Blog Archives




 

  • Cutting Off Their Noses to Spite Their Faces
    By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday July 2, 2008
    The irony is so think you'd need the "jaws of life" to cut through it. On the same day that automakers reported their catastrophic sales slide for the month of June, the result of skyrocketing gasoline prices and inefficient product offerings, they also filed their objections to the government's new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, claiming that improving the fuel economy of the vehicles they manufacture would be disastrous to the auto industry, to consumers and to the nation's economy. Are they serious? Who writes their material? Don't they realize that their sales are nosediving precisely because Americans are rejecting low-mileage vehicles in the face of $4.00 a gallon gasoline? Remember a few months ago when a reporter...

  • The Problem With Technician Competitions
    By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday June 25, 2008
    In the course of updating our State Maintenance Council directory (available in our July issue, and online at www.fleetmag.com/council/), my Assistant Editor, Scott DeLaruelle, heard some comments that aroused some concern. Scott was calling State Trucking Associations to find out if they had their own State Maintenance Council, then if they did he was calling the Maintenance Council contact to get an update on the Council's officers and contact information, and to ask if they ran a State Technician Competition for their members. Thirty-six states have Maintenance Councils, 14 don't. Of the 36 that have Maintenance Councils, seven run competitions, and 29 don't. Out of those 29 states that don't run technician competitions, a handful...

  • Cat Turns Yellow... er
    By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday June 18, 2008
    The big news last week that Caterpillar plans to exit the on-highway diesel engine market as of 2010 probably didn't come as a complete surprise to anyone in the trucking industry. Over the past several months, as other diesel engine manufacturers were loudly proclaiming their plans to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's 2010 emissions standards, Cat had been notably quiet. In fact, so little news has come out of Peoria in the past year that I had started to wonder if the company had shut down its public relations department. In last week's press release from the company, Cat's Group President, Douglas R. Oberhelman, said, "Caterpillar and our dealers will continue to provide product support and service beyond 2010 for all...

  • Parts is Parts
    By Mark O'Connell - Monday June 9, 2008
    Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit a pretty remarkable place: ArvinMeritor's aftermarket parts distribution center in Florence, KY. My publisher, Larry Greenberger, and I were invited to Florence by ArvinMeritor Commercial Vehicle Systems executives to get a good look at the volume of business they do, and they way they keep all those parts flowing from factory to end-user. What took me by surprise is that the Florence distribution center is an all-brands operation. You won't just find ArvinMeritor-branded parts at this operation; what you'll find is ArvinMeritor parts mixed in with a whole lot of other manufacturer's parts, so that ArvinMeritor can deliver exactly what the customer needs, even if someone else makes it. There...

  • Laying Rubber
    By Mark O'Connell - Tuesday May 27, 2008
    Okay, I admit, I was a little disappointed with the "ride 'n' drive" event I attended last week in Joliet, IL. I had been invited by the folks at Meritor WABCO to see a demonstration of their latest safety systems, including Electronic Stability Control, Roll Stability Control, Roll Stability Support, and the OnGuard (TM) Collision Safety System with adaptive cruise control, and the demo was to take place at the Route 66 Drag Strip--how cool is that? Well, it turns out that demo didn't actually take place on the drag strip itself, but in the parking lot adjacent to the strip. But the disappointment was fleeting, because once I got into the demo trucks to experience Meritor WABCO's systems first-hand, I was greatly impressed. First came a...

  • Setting the Standard
    By Mark O'Connell - Tuesday May 20, 2008
    I've said before in the pages of Fleet Maintenance Magazine, and I'll say it again here: I have nothing but praise for the work done by the Emergency Vehicle Technician Certification Commission, Inc. (EVTCC). This group, operating out of Dundee, IL, has been setting certification standards for the technicians who maintain fire apparatus, rescue vehicles and ambulances for many years, then testing those technicians and certifying them to serve in their field. I recently received a newsletter from EVTCC announcing that 30 maintenance technicians had recently been certified or recertified as Master Technicians, and once again I am completely impressed that such professionalism is encouraged and rewarded in this industry. The newsletter also...

  • Trucks Deliver... Sustainability
    By Mark O'Connell - Thursday May 8, 2008
    Today the American Trucking Associations unveiled an ambitious new Sustainability Program designed to lower CO2 emissions and save millions of gallons of diesel fuel. Announced at a press conference in Washington, D.C., by ATA President and CEO Bill Graves, the new program consists of six major initiatives that could revolutionize the trucking industry and the country's transportation system. The six items, developed by a 25-member Sustainability Task Force led by Tommy Hodges, Chairman, Titan Transfer, Inc., are: One: The American Trucking Associations recommends enacting a new national speed limit of 65 mph for all vehicles, and setting speed governors on new trucks at no more than 68 mph. Two: The American Trucking Associations...

  • When Super Isn't So Super
    By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday April 30, 2008
    I've been reading up a little on the "Super Warranty" issue, which, I must admit, I had never heard of until my Assistant Editor mentioned it. Super Warranties are being mandated by more and more states to cover automotive emission-control systems for 15 years or 150,000 miles, and independent repair shops in those states are not pleased. The idea was hatched in California, where the Air Resources Board (CARB) decided that it would be a good idea to keep emissions-control hardware under warranty longer. And it is a good idea: People are keeping their vehicles longer, so it makes sense, from CARB’s point of view, to do everything it can to ensure that those vehicles will be running clean for their entire lives. Super Warranties can make...

  • Squeezed Out, Part II
    By Mark O'Connell - Wednesday April 23, 2008
    My blog post from last week, “Squeezed Out,” has aroused some bad feelings in some parts of the fleet world. In that post, I described a chat I had with a vendor who had dropped out of the Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) because they felt that a competing vendor had dominated the proceedings of a particular TMC Task Force that had developed a new Recommended Practice (RP). One reader thought that I was unfairly accusing TMC of allowing some vendors to run roughshod over Task Force proceedings, and that I should have gotten “both sides of the story” before writing my post. What I actually said in that blog post was that TMC’s process seemed to have broken down in this particular case, and that it was hard to say why (in...

  • Squeezed Out
    By Mark O'Connell - Tuesday April 15, 2008
    I had an unusual conversation at the Mid-America Truck Show a few weeks back that keeps rattling around in my brain for some reason (a lot of things rattle around in my brain, but that's another story). At MATS, I was talking to specific component suppliers about a specific Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) Recommended Practice (RP). Not only did I assume that all of the component suppliers would be familar with the RP (they were), I also assumed that many of them would have taken part in developing the RP (they weren't.) And therein lies a problem.   For those of you who don't follow TMC activities, an RP is a maintenance standard developed by a Task Force that ideally consists of both fleet maintenance professionals and technical...

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