Polk County is dealing with a costly blow as officials work against the clock to repair a dozen Ferrara fire trucks in their fleet. The fire trucks all have the same issue, failing front suspension. Currently, four trucks are out of service because of the problem.
"Lead time, even on the new axles can be up to five to six months, so it's not one of those quick turn around things," Polk County Director of Fleet Maintenance Chuck Cheatham said.
"It's kind of premature in their life span, so in order to preserve the life of the vehicle, we're going to retrofit a more conventional suspension in it," Deputy Chief of Operations Tony Crouse said.
Spares are being used in place of the trucks out of service, and will continue to be used until all 12 are fixed.
"We need the trucks. We can't afford for them all to go into service. We are stretched a little bit, we have a lot of our spares in service," Cheatham said.
"When we have these component failures on these trucks it kind of cripples us for having a good, safe amount of spares," Crouse said.
This week County Commissioners approved spending $300,000 to replace the front suspension for all 12 firetrucks.
"The trucks are ten years old. They're probably half to two-thirds of their life gone. Do we want to replace them? Then you're talking six to seven million dollars," Cheatham said.