In our roundup this Friday, we start with starters and alternators. We look at what they do and how they can fail, and how you and your technicians can identify a problem before they lead to customer downtime. We also address August preliminary new truck orders and how the market remains depressed, as well as our three award programs — the Successful Dealer Award, the Trailblazer Award and the Distributor of the Year. We close our roundup with a look at next week’s CVSN Summit and more news on the way!
Lucas:
Hi everyone. Lucas here with the TPS Weekly News Roundup. Today I’m going to start in the service world. In the Service Bay. We had two great stories that came out on Wednesday about spotting common failure problems in starters and alternators. These stories are really valuable because sometimes what you think is a starter problem is actually an alternator problem, and what you think is an alternator problem is actually a starter problem. So the stories go into great detail about which is which, how you can identify which is which, and how you, your technicians and your team can solve a customer’s problem before they have costly downtime. So, if you didn’t see those stories, check them out. They’re in the newsletter; they’re across the website. There’s also a quiz attached to both stories to ensure you understand exactly the differences between the two pieces of equipment. So please check that out and forward that to your team to inform them on how to keep customers on the road.
Also, this week we got our August preliminary new truck order totals. Not great, 13,000 and 13,200 units from FTR and ACT Research respectively. That’s well below replacement demand. We continue to be well below replacement demand. It is up slightly from July, just a little bit, but it’s down 15% year over year. Additionally, in the 2025 order season, which began in September of 2024 and has lasted through August, we’re down 15% year over year, which just further shows what everybody knows. As freight has trundled through a really, really dark 2025 truck orders have followed in an equally weakened and softened position.
And then lastly, this week I want address our three wonderful award programs. Last week we started the profiles of our Successful Dealer Award finalists with Dobbs Truck Group. This week, that program continues with Selking International, an 11 location dealer located in Indiana. In our Trailblazer Award program, we highlighted Mountain West Utility Trailers, which is located in Salt Lake City. And in our Distributor of the Year program, we look at Southside Trailer Services, which is located in Buffalo, N.Y., and is the second Distributor of the Year finalist that we have profiled in our Q&A segment this year. We have three more coming and then we’ll have those profiles later in the year. So if you didn’t keep up on those finalists, but you want to check those stories out, you can find them in our weekend newsletter. You can find them all over the website, and you can find them in in those individual award categories on the website.
Also, next week will be the CVSN Summit in Washington, D.C. We’ll have stories out of the summit Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and probably into Friday and next weekend’s newsletter. So keep up on that. Also, next week we should have some more on our award programs, We’ll probably have some trailer news, some more truck order news. There’s a used truck story that’ll be coming in a couple days, so keep an eye on TPS. There’s a lot of great stuff coming. There’s a lot of great stuff available for you.
Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week. Thanks everyone. Bye.
