Border Patrol garage gurus keep fleet in running order

With some of the most rugged and rocky terrain found anywhere, maintaining the Yuma Sector Border Patrol's fleet of 1,500 vehicles is an especially daunting task.

And keeping that fleet of cars, sport utility vehicles, trucks and other specialty vehicles operational is what the mechanics and employees of the agency's fleet management division do on a day-to-day basis.

"We are patrolling a border," said fleet supervisor Dale Marler. "Our vehicles are being operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Included in that fleet are also all-terrain vehicles, boom trucks, sandrails, water and fuel trucks, skyboxes, light plants and four watercraft, two of which are hovercraft, for patrolling the Colorado River.

Marler said said 80 percent of the miles put on Border Patrol vehicles in the sector's 172,350-mile area of responsibility are off-road. At the Wellton Station, it's 90 percent.

"Agents often drive in areas where there are no roads or poorly maintained trails," he said. "The vehicles take a beating out there."

The fleet management division is located at the Yuma Sector headquarters and has a staff of 26 office and shop personnel. The 14 mechanics are all equivalent ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) master- level mechanics.

In addition to having a fully equipped, 10-bay garage complete with lifts, and tire storage area, fleet management has its own parts room, which has more than $10,000 in parts. There are another five repairs bays in an annex garage.

Although they used to work seven days a week, now due to budget cutbacks, mechanics at fleet management work five eight-hour days.

Marler added that the Yuma Sector's 1,500 vehicles have a combined 31 million miles on them, with an average 34,000 miles per vehicle.

"Due to the conditions it is driven in, when one of our vehicles has 90,000 miles on it, it is equivalent to 180,000 miles on a civilian vehicle," Marler said. "We are putting about 22,000 miles a year on some of the vehicles."

On average, the fleet management garage services or repairs 20 to 30 vehicles a day. That number, Marler said, can go as high as 40 to 50 when really busy.

Fleet supervisor Gary Schultis said the most frequent repairs mechanics have to make are related structural fatigue and undercarriage damage.

"We are constantly fixing front ends. Suspensions are the most common type of repair."

Some of the more unusual repairs mechanics have had to make over the years, Schultis said, has been removing objects such as mattress coils from around driveshafts.

"It has happened a few times," Schultis said.

Barbed wire wrapping around axles is another unusual repair. Something else he said isn't all that uncommon is getting railroad spikes in tires.

Marler said almost all of the vehicles the Border Patrol uses are common models available to consumers.

He said they arrive at the sector from a contracting agency that completes about 80 percent of preparing the vehicles for duty.

Fleet management mechanics do the rest, Marler said, which includes installing skid plates, tow hooks and necessary pioneer gear and specialty lighting equipment.

Vehicle turnover is a continual process and also falls under the auspice of fleet management. Automotive Supervisor Paul Maytum said each year, the Border Patrol tries to replace 25 percent of its vehicles in each sector. However, this year, he said, the Yuma Sector is only able to replace 10 percent.

Currently 26 percent of the vehicles in the Yuma Sector's fleet are three years or older, 36 percent are two years old and 10 percent are a year old or less.

"The problem is that as the number of newer vehicles starts to drop, the number of older vehicles will start increasing," Maytum said. "We are required to keep 80 percent of the vehicles operational at all times."

For repairs such as body work or alignments and warranty work, Marler said fleet services outsources the work to other contractors because it is more cost effective.

Yuma Sector's fleet management installs about 40 tires a week and has an annual tire budget of about $500,000 a year. It also spends between $2 million and $3 million a year in gasoline and diesel.

Of its vehicles, 56 percent are chevrolet, 37 percent are Fords, another six percent are Chrysler and one percent are other makes.

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.