Over the past few months, thanks in large part to our loyal customers, FinditParts.com has experienced growth in every key area that is critical to the success of an online marketplace.
We’re also fortunate to be working in the heavy-duty truck parts market. As so many other industries have suffered, heavy-duty truck parts have proven resilient in a strong and vibrant aftermarket industry. As new and used truck registrations achieve all-time highs and U.S. heavy duty trucks are sold into global markets in record numbers, the outlook for 2012 and beyond is one of continued growth.
With well over 1,000,000 heavy-duty truck parts in our database, FinditParts.com is uniquely qualified to help truck drivers, mechanics, counter personnel and distributors quickly find and buy the truck part they need. From great deals on popular items to hard-to-find parts that may not be available in the buyer’s local area, our selection is unrivaled and available for search anytime, from anywhere.
Another element in our success is the availability of the top brands and OEMs in the industry, including Velvac, Bendix, Meritor, Ford and Freightliner.
As the largest online marketplace of heavy-duty truck parts, we’re also in a unique position to service the needs of international truck owners and operators who face a more difficult challenge in finding and buying parts they need for U.S. commercial vehicles. That’s where the Web-based nature of our business really comes into play: we’re open 24/7/365, and utilize such tools as Google Translate and click-to-chat to facilitate the purchasing process for our international customers. Plus, we guarantee that every order is shipped with new and original parts from over 800 leading manufacturers.
If you haven’t tried us yet, we invite you to do so, and find out what sets FinditParts.com above and beyond the competition. Questions? Comments? Let us know.
Welcome to FinditParts’ new website, designed to help Heavy-Duty Truck Part buyers quickly find and purchase the part they need through the security and convenience of online shopping. We not only created this new channel to easily find and buy hard-to-source heavy duty, medium duty and light duty truck parts, we absolutely believe this is the future of buying truck parts. We envisioned a marketplace that everyone in the industry has quick and easy access to, whether they’re fleet managers of hundreds of trucks or a counter person desperately searching for that elusive, yet critical part for his customer, or the owner/operator in rural areas with limited resources. To that end, we’ve spent the past year, building an inventory of over 1,000,000 heavy-duty truck parts. We’ve brought together a team of experts to create an unmatched online shopping experience through an easy to navigate site and a secure checkout process, ensuring that your experience from beginning to end is smooth and seamless. While there are multiple ways to search for the part you need—by part number or part category or manufacturer or most popular part—we’re also here to personally help you in multiple other ways. Click-to-chat and we’re at the other end of the phone to answer all your questions or email us a photo and we’ll source the part for you. (We have a team of parts detectives who can track down the most obscure parts.) We want to be your go-to source for all your heavy duty truck parts—that’s why we’ve got all your top brands from Meritor to Timken, Grote to Bendix, Velvac to Navistar, Freightliner to Ford and more —from over 800 leading manufacturers and OEMS. We know the industry, we understand how your business runs, and how hard it is to find parts. While we’ve got over 30 years in the heavy duty truck market, we need your feedback and input, too. So let us know how we’re doing and what you’d like to see on FinditParts.com. Email us at: cofounders@finditparts.com
November 2 may not have been a happy night for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, but those who make their living in the trucking and transportation industries were almost as happy as Republicans when the votes where tallied.
Why? Because several state transportation-related initiatives were up for public consideration, and most of them were decided in favor of the industry.
The results were not particularly surprising, given the mood of the electorate.
Initiatives proposing new legislation to regulate the trucking industry? Not this time, said voters who believe companies should have fewer hindrances to expanding and hiring new workers in this stagnant economy.
A vehicle license fee increase? Rejected. While large trucks would have been excluded from this California proposition, no one in the cash-strapped Golden State was in any mood for paying more for anything. Voters also allowed the Anaheim City Council to pass legislation prohibiting red light cameras or any automated traffic enforcement system. Similar propositions also passed in Ohio and Houston, Texas. Take that, Big Brother!
However, transportation issues did not achieve a GOP-like sweep. Read the details of how voters decided on more than a dozen propositions and initiatives.
Overall, however, the results can be summed up this way – if it cost more money, it was probably going to be voted down. Increases of as little as one penny on state taxes received a chilly reception from the electorate, even when the funds would be spent on such non-partisan objectives as improving education and building parks. But people who are looking for work, or who are struggling to balance their own budget while the nation’s debt spirals out of control, had little patience for any government entity asking them for more money.
