TRUCK #100,000 AT STE. THERESE

August 3, 2011 Vol. 7, No. 16

First off, kudos to Kenworth for building the 100,000th medium-duty truck to come out of the PACCAR plant in Ste-Therese, Quebec, just outside Montreal. The facility was opened in 1999, an all new plant that has been kept very much up to date over the years. Chakib Toubal-Seghir is plant manager.

I last visited there a year or so ago and was impressed by the positive spirit of the place and a very buttoned-down approach to the truck-building job. Frankly, I've spent time in all but one of the company's North American plants and a couple in Europe, and that description characterizes all of them.

The factory has earned the International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001:2004 certification for effective environmental management systems established to help build trucks in an environmentally sustainable manner. It also has IS0 9000 quality assurance certification and OHSAS 18001 health and safety certification as well.

It also assembles Peterbilt medium-duty trucks, of course.

Truck number 100,000 was a T370 tandem tractor going to Altec Industries, which makes aerial lifts, derricks, truck-mounted cranes, and specialty equipment for the construction, contractor, electric utility, telecommunications, and other such industries. This Altec T370 features a PX-8 engine rated at 300 hp with 1000 lb ft of torque, an Allison 3000RDS 5-speed automatic transmission, and Dana Spicer’s D1600 16,000-lb front axle and DSP41 40,000-lb tandem rear. Altec plans to equip the T370 chassis with an aerial lift bucket for sale to a tree-care company.

There was a formal handover of the keys during a little ceremony at the plant recently, followed by a barbecue lunch -- cooked by managers! -- for both guests and employees.

NAVISTAR IS OFFICIALLY CLOSING ITS CHATHAM truck manufacturing plant, to mix bad news with the good. That dashes any remaining hopes for its 1000-plus laid-off workers that the company could resurrect the plant when the economy recovers.

No timeline has been given for when the plant will be shuttered permanently.

It's been around for about 90 years and was busy until it was idled two years ago. It was supposed to close in 2004, but various government grants and substantial union concessions allowed it to remain operational until 2009.

Chatham production has already been absorbed by other Navistar truck plants.

A BRAKE DRUM WITH YOUR BOOK ORDER? An absurd notion, sure enough, but I find the new link between Navistar and e-commerce giant Amazon.com to be more than a little interesting. I think it may point the aftermarket in a new direction, and it certainly leverages the powerful infrastructure of much-trusted online retailer.

You now have the option to order Navistar PartSmart parts online more or less as you might order a new novel through Amazon.com.

“Navistar Parts was the first truck and bus OEM to sell truck and bus parts online and this partnership with Amazon.com extends our reach and offers a truly consumer-focused purchasing experience,” says Patti Corso, the truck-maker's e-commerce manager.

She explains that shoppers can customize their shipping preferences (next day, 2-day, and ground), see product reviews, and use a variety of payment options including Paypal and even Amazon.com gift cards. Strong search capabilities allow customers to search by item, price, make and model, and to see suggested products that complement their selection. A little up-selling, I guess.

Navistar Parts’ existing e-commerce site, www.partsmartparts.com, will also continue to offer all-makes parts and promotions. Its private labels include International, Fleetrite, PartSmart and ReNEWed brands.

Of course, you can be all old school and wander into your local dealer to buy those drums and linings too. But they won't sell you the latest novel from Robert Ludlum.

A NEW HYBRID REFUSE TRUCK is about to be launched as the result of a fresh agreement between BAE Systems and Crane Carrier Company. They're going to integrate a BAE HybriDrive hybrid electric propulsion system into a Crane truck. I'm looking forward to seeing this one in action.

The alliance partners say they plan to do field trials this year with Crane bringing HybriDrive-powered vehicles to market by the end of 2012. It will introduce the use of the BAE parallel system into the North American refuse vehicle market and is said to be part of BAE’s broader strategic initiative to address a range of heavy-duty truck vocations that will also include construction, pickup-and-delivery, and utility.

The new parallel system draws on BAE’s well established HybriDrive series system, currently deployed in more than 3500 transit buses across North America and Europe. It aims to lower 'acoustic' pollution as much as the more obvious targets.

BAE Systems has produced hybrid propulsion systems for city transit buses since 1998, and the company says those buses equipped with its series models have travelled more than 300 million miles in cities across the UK and North America. Think London, Manchester, and Oxford in England; New York, San Francisco, Houston, and Seattle in the U.S.; plus Toronto and Ottawa in Canada.

