Volvo Trucks North America and Mack Trucks are launching a new program that will eliminate freight charges for most emergency replacement parts, the companies have announced.
The program will be launched in Canada at the end of March. If a part is not available at a local Volvo or Mack dealership, but is available within the companies parts distribution centers, the part will be shipped overnight to the dealer at no cost to the customer.
Parts can also be ordered after hours and received the next day or ordered on Saturdays for Monday delivery, the companies announced. Oversized parts weighing more than 150 lbs are shipped via LTL carrier, again with no freight charges to the customer, the companies announced.
“Volvo’s goal is to have better than 90% over-the-counter parts availability at its dealers,” said Joy Johnson, director of parts support for Volvo. “If the part is not at the dealer, but is in our industry-leading PDC network, it will be shipped overnight with no freight charge for the customer.”
“Mack customers have the right to expect our dealers to have in stock the same genuine parts used to assemble their trucks,” added Chris Gossler, director of parts sales for Mack. “This program eliminates customer freight costs associated with getting an emergency part, on the off chance the part is not in stock.”
Tags: Mack trucks, Volvo trucks
been almost 80 years since Volvo began exporting trucks and buses to the United States. But these days the Swedish firm’s bottom line is being sorely punished Stateside. Sales in North America fell 23% in the fourth quarter, and by a third in the year 2007, the company said Wednesday.
The firm blamed “continued low demand and low deliveries of trucks.” Adding to its difficulties were stringent pollution laws that came into force at the beginning of 2007.
The decline is made all the more potent by how well Volvo ,the world’s third-largest truck maker and biggest manufacturer of heavy diesel engines, is doing in Asia and Eastern Europe. Sales in Asia rocketed 104%, to 11.5 billion Swedish kronor ($1.8 billion), while in Eastern Europe they rose 72%, to 8.9 billion Swedish kronor ($1.4 billion), in the fourth quarter.
Net profit for the quarter rose 7.3%, from a year earlier, to 5.6 billion Swedish kronor ($870 million). But that was below market expectations of 6.2 billion Swedish kronor ($963 million), according to a survey by SME Direkt.
Operating margins also fell to 6.8%, from 7.6%, which Chief Executive Leif Johansson blamed on difficulties in North America.
Volvo’s CEO waxed optimistic about the U.S., the truck maker’s second-largest market after Western Europe, and said that while it was difficult to asses the American market, things there would eventually recover. “North America is not declining any longer. The first couple of quarters will be flat, but over time we expect it to return to the normal trend line,” Johansson said Wednesday, adding that Volvo was putting more money toward increasing capacity in the U.S.
The company has two main subsidiaries there: Volvo Truck North America and Allentown, Pa.-based Mack Trucks. The former primarily makes 18-wheelers, while the latter manufactures dump trucks, cement mixers and garbage trucks.
Some analysts have recently complained that the firm isn’t doing enough to fully utilize its North American plants.
But Volvo said Wednesday that it was more bullish about prospects in America than its rivals, which include Sweden’s Scania and Daimler Trucks North America. “We don’t see anything which would make us less optimistic than our competitors,” Johansson added. His optimism may have some credence since the truck industry is notoriously cyclical.
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Allied Transport Establishment has contracted FAMCO (Al-Futtaim Auto and Machinery Company) to supply 30 Volvo trucks for its operations in the United Arab Emirates.
The company, which selected the Volvo FH400 model with I-shift transmission technology, received the first vehicles from the order during a recent ceremony at the FAMCO headquarters in Dubai.
“Our fleet currently includes eight Volvo trucks and we have found these vehicles to be very reliable. With the addition of the latest Volvo I-Shift trucks, we will be able to achieve our objectives with much better economy and improved efficiency,” said Ali Beyat, managing director of Allied Transport.
“The primary reason for choosing these vehicles was Volvo’s superior quality and reliability, supported by FAMCO’s reputation for after-sales service,” he added.
Allied Transport is now planning to provide DHL with the vehicles to boost the courier company’s fleet network in the Middle East and support the recent increase in demand for express deliveries in the region.
“This order is part of our five-year strategy with DHL,” said Beyat. “We anticipate the supply of over 500 trucks for DHL’s requirements over this period time. The vehicles will be used to meet the growing demand for the company’s express service across the GCC and Levant countries and North America.”
Swedish lorry-maker Volvo said Thursday it had recalled 125,000 trucks in North America due to the danger of short circuits in the lighting system that could cause fires.”All the trucks produced in North America since 2003 to this day” are being recalled, Volvo spokesman Tommy Kohle told AFP, adding that the call-back was due to an electrical module that controls the trucks’ lighting system.
“We have discovered that it becomes too warm and that there can be a short-circuit that potentially could create smoke or in the worst case a fire,” Kohle said, adding it remained unclear how the problem would be fixed.
“I do not know yet if the system will need to be replaced or if there will be some kind of alteration, but it is a fairly quick job to do and it has to be done,” he said.
Volvo, the world’s number two heavy duty truck manufacturer, has seen its sales in North America plummet since the beginning of the year, amid strong growth in other markets, especially Asia.
The Swedish company, which sells products under the brands of Volvo, Renault and Mack, said its decline on the American market had been caused by the introduction of new environmental standards on January 1, 2007.
Shares of companies that make Heavy trucks rose Wednesday, pulled up by a strong overall market, along with new data showing an increase in truck orders.
According to data from ACT Research LLC, orders of Class 5 through heavy-duty Class 8 trucks rose 12 percent over November 2006 levels.
The November increase came after a 9 percent jump in October, which was preceded by a drop in the three previous months, according to the data included in an analyst note from Wachovia’s Andrew Casey.
Casey said the sustained strength in orders showed that truck market weakness may have bottomed, which is a relative positive for the companies in the sector, he said.
Also on Wednesday, Paccar Inc. announced a special dividend of $1 per share and a regular dividend of 18 cents per share.
The company said it would increase production at its DAF Trucks subsidiary by 5 percent in the first quarter in light of the strong Western and Central European truck market.
Here how Heavy truck stocks finished Wednesday:
Paccar rose $3.94, or 7.8 percent, to close at $54.55.
Cummins Inc. gained $4.52, or 3.9 percent, to finish at $122.
Eaton Corp. added $2.48, or 2.8 percent, to end at $91.74.
Navistar International Corp. rose $2.20, or 4.4 percent, to close at $52.20.
World number two truck maker Volvo has given notice of redundancy to 650 employees at its plant in Dublin, Virginia, a spokesman for the firm said on Monday. Volvo spokesman Marten Wikforss said the staff affected had been informed of the measure last month and would be leaving the firm at the end of January next year.
Sweden’s Volvo was hit by production problems at its U.S. truck operations earlier this year as it began manufacturing a new line of heavy-duty trucks and had had to bring in extra staff to deal with the problems.
“We were forced to take in more people to handle the hump and now we have rationalised and put things in order,” he said.
Up to 650 people working for Volvo Trucks North America will be cut next month at its Dublin plant in southwest Virginia.
The layoffs are the second round since November 2006, when about one-third of plant’s 3,170 work force was let go. Many of those workers were rehired, and the plant now has 970 workers, Volvo spokesman Jim McNamara said in an e-mail Friday to The Associated Press.
The 2008 layoffs, which will occur at the end of January, are permanent, he said.
McNamara said the new job cuts reflect “current market demand.”
The 1.6 million-square-foot (0.15 million sq. meter) New River Plant is the largest Volvo truck manufacturing center in the world. It manufactures 148 vehicles daily.
Workers were informed of the layoffs on Nov. 20.
Tags: Volvo trucks