Every year, enormous decorated trees are unveiled in places like the White House and New York’s Rockefeller Center. To casual observers their appearance is just another part of the Christmas magic associated with the season. But behind the scenes it takes more than elves to get these mighty spruces to their destination.
The tree at the U.S. Capitol, like all of the nation’s most prominent Christmas trees, is delivered by truck. The 67-foot tall Englemann Spruce, weighing more than three tons, traveled to D.C. from Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the trailer of a semi owned by Jeff Underwood Trucking Inc.
The tree was chosen back in July – that much time was needed to make the necessary preparations for its transport. These included the building and graveling of roads to allow heavy equipment to reach the site, and the widening of roads so the Underwood truck could travel safely from Bridger-Teton National Forest. Initial loading was accomplished by driving the truck under the tree so it could be gently lowered, horizontally, into its bed, along with a sophisticated watering system that kept its needles green during the 21-day trip. Facebook and Twitter updates allowed people to follow the journey online.
The U.S. Capitol tree was officially lit on December 7. Meanwhile, back in Wyoming, 500 seedlings were planted as part of a carbon neutral program. And every part of the journey, from the fuel for the truck to the heavy equipment needed to cut down and transport the tree, was donated by various public and private organizations. Apparently, even Christmas trees are not immune from political scrutiny. If only Washington had watched the budget this closely when all that bailout money was being distributed.
Read more about how the trucking industry served this country in 2010.
Once again, the government has set its sights on the heavy-duty trucking industry, with the goal to make transportation more efficient, and reduce its impact on the environment.
This time the objective is new fuel-efficiency standards, set to become law by 2014 at the earliest. Before then, several details must be worked out, not the least of which is whether miles to the gallon is the most accurate way of measuring a truck’s efficiency.
For example, equipping a truck with a hybrid electric system would be beneficial in stop-and-go traffic or over rolling terrain, but would add useless weight to a tractor-trailer that cruises at 65 m.p.h. on flat terrain. Maximizing fuel economy could also mean equipping a full-size tractor-trailer differently, depending on whether it was hauling its maximum weight or a cargo limited by volume.
But sooner or later these issues will settled, and companies may have to start preparing themselves to improve on the 5-6 miles per gallon that many heavy trucks now average. For more information on these issues, in our article New Fuel Economy Standards by 2014? And if you print out a copy, make sure it’s on recycled paper.
This September, the United States honors truckers with National Truck Driver Appreciation Week (September 19-25). Canada has its own variation on the same theme with National Trucking Week (September 5-12).
The Canadian event pre-dates the one in the lower 48, and seems to be a more distinctive tribute to those who make their living in the trucking business. There are large newspaper stories promoting the event and special events across the country. Even the nation’s Prime Minister wrote a letter expressing his appreciation.
In America, Truck Driver Appreciation Week gets no more attention in the media than National Toad Hollow Week, National Bubble Blowers Week and Root Canal Awareness Week. Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.
How seriously do they take their trucker tributes in Canada? The event’s official website offers no less than 43 suggestions for “how companies can show their appreciation to drivers and other employees.”
Before reading our article on the two-nation celebration of the trucking industry, here are some of the ways in which they salute our brethren in the Great White North.
- Inviting employees to dinner at the home of an owner, manager or president.
- Putting all the drivers’ signatures on the side of a truck with a special message of thanks from the company.
- Having a company truck rodeo to showcase driver skills.
- Taking out an ad in the local newspaper to thank drivers for a job well done.
- Holding a car wash for employees’/drivers’ personal vehicles.
- Providing gift certificates for complimentary dinner for drivers on the road.
- Writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper outlining the important contribution the trucking industry makes to the economy and community life.
- Giving a driver the chance to represent the company at an industry event.
- Creating a “Hall of Fame” for outstanding employees and drivers.
Arranging for flowers to be given to the spouses of drivers.
When the President of the United States acknowledges our industry, we should listen.
It happened earlier this month, with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with employees of K. Neal International Trucks. After touring the facility in Hyattsville, Maryland with Stephen Neal, the dealership’s president and CEO, President Obama urged a ‘stay the course’ path going forward, insisting that his economic policies are making a positive difference.
“I want to thank K Neal for having us here today, giving us a quick tour and having us look at all these — all these trucks” Obama said, drawing laughter from those in attendance.
The President pointed to job creation over the past five months and how the economy has grown for three consecutive quarters. He also singled out the Recovery Act passed by Congress, which Stephen Neal said helped K. Neal ride out a difficult winter, and allowed him to avoid any employee layoffs or terminations.
