Trucking firms are turning to junkyards as a nationwide scarcity of massive rigs plagues the trade, The Put up has discovered.
Companies like family-owned Heavy Salvage in Pickens, SC are promoting used truck cabs, trailers and truck components to massive trucking firms that “traditionally wouldn’t purchase salvage,” vp Andrew King instructed The Put up.
Certainly, trade executives say the present provide scarcity has left trucking firms with few choices. “Most individuals who come right here have tried all over the place else first,” stated an worker at US Truck Elements in Houston, who didn’t wish to be recognized.
Already strained by a driver shortage, the hammered trucking trade has to attend greater than a yr on common to get new vehicles due to a dearth of semiconductors, in accordance with the American Trucking Associations.
“The tools scarcity is worse than the driving force scarcity in the mean time,” stated Don Ake, vp of FTR, an financial and forecasting firm protecting industrial transportation.
Ake estimates that the trade is brief between 85,000 and 100,000 vehicles as the present provide breaks down and corporations can’t discover the components to repair them or new vehicles to interchange them with.
The dearth of kit is compounded by surging demand for freight providers as shopper spending continues to climb.
“Fleets are scouring any and each market for components, sourcing them from Craigslist, eBay, salvage yards and different fleets,” stated Robert Braswell, govt director of the ATA’s Know-how and Upkeep Council. “We’ve by no means seen it at such frenetic ranges as we’re at this time.”
Most trucking firms are detest to confess that they’re rigs that had been in accidents or floods and fires to get an engine that’s nonetheless buzzing or a trailer with a high-tech refrigeration unit. That’s as a result of they concern the general public may assume they’re placing an unsafe car on the street.
However salvage firms insist there’s no disgrace in turning to them for tools, noting that any salvage car is in the end inspected by authorities officers for security requirements earlier than it’s put again on the street.
“There are most likely extra salvage autos on the street than you’d anticipate,” King stated.
King, for his half, sells between 50 and 60 vehicles a day totally on behalf of insurance coverage firms whose prospects have been in accidents and are submitting a declare for the broken car.
The insurance coverage firms contract with Heavy Salvage to recoup the cash they should pay out to their coverage holder. Heavy Salvage by no means takes possession of the autos however sells them on its web site to the very best bidder.
Gross sales at Heavy Salvage elevated by 20% in 2021, King stated, whereas salvage gross sales at Willow Springs Missouri-based The Larson Group are up 30% to date this yr, Chief Working Officer Kory Larson instructed The Put up.
“Engines are in excessive demand,” Larson stated. “Producers simply don’t have the components proper now.”
“The upkeep facet of the trade has largely been missed,” added Steve Keppler, co-director of Scopelitis Transportation Consulting. “The issue is especially acute as a result of when issues come up, vehicles aren’t shifting as a result of they’ll’t get the components.”
Because of this, costs for used vehicles and components have skyrocketed.
A truck which may have bought for $25,000 in 2019 can now fetch $50,000, King stated. The typical used truck bought in November 2021 was 67% dearer than in October, in accordance with an ATA letter to members of Congress.
“We’re seeing extra demand for vehicles which can be being rehabilitated versus utterly stripped down for components,” King stated.
However some trade executives of enormous firms say they’ve averted the salvage market as a result of they harvested components from their very own fleets or invested extra closely of their upkeep crew.
Baylor Trucking of Milan, Indiana, usually buys a minimal of fifty new vehicles a yr besides in 2021 when the quantity went to zero, President Cari Baylor instructed The Put up.
The pressure of not getting new vehicles pressured Baylor to take components from “empty” vehicles to make use of in different vehicles in its fleet.
“We did that final yr, however wouldn’t usually do this,” Baylor stated.
Chef’s Warehouse, a Bronx-based meals provider to the restaurant trade, has held on to its present fleet of vehicles by “being resourceful,” Chief Govt Christopher Pappas stated, and beefing up its “upkeep groups to work additional time in making certain vehicles are protected and protecting them on the street.”
