Pre-Delivery Inspection: An Important First Step

By Michael Freeze

Contributing Writer

This story appears in the Sept. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.

It’s a simple process, usually included in the purchase price, but the first and arguably most important step for any transportation company when a trailer and tractor are ordered. Pre-delivery inspection is what the name implies: the inspection to make sure everything on a vehicle is working before it is delivered to the customer.

PDI ordinarily takes about two hours, after a rigid checklist that includes examining fluid levels to making the windshield wipers work correctly. PDI services also include adding equipment that’s not factory-installed.

“At the end of the day, the PDI process ensures that when a truck is delivered to the customer, it’s not going back to the dealership with a problem,” said Mike Zimmerman, general manager of Custom Vehicle Solutions, Rush Enterprises’ in-house modification centers based in Houston and Denton, Texas.

“With the PDI, we are looking for problems,” Zimmerman said. “If we find some, we are able to repair the discrepancy. It is vital that the PDI center is able to perform any required warranty work when necessary. It doesn’t matter how perfect the OEM is. They are going to find things that need repair. It may be minor, but it’s part of going through the checklist. That is why there is a final check.”

Although PDIs are done by a vast majority of OEMs, the service is also provided by operations such as CVS and Fontaine Modification Fleet Services. Fontaine opened a new modification center in Cleveland, North Carolina, last May that complements nearby OEM Freightliner’s existing PDI center.

“We do special PDIs for fleets when they may have some hot-button issues that may need [to be] addressed,” said Paul Kokalis, president of Fontaine, with headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina “It could be something that the OEMs don’t necessarily check.”

Kokalis noted a special issue, for example, concerning a previous fleet order of trucks that had air lines rubbing in the axle area. The fleet typically would call on services such as Fontaine to check for that particular problem in future orders. Common problems such as improperly routed wires are discrepancies that are rectified during PDIs.

“When we direct the technician to look for fluids, he’s going to make sure there aren’t any leaks and that the lines are routed properly and not rubbing on the engine,” Zimmerman said, describing the process known as routing and clipping. “Many fleets understand that properly routed harnesses make a huge difference in uptime. We want to make sure, when they get the truck, the harnesses aren’t rubbing on the exhaust pipe.”

Another check of the PDI process is the road test. Typically a 5- to 15-mile trek, the road test is done to check if fluid and temperature levels are normal and to make sure the brakes, handling and acceleration are working properly.

“You want someone to sit and just drive the truck,” Zimmerman said. “A thorough road test is really what shakes the problem out of the truck, usually.”

Modification services, fleets and OEMs all aim for the same goal of quality control when conducting PDIs, but there’s not necessarily a hard-line standard to the process.

OEMs such as Daimler Trucks North America also use PDI centers to add accessories and perform light-to-heavy modifications. While DTNA regularly installs such items as dry vans on box trucks, refrigeration units, hydraulic equipment and rear fenders, the OEM doesn’t modify braking systems or add front-drive steer axles, for example.

Mary Aufdemberg, director of product marketing for DTNA, said communication is key for the PDI process to run smoothly.

“A dealer salesperson can select a factory PDI option while ordering the vehicle. The salesperson then works with the PDI center to order any additional accessories or modifications,” she said. “Work completed at the PDI is included in the final vehicle selling price, and the modifications become part of the vehicle’s build record.”

“PDI centers coordinate with DTNA marketing, sales and engineering departments to offer options which are not assembly line-friendly and can often complete modifications quicker than a third party,” she said.

Aufdemberg noted that DTNA’s PDI inspection and modification services, which are covered by a manufacturer’s warranty, benefit the customer by reducing upfit and transport times and help get the truck in service sooner.

Carriers hold their dealer relationship at a high premium, said Gary Van Ekelenburgh, director of equipment for Salt Lake City-based C.R. England Inc. The fleet, he noted, stays in communication with its partnering OEM during the PDI process. C.R. England ranks No. 20 on the TRANSPORT TOPICS Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.

“A multipoint inspection is done on every truck with the manufacturer. What the OEM does is identify defects at that point,” Van Ekelenburgh said. “For example, if they overtighten a bolt in the wheel well that they know would crack the plastic, they’ll check that and mark it off.

“There was a time when we had a separate manufacturer drop off trucks. We’d assume we were both doing the same kind of PDI. It turned out that our truck had two batteries instead of three. Now, we are going back to the OEM and saying, ‘Hey, on every PDI, we want you to check the batteries.’ It’s something simple like that.”

Van Ekelenburgh said C.R. England makes the PDI process more efficient by having an OEM representative on-site to iron out immediate problems.

“If we’re servicing the truck and we see something that wasn’t caught at the PDI, like a cold-air return hose is loose, it will be flagged and the manufacturer will actually work on the truck in our service bay,” he said.

Besides the normal maintenance issues that go along with any PDI, one of the biggest challenges is logistics, because purchasing a large number of tractors and trailers may create a potential bottleneck in the service bays.

“There is a whole timing and coordination issue,” said Ron Hall, vice president of equipment and fuel at C.R. England. “We have to coordinate delivery activity so we are not swamping the local dealership. We can’t take 100 trucks into service during the same week. So there are coordination activities related to PDI where we stagger equipment purchases so they are not in a position that they have to complete too many at once. If we were not to do that, the dealership would miss delivery commitments because they couldn’t get through them quick enough.”

Hall said C.R. England uses floor-plan financing or “flooring” when conducting a fleet purchase. Such a practice, he noted, is beneficial from a cost and functional perspective.

Floor-plan financing is a revolving line of credit that allows the borrower to obtain financing for retail goods. These loans are made against a specific piece of collateral, such as a tractor or trailer.

When the dealer sells each piece of collateral, the loan advance against that piece of collateral is repaid. It allows dealers to borrow against retail inventory. The dealer then repays that debt as it sells its inventory and borrows against the line of credit to add new inventory.

“This occurs when I purchase the trucks, but I’m not ready to take them into service yet,” Hall said. “Rather than financing the truck and making the payments, I pay a much smaller fee to have the trucks floored at the dealership.

“But what comes with any extended flooring activities, the PDI evolves into a maintenance role [for the dealership] to keep the truck serviceable to ‘exercising’ [check tires, battery, etc.] the truck.”

When the fleet trucks are available for service, a large volume may create a bottleneck issue for any service bay, said Kokalis. This kind of problem leaves no room for error with the OEM, mod center or fleet, he noted.

“For example, let’s say Swift buys 1,500 trucks. It may take a day to put each in service when they get it,” he said. “It’s on the books, and that’s 1,500 revenue days lost. So from our standpoint prior to them getting it, the fleets should just put gas in it and go.” With OEM and other modification centers that perform PDIs, the constant battle always will concern striking the right balance of efficiency and satisfactory work.

“The general trend is to make a PDI faster, but that means you’re not going to be as thorough,” Zimmerman said. “A PDI needs to be looked at as the most important thing that is done on a new truck. I think a focus needs to be placed on initial product quality. You can’t have a truck in the bay for two days, but if there’s a problem, you do need to spend adequate time looking over the vehicle.”

With more than three decades dealing in commercial trucks, Kokalis said the PDI process has evolved in the past 10 years and become a more seamless operation.

“The reason is that OEMs are building better trucks. They are coming off the assembly line pretty tight,” he said. “Since most of the manufacturers perform PDIs, they now have that control back in-house. Back in the ’90s, when performing a PDI, you may have found a boatload of things that were just not right and had to be correct. Now, the assembly plants have done a great job in improving the overall quality of the product.”