The average over-the-road truck brings $800 in revenue each day. But when a truck wrecks, not only does the driver lose that daily revenue, but often, traditional body shops keep the wrecked vehicle longer than the actual repairs require. Hitting a deer, for example, might cause minor cosmetic front-end damage that takes a week to repair, but the turnaround could be two weeks, a month or even longer.

“The small company whose truck is sitting for seven days has potentially lost $7,000 worth of revenue, and you just don’t get that back,” said Mike Abbott, owner of ATS LLC, a small brokerage and refrigerated fleet based in Crossville, Tennessee. “When you prepare yourself for a week’s worth of revenue loss and for some reason it becomes two weeks, you’ve just multiplied that to $14,000. For a small company, that’s hard to swallow.”

The SONAR chart below shows the average number of miles driven by a refrigerated truck per week over the past year; mileage or lack thereof is directly correlated with revenue earned or lost.

SONAR Ticker: MILTR.RCF

These protracted turnarounds keep revenue out of driver’s pockets for a variety of reasons. In a typical dealer repair center, wrecked trucks compete with warranty service jobs, which pay more than collision repair ($125 versus $85 per hour). Also, the labor required for wrecked trucks can be unpredictable and specialized, and the damaged vehicle often spreads across two or three bays, cutting into the shop’s efficiency and bottom line.

Abbott’s small fleet consists of 18 refrigerated trucks, and within the past year, three trucks have needed major repairs. Instead of compounding the revenue loss by sending his trucks to the dealership body shops, he has them towed — regardless of where they wreck — to Fitzgerald Collision and Repair (FCR) in Livingston, Tennessee.

FCR, established in 2014 by Robert Fitzgerald, is not your normal body shop. By focusing exclusively on collision repair for Freightliner Cascadia and International trucks, Fitzgerald’s business model imitates an assembly line, with 130 employees organized into specialist teams to increase productivity ?— “no different than a well-rehearsed Nascar crew,” Fitzgerald said.

Whether the job requires work on interiors, panel replacements, frames, electrical issues or hoods, there’s a well-trained team to tackle it — and quickly. Even if a truck wrecks a thousand miles from Livingston, Abbott believes that using FCR is worth the tow bill that could run $10,000.

Mike Abbott, owner of LTS LLC, at Fitzgerald Collision and Repair

“A small fleet doesn’t have extra trucks sitting around,” he said. “Our last wreck happened in Kansas, and they wanted us to take it to a dealership in Kansas. I wanted it with Robert because I knew that the turnaround was going to be quicker. With a small business budget, you don’t have a spare truck to run and can’t absorb the costs of renting a truck for an extra two or three weeks. It’s worth bringing the truck to FCR because they do exactly what they say they’re going to do. If he told me he’ll start on Monday and have it done Friday, we’d go get our truck on Friday. We run basically new trucks, and they were repaired to as close to new as anybody can do it.”

Since companies must get all repair estimates cleared by their insurers, FCR is also very competitive on price with other body shops. Where Abbott saves money is the turnaround time, but that is not the only reason he keeps coming back.

“The thing that impresses me about Robert and his operation is that he could handle the biggest trucking company out there,” Abbott said. “He can handle its needs and yet be able and willing to handle the guy that’s got one truck, 10 trucks or 20 trucks and give him the same courtesy and be able to keep him going.”

FCR’s first customer was Max Fuller, co-founder of U.S. Xpress, a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based publicly traded trucking company that owns 7,000 tractors and 15,500 trailers; Fitzgerald was able to shorten Fuller’s average 38-day turnaround to, at one point, four days. But Fitzgerald understands the pain points of collision repair, not only for large companies like U.S. Xpress, but for owner operators as well.

“If you’re an owner-operator, then your entire paycheck is based on that one truck that you’re out there running,” Fitzgerald said. “Many of those guys live paycheck to paycheck and have families to support just like the rest of us. When their truck is down for months sometimes getting repaired can mean the difference in them going broke or not going broke.”

FCR now offers a generous payment of $150 per day to owner-operators if they aren’t able to repair their truck within 10 days. Abbott said he’d never heard of a body shop showing preferential treatment to owner-operators. Beyond FCR’s uncanny speed and proficiency, Abbott praises Fitzgerald’s commitment to safety and integrity.

