Guidance

Commercial vehicles: maintain brake automatic slack adjusters

How to maintain and check the automatic slack adjusters in your heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), public service vehicles (PSVs) and trailers.

• From: Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
• Published: 15 July 2013
• Last updated: 19 November 2021
  Show all updates

  1. 19 November 2021

     Added information about trailers licenced in Ireland.

  2. 13 September 2021

     Changed to HTML format, added information about coupling sleeves and protective caps.

  3. 15 July 2013

     First published.

Documents

Commercial vehicles: maintain brake automatic slack adjusters

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Details

All HGVs, PSVs and trailers over 3.5 tonnes must be fitted with fully functioning automatic slack adjusters.

This guide tells you how to maintain automatic slack adjusters and how to assess their condition.