What exactly does the maintenance percentage affect in the truck?

[Fael777]

In the game, we have wear and tear on the mechanical components and the truck as a whole, and we have a maintenance percentage that increases with mileage, but what exactly does this maintenance percentage influence? Does it cause any problems in driving the truck? Or will its components simply wear out faster and faster as the maintenance percentage increases?

[js29095]

increased maintenance percentage introduces wear, which means that as more wear accumulates, more issues will present themselves. For example, if the engine has a high wear, then issues like backfiring and Loss of power will occur with increasing frequency.

[Steve Pitts]

There is clearly a correlation between maintenance and part wear (at least for engine, transmission and wheels) since both are increased by driving the truck, but I think it is a stretch to say that the maintenance value affects wear. As far as I know the gameplay effect of the maintenance percentage is unknown and the suggestion that it causes an increase in wear rate is based purely on one interpretation of the tooltip text - "Represents systemic aging and continuous wear increase across the whole vehicle. Fixed by total restoration." - which may also be interpreted otherwise. I would love to see the results of a controlled experiment that proved (or disproved) that interpretation but it does require really good driving as any damage from collisions can also increase part wear.