cost of repairs in ltl companies

It’s just a cost of business like any other to them.

New equipment may be covered by warranty, all else will be - well, as I said, paid for and written off against taxable revenue.

 

walmart gets a 500k mile bumper to bumper. they took my shocks off at 330k miles and sent them back to freightliner for warranty. plus the labor charge is bill to freightliner also. Michelin gives them test tires to run.

 

also fitzgerald body shop does all of our body repairs. 24-48 hour return

 

UPS is authorized to do a lot of warranty repairs in house so the trucks don't have to leave. There has been some problems in the past with trucks going away for months on end so they did what they had to do to work deals to at least be able to handle some of the warranty work.

 

It's still a cost to the company, but most the companies you mentioned have their own shops at certain terminals to keep service and repair cost down.

 

The big companies are self insured. Insurance doesn’t kick in at least for mine until 50,000. So unless it’s a major wreck, the company pays the repairs.

 

I haven't ever heard of insurance paying for a blown turbo or an engine overhaul.

 

If it's warranty related repair, they can back charge the truck manufacturer for the standard accepted labor rates even if they do it in house with authorized mechanics.

Whether the truck manufacturer actually pays/credits for each claim is another matter & is based on contract/CS/Goodwill/history/etc.

With a company as large & numbers orientated as UPS, you can bet that they will make every effort to minimize their unreimbursed out of pocket costs.

You can also get that they get way more leverage on their claims then a 1-5 truck operation when considering the constant business they provide mass purchasing vehicles.

Documentation & authorized maintenance history is key when negotiating things to be covered under warranty.

After warranty is another story...

 

Not sure about all the numbers, but FWIW (for what it's worth) we here at UPSF keep a road tractor for at least 600,000 miles sometimes more. Then it goes to the city until over 1 million miles.

Apparently, this is the cheapest way to do it?



We would rather keep dropping engines (and transes) into trucks than buy new ones........