It’s been a little more than a month since Navistar officially opened its state-of-the-art Used Truck Reconditioning Center (UTRC) in Melrose Park, Ill.
The third such facility in Navistar’s history, the new UTRC is housed within the company’s more than 1 million sq. ft. Melrose Park complex, which also includes a medium-duty assembly line and the company’s expansive testing and development center.
During an exclusive tour of the facility on Tuesday, Successful Dealer was offered an up-close look at the center and how Navistar is using it to support its dealers and customers in the secondary market.
Navistar’s UTRC is the headquarters of a five-location reconditioning network the company has built across the United States. With satellite locations in Georgia, Nevada, California and Tennessee, the reconditioning network serves to inspect, maintain and qualify vehicles for its Diamond Renewed used truck sales program, as well as supplement used vehicles inventories for International dealers and the wholesaler market.
Vehicles come to the facility mainly from direct fleet or dealer trade agreements, and once reconditioned are quickly moved out to dealers, wholesalers or into existing sales.
Sam Lombardo, manufacturing operations manager at the UTRC, says customer demand drives the shop loading and prioritization for most trucks in facility’s eight service bays.
“It’s really about customer need,” he says. “If someone is big on box trucks then that’s what we’ll be working on.”
