INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The devil is in the details, complained fleet operators who criticized truck manufacturers for poor quality control in shipping new equipment to buyers.
William Wolterstorff, fleet maintenance manager at Sather Trucking Corp., said there always seem to be “little problems that have to be worked out with new equipment.”
“American manufacturers are making the best equipment in the world,” said Wolterstorff, who is also vice chairman of The Maintenance Council. “But there are always some little things — maybe something not connected or some wires hanging.
“When you buy new equipment it always takes four or five weeks to work the problems out.”
olterstorff said the problem was not peculiar to any one manufacturer, noting “it happens with all of them.”
His remarks came during a forum at TMC’s summer meeting in which fleet operators were invited to submit problems for discussion by the group — a regular feature at TMC meetings.
The “sheer volume” of production — Class 8 truck sales hit a record of 209,483 vehicles in 1998 — may be to blame for the appearance of nagging problems, Wolterstorff said. “We are setting records for new truck sales – maybe when you go at that pace, quality slips.”
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