Dean Vicha, president of NationaLease, says he finishes all of his sentences with "for now." And that's still true as he sat on a panel looking at the state of the aftermarket at the start of 2026.
Vicha joined Marc-Phillippe Beaudoin, vice president of product management at UAP; James Burg, president and CEO of James Burg Trucking Company; Rich Greenhill, vice president, aftermarket and solutions marketing with Volvo Trucks North America; and Dave McCleave, director of the aftermarket for Hendrickson on a panel at the Heavy Duty Aftermarket Dialogue (HDAD), presented by MEMA and MacKay & Company, on Monday in Grapevine, Texas.
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Overall, the panel was almost unanimously cautiously optimistic about 2026, but that's set against the backdrop of a bleak 2025.
"My therapist asked me not to talk about '25," Greenhill quipped.
Tariffs, the theme of 2025, and the management thereof was difficult across the board. Dealing with the whiplash announcement and cancellation of tariffs and trying to mitigate costs monopolized a lot of time in aftermarket companies.
"The good thing is that in the post-COVID supply chain crisis, we did a lot of work on regionalization," Greenhill says. Volvo also sharpened communication with its suppliers, which helped, he says, but it was still a lot of work.
Even in Canada. Beaudoin says for each category there were three possible scenarios that had to be worked through depending on sourcing and shipping possibilities.
"The tariff management has been very cumbersome," he says, as UAP worked to make sure they could support its customers and keep business.
For Burg, whose fleet supports automotive and construction businesses, tariffs ended up being a wash with the benefits it saw from the federal government's relaxation of electric vehicle mandates.
"We might have lost a little bit on tariffs, but we eliminated the EV issues," he says. "That's really going to help us."
The panel also believes the full cost of tariffs has yet to hit the marketplace and there's no one-size-fits-all answer whether or not the costs need to be passed on to the customer.
McCleave says it takes prices a long time to move through the marketplace.
"Every one of these suppliers has gone through finding ways to mitigate (costs) and find new suppliers onshore, if you can," McCleave says. "Unfortunately, the supply base doesn't always exist onshore."
Until that's figured out, he says, a full recovery can't take place. Eventually, applicable tariffs become just the cost of the component, Greenhill adds.
In all of 2025, fleet owner Burg says they had one outstanding week, profit-wise. Already in January 2026, they've had two. That means rolling stock he ordered two and a half years ago can finally get put in service.
Vicha and NationaLease are ordering new trucks.
"You go bankrupt by having too many trucks," he says. "You never go bankrupt for not having enough."
NationaLease has made one order already in 2026 and will make another one this week, he says.
"We're really kind of hoping second quarter, third quarter, we start to see a little bit of a bump," Vicha says. "You can go with the idea that we're due (for an upturn), but there's some other fundamental things going on out there that make me feel more confident."
Just like Daimler Truck North America Senior Vice President of the Aftermarket Drew Backeberg said in his OEM keynote earlier in the day, the panel says they're seeing customers looking for more cost-conscious options, including remanufactured components.
"You get that OE quality point at a lower price point," Greenhill says. "We're constantly trying to support the fleets by having that product out in the RDC network."
Beaudoin says he encourages everyone to look at the total cost of ownership.
"There are some fleets that are suffering and are thinking of the cost today," he says. "We've seen some major fleets shift from national brands to maybe private label."
But by focusing on the total cost of ownership, he says "you go further down the road."