“The day we picked up the truck, even if it took us all day long to go through that truck and look at everything that was done, [the FCR team] was standing right there looking at it with us,” Abbott said. “If there was ever a nut or bolt loose or anything else we could find, they’d say, ‘We’ll get this thing fixed right now. We’ll tighten it up.’ It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s get you done and out the door.’”

The post How Owner Operators Could Save Thousands in Repair Costs appeared first on Fitzgerald USA.

Today, we see plenty of Made in China/Assembled in U.S.A. – parts, components, wiring – all made in China – but assembled here in America. Chinese investors have funneled billions into established truck and engine companies to learn the ins-and-outs of transportation technology that has taken decades to develop. Experts have professed that the money goes over to China and helps finance the fastest military buildup of a totalitarian regime since the 1930s.

President Trump has even weighed-in on this topic, asking for an investigation into potential national security concerns related to the importation of automotive parts from China. We have heard the rumors of supply line shortages from those companies that are already involved with China. Many in the industry believe those shortages are a direct result of China. China is close to controlling our nation’s livelihood. They can single handedly cut off the supply lines that drive large portions of our nation’s economy at a moment’s notice.

Take for example, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a Chinese automotive company headquartered in Hangzhou, China. Geely is run by billionaire Li Shufu. His company has recently acquired stakes in numerous automotive and heavy-duty truck manufacturers from across the globe. Geely’s financial portfolio includes an economic interest in iconic American brands like Mack – a truck manufacturer originally based in Pennsylvania. Geely is the largest shareholder in AB Volvo, the owner of Volvo Trucks – a historically Swedish company. Geely also wholly owns Volvo cars. Together, Geely now has a stake in approximately a quarter of the world’s largest heavy-duty truck manufacturers.

That leaves only two Class 8 and potentially soon, only one company left that is an American truck manufacturer, not held by a foreign parent. PACCAR, the parent company of Peterbilt and Kenworth, might just be the last American truck company as Navistar looks to complete a deal with Volkswagen. This lopsided pendulum of American manufacturing could pose long-term security risks and makes the U.S. vulnerable to Chinese control of our nation’s transportation services.

Supporting these American companies is a choice, not an obligation, but as President Trump’s director of trade and manufacturing, said best in his documentary “Death by China”: “That money goes over to help finance … the fastest military buildup of a totalitarian regime since the 1930s.” That statement should ring loud for our community business leaders as they think about tomorrow.

There is no patriotic duty to buy American made vehicles. However, next time you are considering buying any products – ask yourself – where are those profits ultimately going?

We have attached links to some recent articles on this topic. If you have any questions or comments, please contact buyamerica@fitzgeraldusa.com.

• 600 Companies Sign Letter in Support of Trump’s Tariffs on China
• How China Exploits a Pro-American Truck Jobs Program
• Trump Isn’t Afraid to Stand up to the Big China Lobby

Download PDF 

The post An Open Letter for Buying American Made appeared first on Fitzgerald USA.

TENNESSEE (June 21, 2019) – Hundreds of independent U.S. producers today joined with industrial and manufacturing organizations to urge continued tariffs on subsidized imports from China. In a letter to President Trump, the collection of manufacturers and industrial groups expressed support for the tariffs while noting their concerns about human rights abuses in China.

Trade associations representing American manufacturers also signed the letter. “The global integration project with China, thru liberalized trade, has failed. The Communist Party of China has used its access to US consumer and capital markets for a predatory economic strategy to grow its state-owned enterprises, finance its military build up, imprison its citizens in modern day concentration camps and challenge America’s geopolitical power. Our American companies and workers have been weakened by this failed experiment. We want it to stop,” said Michael Stumo, CEO, Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA).

The Automotive Parts Remanufacturing Association (APRA) said, “for years now the Chinese “knock off” of starters and alternators that have been entering the country at ridiculously low cost and have been hurting the small [U.S.] remanufacturer that is located in every state and has been in our communities since WWII”, said President of APRA, Joe Kripli.

Founder and CEO of Fitzgerald USA, Tommy Fitzgerald Sr., said, “we are one of the few Made in America truck conglomerates. We recently started a truck parts business as the trucking industry increasingly moves its operations to China. More and more we are seeing important truck parts be manufactured in China and shipped to U.S. for final assembly. This type of manufacturing imbalance should raise national security concerns.”

The letter can be viewed here.

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