But after crediting Vice President Joe Biden for his efforts on behalf of the Recovery Act, Obama couldn’t resist taking a shot at his second-in-command’s driving skills. “By the way,” Obama said,’ Joe says he used to be able to drive some of these trucks.”
“That’s true,” Biden said.
“But I would suggest he not — not to lend him a car — that was a long time ago,” said the President.
Click here to read more about the President’s visit to K. Neal, and how his economic policies will impact the trucking industry.
Quick- who’s the most famous resident of Wasilla, Alaska?
OK, that was too easy. But who’s the second most famous?
If you’re a fan of Ice Road Truckers, you already know the answer. It’s Lisa Kelly, the gorgeous driver now taking on the challenges of hauling heavy cargo over frozen lakes in the series fourth season. She is no stranger to high-risk assignments. Prior to the beginning of the season, Kelly spent two months hauling cement in the Himalayas.
The 28 year-old native of Grand Rapids, Michigan is happily married (sorry) and now dealing with the growing fame that happens to those who share their lives with reality television. “I have nothing in the chamber right now, just whatever comes my way,” she told one writer. “The show has opened up a lot of doors.” They include a photo shoot with Maxim, and a store on her website that sells autographed photos and other merchandise.
Her first trucking job was delivering bread in a van. After obtaining her Class B license she applied for work with several trucking companies, and even though she looked like the women in the calendars that hung on the walls she couldn’t get a job. Gradually she worked her way to tractors and one can only imagine the excitement of the producers of Ice Road Truckers at the chance to add a potential pin-up to the cast.
“I have a genuine love for life and want to live it to the fullest with the precious time that I’ve been given here on Earth. I want to be old and have no regrets of the things I haven’t done,” Lisa says on her website. And you can watch her living life to the fullest on this season of Ice Road Truckers. Click here to learn more about the highest-rated series on The History Channel, and the possibility of an Ice Road Truckers movie. Lisa in IMAX? We’re getting our tickets now.
Well, that didn’t take long.
The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has already had a significant impact beyond the creation of a tragic environmental disaster. Oil companies are once again being portrayed as heartless robber barons who care more about profits than public safety, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is having second thoughts about offshore drilling in the Pacific, and a few less people are yelling ‘Drill, baby, drill!” in an election year.
The goals, as always, are energy self-sufficiency and a reduction in the need for oil to run our cars and trucks. America imports approximately 2/3 of the oil we use, 70 percent of which is used as transportation fuel for automobiles and about 8 million heavy-duty trucks, which use 1/3 of the oil we import as fuel. Total cost? $400 billion a year.
Heavy trucks can’t run on battery power yet, but they can run on natural gas. Clean energy champions such as former oilman T. Boone Pickens have strongly advocated an expanded use of natural gas vehicles in America, especially given the expected demand for oil supplies in China and India, and the increased per-barrel price that will accompany them.
Natural gas is cleaner and cheaper and more abundant than oil, and we’ve got all we need right here – enough to last at least 200 years. And while it would be difficult to convert the auto industry to natural gas, given the dearth of refueling stations, private industries such as heavy-duty truck fleets could be more easily converted, with stations added to their headquarters or along the routes their drivers most frequently travel.
These and other issues were discussed earlier this month at the Alternative Fuels & Vehicles Conference held in Las Vegas. Click here for more information on this annual event.
Most heavy-duty trucking companies have July 1 circled on their calendar, as a reminder of the implementation of CSA 2010. However, it now appears that companies will have the rest of the summer to get their files and fleet in shape, as the program may not begin until the fall.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has expressed hope that phases of CSA 2010 will be in place when the leaves begin to turn, with full implementation not expected until spring or summer of 2011, rather than this December as originally planned.
The agency released this statement: “As part of FMCSA’s commitment to launch a comprehensive and effective CSA 2010 program, the agency is in the process of incorporating the feedback received from partners and stakeholders in the CSA 2010 pilot states. In the coming weeks, the agency expects to issue a Federal Register notice that will address the CSA 2010 implementation timeline and data preview for commercial motor carriers.”
The reason for the delay appeared to be a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address some of the details of implementation. However, that is no excuse for not starting to prepare now, as there will be no getting away from the program’s requirements regarding paperwork and collected data.
The FMSCSA will provide carriers with a preview of their CSA 2010 data later this month. By November 30, both carriers and the public will have access to complete Carrier Safety Measurement System data. However, the public will not be able to review Crash Indicator scores.
Still confused by some of the requirements? Read the article CSA 2010: A Revolution, or Just More Regulation? now posted on our site.
