vehicle driving at different highway speeds. Check out the Observe the Speed Limit tool.