ACROSS THE POND, WABCO OFFERS what it calls a new generation of electronically controlled air suspension (ECAS) systems for both trucks and buses. On the face of things, it does seem to advance the art of trucking (I'll leave buses out in the cold here).

The Belgium-based company recently announced that it has entered into several supply agreements with European OEMs. WABCO says its new ECAS reduces costs for truck-makers and makes commercial vehicles more environmentally friendly.

Until now, the ECAS electronic control unit (ECU) was mounted in the truck cab whereas the new technology also allows the ECU to be frame-mounted, meaning much easier installation and thus reduced costs. It also lowers noise emissions, says the company, through improved design of air-compression valves and a more effective acoustic filter.

The industry’s first ECAS technology came from WABCO in 1986, and so far more than 3 million systems have been installed worldwide.

The system maintains the vehicle parallel to the road surface at a pre-set level, even with uneven loads. It optimizes load protection and vehicle stability while saving fuel by lowering the chassis and lifting axles which helps reduce both aerodynamic and rolling resistance. By ensuring a constant vehicle height, selected by the driver, it makes for safer loading and unloading at the dock. Load monitoring and automatic traction control are integrated.

ECAS integrates electronic shock absorber control, enables traction optimization, and provides Controller Area Network (CAN) databus compatibility for faster, better onboard electronic communication among vehicle sensors and controls. It comes with an easy-to-operate remote control unit and strong diagnostic capabilities.

There's an ECAS version for trailers too. Unlike the truck system, it's not available in North America.

HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT I'M HURT, and deeply, because nobody backed me on my passionate assertion in the last newsletter that a motor is an engine. I contend that we're not wrong no matter which name we use for the big diesels under our hoods. But maybe people are just a bit tired of this old debate.

While support for my position was invisible, there were a few people keen to dredge up what they were taught a bunch of years ago and to call me wrong, wrong, wrong.

Amongst Canadian responders, Herb Preikschas had this to say:

"For all the years I've spent in the trade this has been an on-going argument. In Ontario to get your 310S and 310T mechanic's certificate we were taught that a 'motor' requires an external source of energy to create mechanical energy (electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic input). An 'engine' converts a fuel into mechanical energy internally (gas, diesel or steam). A truck or car has numerous motors ie: heater, wiper, window, starter.... but only one engine."

And representing the U.S. of A., Tom Nied weighed in with this comment:

"Not to kill a dead snake but I believe you would say steam engine and not steam motor… and you would say internal combustion engine not internal combustion motor… because both are types of heat engines that convert an expanding gas into motion. That’s what I learned 40 years ago in trade school. On the other hand, you would say electric motor and not electric engine for the same reason.  So an engine is driven by heat and a motor is not."

Geez, I'm beaten.

AND FINALLY, THE CONFERENCE REMINDERS. The TMC fall meeting and TMCSuperTech2011 National Technician Skills Competition are set for Sept. 19-22 at the Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh, N.C. And the Hybrid Truck Users Forum will hit Baltimore on October 10 through 13.

Plus another note about a free J. J. Keller webinar on one of the toughest issues anybody faces these days, namely hours-of-service rules and requirements as well as the coming EOBR mandate. Two of the company's editors will provide an overview of what all this means for your operation a week from now on Wednesday, August 10th at 1:00 pm Central Time (2:00 EDT, 12:00 MDT, 11:00 PDT).

You can register here.

THIS NEWSLETTER IS PUBLISHED every two weeks. It's a heads-up notice about what's going on with trucking technology. I also write here about interesting products that may not have had the 'air play' they deserved within the last few months.

I should remind you that I don’t endorse any of the products I write about in this e-newsletter, nor do I have the resources to test them. What you’re getting is reasonably well educated opinion based on more than three decades in trucking. And in the case of the individual product items, I’m just presenting simple news from the manufacturer or service provider, with the hyperbole mostly removed and clarification applied.

If you have comments of whatever sort about Product Watch, or maybe you've tried a gizmo I should know about, please contact me at rolf@newcom.ca.

ALLIANCE RADIATORS

(August 03, 2011) -- Alliance Truck Parts announces all-makes radiator line

AUTOMATED TRANSMISSIONS

(August 03, 2011) -- Eaton’s UltraShift Plus lineup gets new models and applications

TRAILER SCALE

(August 03, 2011) -- Air-Weigh announces QuickLoad on-board trailer scale

ROTELLA WARRANTY

(August 03, 2011) -- Shell Rotella lubrication now comes with up to an 800,000-km warranty