Critical Service And Repair Data Comes To The Heavy-Duty Market

Until now, technicians and suppliers of aftermarket parts and service for heavy-duty vehicles could only look with envy at their cousins in the light-duty vehicle aftermarket. After years of negotiations and many formal and informal talks between vehicle OEMs and their aftermarket counterparts, Right to Repair has finally come to fruition.
When the Canadian Automotive Service Information Standard (CASIS) was signed on September 29th, 2009, Canadian automobile makers acknowledged that the automotive aftermarket has a “right to repair” vehicles. The CASIS agreement removed barriers that once prevented aftermarket service operations from gaining access to the factory-specific tools, training, diagnostic and repair software, and re-flashing codes needed for the proper maintenance and repair of vehicles.
The light-duty vehicle repair and maintenance industry in Canada welcomed this move, as it ended the need to send newer vehicles to dealer-based service operations for such things as diagnostic work or re-flashing of codes.
However, the heavy-duty side of the market was another story altogether.
“The independent aftermarket has always been fighting the battle for access,” says Total Truck Parts president Marc Karon, who is president of the Commercial Right to Repair Coalition. “The OEMs would try to keep information about parts proprietary, to keep a leg up on the independents. Until recently, that was on a part-by-part basis. When electronics entered into the picture, you now had to deal with not only what part had to be replaced, but [the fact that] that part was now part of an integrated system where the part communicated with the vehicle’s computer. So now you have a problem of access to the programming, to tell the truck’s computer that a part has been replaced and the problem has been correctly fixed and the vehicle is now safe to return to the road.”
To address the issues around access to parts and service information, the heavy-duty aftermarket began to push for something similar to Right to Repair. In October, that finally happened. The Heavy Duty Aftermarket Canada (HDAC), the Commercial Vehicle Solutions Network (CVSN), and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), along with the Equipment and Tool Institute (ETI) and the Auto Care Association (AutoCare), came together and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on access to heavy-duty vehicle service and repair information. The MOU was made to address the key issue of making information service and repair information for vehicles 2010 and later, specifically for trucks and buses that are five tonnes and more sold in Canada and the United States, available to independent service and repair facilities that work on heavy-duty vehicles.
Along with Marc Karon, the other key players in the negotiations leading up to the MOU were Charlie Gorman from ETI, Dave Scheer from Inland Truck Parts, Aaron Lowe from AutoCare, Ian Johnston from Harman HVS, and Jason Kerr, director of government relations with Heavy Duty Aftermarket Canada (HDAC).
“Much like the automotive Right to Repair, this MOU will provide independents with access to service and repair information to fix those vehicles, especially as they have become much more complex,” says HDAC’s Jason Kerr. “You can have ten different trucks now that are all spec’d out in the same way, but in reality are very different.”
Like the Canadian Right to Repair for light-duty vehicles, the MOU will bring together industry associations and heavy-duty OEMs to work together to exchange service information, and to address issues surrounding information access so that independents can service vehicles and maintain them with the correct tools and parts.
To help in this exchange of information, the signatories to the MOU approached the National Automotive Task Force (NASTF), which had been instrumental in helping coordinate the sharing of information for Right to Repair for the light-duty vehicle OEMs and service providers. It is now being asked to expand its role with the addition of heavy-duty.
Skip Potter, executive director with NASTF, says the industry organization was approached by the participants in the MOU because of the work NASTF did on the light-duty vehicle side for Right to Repair. As vehicles aged and more new vehicles came in with complex electronic and computer controls that needed re-flashing when parts were changed, independents struggled with getting the information they needed to do both the diagnostics on the complex electronics and the needed re-flashing.
Potter explains that light-duty vehicle independents resorted to informal networks to get the information they needed, or developed working relationships with dealer service operations to help them.
With heavy-duty vehicles now as complex in their electronics as many of today’s automobiles, NASTF will now provide the framework for the needed communications between heavy-duty OEMs and equipment makers and heavy-duty service providers. It will follow the same pathway that was created for light-duty vehicle information, and is expected to be in place by the beginning of 2016.
“Vehicle makers are not equipped to handle communications and feedback with independents,” continues Potter. “They have enough work trying to keep up with their franchise dealers.”
SIR Feedback
Currently, NASTF will begin updating its OEM service website index with technical URLs for heavy-duty vehicles and information from component OEMs. As well, it will start to accept questions from independent service technicians on the NASTF Service Information Request (SIR) feedback.
Potter says that the SIR will be crucial, as it will help ensure that critical information will be made available to independent service technicians. “If service technicians have done all they can do and have exhausted all of their resources and they have looked through all the information that is available, but they are still not able to complete the repair, then they can file an SIR to ask for the information that is missing for them to complete the repair,” Potter continues. “NASTF will have a list of [industry] contacts that we can reach out to and to get them working on investigating this perceived gap [in information]. Is the information there but difficult to find? Has the OEM not gotten around to posting the information? Or did they mistakenly think that information was posted on the public site? What we will do is provide a feedback loop to facilitate the communications between the OEMs and independent service providers.”
Adds HDAC’s Kerr, “One of the additional things about this MOU agreement is that it also provides a solution for finding the right parts for the vehicles – a VIN-to-Part identification tool – so you can put a VIN in and find out what parts would have been originally stocked for that vehicle and then find the right part.” He adds that along with this part information there will be information on how to correctly install the part, how to make repairs using the part, and all the needed software and re-flashing information.
“One of the key challenges for the independent channel is training,” observes Total Truck Parts’ Karon. “The truck manufacturers will not provide training as part of the MOU. As a result, it will be up to the independent aftermarket to develop training so we can keep up with changing technology. CVSN (Commercial Vehicle Solutions Network) is going to lead an effort to provide this training and work with all the heavy duty associations and marketing groups.
“The overriding purpose of this MOU is that it puts the dealers, independent service operations, and vehicle OEMs on a level playing field,” says Karon. “It is about access to information. That was the thing that we were blocked on, because we were not getting access to the computer codes, reset codes, wiring diagrams, and part number information on what needs to be replaced. This is a safety issue, as by denying access to this information, you were possibly creating a scenario where the wrong part could be put onto a vehicle and creating a safety issue. And we, as independents, don’t want to compromise on safety.”