Pre-Trip Inspection: Frame

2 questions in the bank cover this topic. Everything below is drawn from the sources those questions cite.

Sources: 49 CFR 396 Appendix A

What you need to know

All four.

The frame carries every load path in the vehicle, so sagging is as meaningful as cracking: it means something has already yielded.

Any cracked, broken, loose, or sagging frame member.

49 CFR 396 Appendix A

The appendix names loading explicitly as a cause.

Contact wears the tire from the outside at a rate nothing on your walk-around will warn you about in time. Contact between the frame or body and a tire is a defect however it arose.

Any condition, including loading, that causes the body or frame to be in contact with a tire or any part of the wheel assemblies.

49 CFR 396 Appendix A

Check yourself

• What are the frame conditions that are out-of-service defects?

• What is the status when a settled load brings the body against a tire?

Answers are in the practice test for this topic.