The increased presence of import vehicles, coupled with the growth in air disc brake spec'ing, has led to some notable trends in brake parts. Don Orrell, director of sales and marketing, commercial vehicle for Centric Parts, talks about these trends as they relate to the aftermarket parts side of the business.
Transcription of interview:
Erica Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Welcome to VSP News: Uptime Update. I am your host Erica Schueller, Editor-in-Chief of Fleet Maintenance magazine, covering all maintenance, all vehicle classes, all management, all the time.
Regular maintenance and repair on braking systems is critical to a fleet’s vehicle uptime. Updates to vehicle and system designs have a lasting impact on trends, including brakes and braking systems. Take, for instance, the increased adoption of air disc brakes on heavy duty commercial vehicles.
We talked with Don Orrell, director of sales and marketing, commercial vehicle for Centric Parts, on trends in medium duty and heavy duty braking systems. We first talked about medium duty brake components.
Don Orrell, Centric Parts: One of the things we’re seeing in the medium duty market is, there is an increasing amount of share with the import vehicles – brands such as Hino and Isuzu. They’ve started out in the North American market in the mid-1980s and have gained significant share due to their efficiency and reliably.
Back in the day, the game was just Chevy, Ford and Dodge, and some Internationals. Now, these import brands are becoming more and more popular.
As such, we need to have parts for them. We have invested heavily in being first to market with a wide range of those parts specifically for the import applications.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Brake parts are dependent on application. Orrell says it’s important to match the proper metallurgy for rotors and correct friction formulations of brake parts to match OE standards and ensure the best performance without sacrificing safety.
Orrell explains more, citing a specific example.
Orrell, Centric Parts: Particularly what I’ll call some of the new commercial class vans, like the Promaster, Sprinter and Ford Transit, they have very high weight-carrying capabilities for their size, but also have very small wheel envelopes, so they have a very compact foundation brake.
Those braking systems require a special metallurgy on the rotor, being in high carbon brake rotors, as well as a more aggressive friction material. We take care to make sure those are correct compounds so you don’t sacrifice stopping power for performance or safety.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: Air disc brake spec'ing in heavy duty commercial vehicles has seen an increase in recent years. Air disc brakes, compared to their drum counterparts, can provide improved safety, shorter stopping distances, consistent stopping power and more efficient maintenance practices.
Orrell provides more details on this recent industry trend.
Orrell, Centric Parts: Air disc brakes are obviously getting a lot more acceptance in the marketplace. It really started to take a foothold in the U.S. market in about 2005.
Since then, there are about 2 million wheel ends on the road and it’s continuing to grow.
I would say in the next five to 10 years, we’ll see 50 percent of trucks will have air disc brakes. With that, we’re seeing a huge influx of companies offering an air disc brake program. That’s kind of created a race to the bottom, both in quality and in price.
We’re choosing not to participate in that race and instead offer a high-quality, OE-grade brake pad compliant with the reduced stopping distance, that offers all the same value proposition as an original equipment part, but at a significantly better price.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: With the continued adoption of air disc brakes and other braking system trends, Orrell explains it’s critical to have expanded product offerings to meet the needs of fleets.
Orrell, Centric Parts: Air disc brakes will continue to grow its share of the market. We’re seeing it a lot more now on all axles as well as on trailers. That’s just going to continue to grow.
With that, we’re going to continue to expand our offering by both adding breadth of coverage in pads and rotors, as well as adding a caliper program, service chambers and repair kits.
We’ve also invested in tooling for our dynamometers, so we can do dyno testing on these air disc brake systems. It all folds into our increasing presence in the heavy duty aftermarket.
A great example of that is our recent acquisition of the Durafit program, and the resurrection of the Diesel Tech program. We’re really going to be focusing a lot more on diesel exhaust and aftertreatment as well.
Schueller, Fleet Maintenance: For more information on APC and the Durafit program for exhaust and emission aftertreatment systems, which we covered in an earlier episode of Uptime Update, check out the link below.
Thank you for tuning in to VSP News Uptime Update, I’m your host Erica Schueller.
Until our next broadcast, keep up with this, and other industry topics, by visiting us online at VehicleServicePros.com.
Learn more about APC and the Durafit program for exhaust and emission aftertreatment systems.
