Any good parts person knows the value of a reliable parts interchange. Being able to take a customer’s request and quickly and accurately find the part they need improves customer interactions, boosts employee morale and drives sales.
This is doubly true in trucking, where unique specs, upfitting, modification and vehicle longevity can render VIN-based parts lookups as inaccurate or outdated. Not to mention unavailable for aftermarket operations.
In this industry, finding the right interchange can sometimes be more challenging than actually sourcing the right part. Which is why when parts people find an interchange they trust they often become very loyal.
TPS recently polled its audience to identify where its parts lookup loyalties lie. While no universal answer was revealed, truck parts experts do have favorites and fallbacks they first turn to when in need.
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Supplier websites hold slight edge over online search according to responders to our online poll. Among nearly 300 responders, 40% reported supplier websites as their preferred parts interchange lookup tool, with Google at 39% and FleetCross at 16%.
Reaching out directly to parts pros netting similar sentiment.
“We rely heavily on our preferred suppliers’ websites and their interchanges to cross parts,” says Mike Richards, director of central retail parts at Custom Truck One Source.
“Our preferred lookup tool is to use some of our suppliers’ sites/portals as many have cross references built in,” adds Cody Brooks, president at Brooks Diesel Service. “We have better luck getting a cross this way than through some of the other options we have tried. We have found that a handful of sites really give us a large percentage of the numbers we try to cross.”
Need can dictate sourcing too, as some resources are better than others depending on the part being crossed.
“I think each tool is a preferred and a backup depending on what we are looking up,” says Ryan Bugai, president at LWK Enterprises.
Distributors say the best vendor sites are stocked with robust product information that validate interchange data, confirm the right parts and eliminate the need for additional research.
“[Vendor] sites usually have the most accurate, model‑level details, so they’re great for confirming whether a part is truly the right match,” says Daniel Engstrom, vice president at Mutual Wheel. “It’s our way of double‑checking before we commit to anything.”
Bugai agrees. “We like vendors sites for quick reference and parts images to verify the cross before ordering.”
But which sites? The most name checked supplier is Automann.
“I like Automann’s website from a truck parts perspective,” says Jeremy Oistad, TEPS manager at Butler Machinery Company.
Nearly 300 TPS readers answered our online poll question about how they lookup parts, with supplier websites holding a minuscule edge over Google search.
“No secret, but Automann is the first website we look at,” adds Joe Ward, president at First Call Truck Parts. “They have done by far the best job building a very useful website.”
“We use the Automann website more than any other website,” Richards says. “It’s no secret they have the best website in the business.”
Automann also was submitted as the top choice by responders to the TPS online poll, well ahead of Excelerator by Daimler Trucks North America and bronze medalist Dayton Parts.
Brooks appreciates the breadth of the Automann site because he knows if an Automann part crosses to an OEM component there’s a “99.9% chance” the site will list it.
Fred Tapia of recent Distributor of the Year finalist Harbor Truck Parts values the Automann site for its ease of use and data-heavy listings, while colleague Rogelio Guerrero likes knowing if a part number hits, it’s likely in stock or can be acquired quickly.
As a DTNA dealer, Southport Truck Group Parts General Manager David Dabasinskas also speaks highly of Excelerator and its burgeoning capabilities.
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“[DTNA has] spent a ton of time building out the cross references and interchange information in it, so we are starting to find more and more that we do not need to leave the system for all-makes parts and a growing number of competitor OE parts,” he says.
FleetCross also has supporters across the industry as a primary or secondary solution.
Oistad says it’s one of his first stops in a parts hunt.
“I like the fact it offers images and a variety of different vendors part numbers for the item I’m searching for,” he says. “At times this can make it a bit more difficult to navigate, but it gives me ideas of other places (websites) to search.”
Engstrom agrees.
“We use FleetCross as our main interchange tool,” he says. “It’s the easiest way to pull all of our vendors into one place. Instead of bouncing between different sites and tabs, we can run a single search and see all the possible crosses.”
Bryan Matzek, operations manager at Weldon Parts, also cites the tool’s ease of use as a benefit, while Richards notes its availability through Custom Truck One Source’s buying group (VIPAR Heavy Duty) makes it cost effective. Bugai also reference’s VIPAR’s PARTSPHERE PIM repository as a growing resource for product information that can be pulled into his company’s business system.
“PARTSPHERE we utilize for quick reference inside the ERP,” he says.
Inputting a part number into Google (or an AI tool) also has become a relevant lookup option as more product information proliferates online. But distributors note the World Wide Web is a bit like the Wild West in that not every story told (or parts number found) is true.
“We’ve had luck Googling part numbers and finding information but I would caution that you double- and triple-check those crosses for accuracy, depending on the source site,” Brooks says.
Matzek sees the same, which is why Weldon Parts uses online search more as a secondary tool. “Google is not always accurate but it may have some information and point [our people] in the right direction,” he says.
Guerrero does that too, taking what he finds on Google to relevant vendor websites or the company’s proprietary internal search bar to find most accurate information. The latter, populated with as much vendor-supplied cross reference information as the company can acquire from its partners, is Harbor’s attempt at marrying the simplicity of an online search with the accuracy of a vendor catalog, says Vice President Daniel Hynes.
While still a work in progress, Hynes envisions the search bar as a way for his team to not only confirm a part number but also inventory levels and order availability, increasing fulfillment speed. He also wishes vendors were more forthcoming in making interchange information available, stating the number siloes distributors must mine to find good data is the most frustrating aspect of parts lookups.
“Some won’t even share their data with us as their distributor,” he says. “I think they are overly defensive and mistaken in this approach. The most transparent brands are the most trusted and visible and therefore the biggest. Now with LLMs [large language models] they have the opportunity to be ubiquitous in their categories if they opt for openness.”
And parts people are starting to leverage AI.
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More than 5% of TPS poll responders state AI search is their preferred parts lookup tool, while Ward and Hynes say their teams have started testing the technology. At Harbor, counterman Isaac Muñoz says he’s found Chat GPT already has a deep library of crosses that can be used like an online search would be.
More cross transparency from vendors would not only improve online resources, distributors say, but also increase their speed in delivering parts to customers. Distributors believe manufacturers make cross referencing far more opaque than it should be.
“The challenge in parts look ups is dealing with constant supersessions,” says Dabasinskas. “Manufacturers use supersessions as obfuscation to confuse customers. A garbage truck manufacturer once had over 35 supersessions on the same door shell. This makes it harder for customer to find quality alternative parts and even confuses the OE supply chains.”
Bugai agrees supersessions are frustrating. “Following a chain of supersessions three or four deep and checking crosses to each number along the way makes for a lot of work for one part number at times.”
Adds Engstrom, “The biggest challenge in parts lookups is not having access to the original build information for the unit. Without that OE‑level detail, every search becomes a bit of detective work. That gap becomes even more obvious when you’re training a new counter person. Someone with 25‑plus years in the industry can often fill in the blanks from experience, but a newer hire doesn’t have that knowledge to fall back on.”
He continues, “When the system doesn’t show what the unit actually left the factory with, it puts a lot of pressure on the counter staff to ‘just know’ things that only time and repetition can teach. It slows the whole process and increases the chances of misidentifying a part.”
