Bendix Parts Recall Remedied, Navistar Ships Its Backlog

This story appears in the March 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

Efforts to overcome the effect of defective brake valves supplied by Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems are progressing, with Navistar Inc. reporting that all its trucks delayed for repairs have now been shipped.

Bendix is manufacturing parts after recalling 131,221 defective ATR-6 traction relay valves in-stalled on more than 67,000 trucks produced by Volvo, International, Kenworth and Peterbilt (2-27, p. 1).

“All new trucks impacted by the Bendix air brake valve issue have received permanent fixes and have been cleared and shipped from our assembly plants,” Navistar spokesman Steve Schrier said on March 1, a month after Navistar revealed that the defective parts had led it to halt shipments.

Asked about progress in making, shipping and delivering replacement parts, Bendix spokeswoman Barbara Gould told Transport Topics, “We are aggressively working the production plan we established to address this issue.”

“We have implemented many of the actions required to further enhance and increase supplier capacity, assembly capacity, test capacity and kitting capacity” for the replacement valve, she added. Replacements are being manufactured seven days a week on three shifts, she said.

The recall was sparked by reports of valves malfunctioning when temperatures fall below 0 degrees Fahrenheit and causing  unexpected intermittent or full brake applications.

To counter that problem, Bendix developed a temporary remedy, which disables some stability control and collision mitigation systems. Paccar and Volvo officials didn’t respond to many requests for comment.

Navistar’s Schrier also said permanent remedy kits “are beginning to make their way to our dealers and customers.” He did not provide numbers.

The Bendix recall won’t affect truck production beyond the second quarter, Avondale Partners analyst Kristine Kubacki told TT.

“Over the first and second quarter, this won’t change production very much,” she said. “It will just move the number of trucks around.”

“It is really just a pause in the production cycle that will be followed by a catchup period,” she said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a letter, told Bendix, which is based in Elyria, Ohio, to file a formal progress report by April 30.

The supplier also must “submit a draft owner notification letter to [NHTSA] no less than five days prior to mailing it to the customers” and within 60 days of the defect’s discovery.

As of March 1, no Bendix progress reports or notification letters were on the website of the agency, which makes the letters public when received.

NHTSA also requires estimated dates for notifications to owners, dealers and distributors as soon as they become available.

Bendix over six months intends to meet “ongoing production requirements” for new vehicles and achieve “wide scale availability” of the permanent remedy solution, Gould said, without giving further details.

Asked about possible lost business and financial losses, Gould said in an e-mail, “This is proprietary information that I am not at liberty to discuss.”

She also said she was “not at liberty to discuss” how many claims have been received from fleets for the cost of ATR-6 failure related incidents, installation of the temporary fix or disclose how much has been paid in reimbursements to those who did the temporary fix.

She did say temporary repair kits “are readily available,” without giving details and that Bendix was “unaware of any reports of injuries or any further reports of crashes” beyond one mentioned in its Jan. 26 letter.