Trailer makers facing extra recession pain
By: Alan Bunting, Thursday, September 17, 2009, AutomotiveWorld.com
When truck operators hit hard times, like those that have beset them in the past 18 months or so, one of their first quite understandable instincts is to put fleet renewal programmes on hold. As chassis manufacturers and their dealer/distributor networks are all too aware, customer orders have fallen away horrendously.
In many cases, the pain for operators has, perhaps ironically, been eased because the fall-away in demand for many of the goods (except food) they carry has meant vehicle fleets covering fewer kilometres per year. A three-year truck replacement cycle, calculated for long-haul operation on say 400,000km of fairly intensive running, has become stretched by default to maybe four years.
But owners know they cannot defer truck replacement indefinitely. As vehicles age, wear and tear will take their toll, to the detriment of fuel economy and mechanical reliability, with obviously adverse running cost implications. Clearly the powertrain is the most vulnerable to escalating costs.
Such vulnerability, as the kilometres mount up, is of minor concern in regard to suspensions, brake systems, cabs and chassis frames. And, crucially, the same can be said of trailers. A drawbar- or semi-trailer is a 'low tech' piece of transport equipment which, traditionally, has all too often been subject to neglect and, as such, reliant on 'crisis maintenance'. The mantra was 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.
But safety-driven legislation in Europe and North America has, in recent years, demanded regular roadworthiness checks on trailers, as well as on the tractor chassis that haul them. So covert neglect is no longer a cost-saving option. Trailers have in any case become more technically sophisticated, with the widespread adoption of disc foundation brakes and, in many cases, electronically-signalled (though still compressed air actuated) braking.
Now, as heavy truck operators look to trim their costs, they are realising that the life of a trailer can be prolonged at minimal cost. Exceptions include purpose-built units such as temperature-controlled boxes. The big (typically front end mounted ) refrigeration unit can account for half the cost of the complete trailer and is also subject to performance deterioration over time.
Trailer refurbishment, including the repair of damaged insulated bodywork sections on the aforementioned 'reefers', has become as much of a mainstream business as new trailer manufacturing. It is hardly surprising that established trailer makers are suffering the effects of the downturn even more acutely than their better known truck building counterparts.
Demand for new trailers has nosedived. Germany's second largest trailer maker Kögel recently went into administration, while market leader Schmitz has laid off hundreds of workers in its plants across Europe. Smaller trailer manufacturers, in the UK for example, have consolidated in a bid to survive. Because of operators' relative investment priorities as we gradually emerge from recession, it is likely that recovery for trailer manufacturers, particularly those equipped to build general-purpose boxvans and curtainsiders, will be slower than for higher-profile truck makers.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
Published on Thursday, September 17, 2009
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