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OEM Website Review
    It’s been 4 years since we last reviewed the major trailer manufacturers websites (“Trailer Traffic” June 1999 – “New Trailers on the Net…”), and we can’t help feeling a little like Rip Van Winkle…not much has happened!
    With all due respect, the Trailmobile and Wabash sites stand out with more new, customer-friendly features than the others.  Considering that they were also the two best sites 4 years ago, we are not surprised.  Nevertheless, we find it hard to get excited about their modest improvements in inventory display and parts support. 
    Both companies now have trailer inventory display capability (albeit far fewer listings for TM), but their search engines are overly simplistic and leave the visitor with laborious manual “drilling” to find anything of interest.  Both are miserly about showing any pricing, detailed specifications, locations or trade terms thereby frustrating the shopper with a lack of pre-qualifying data before making the necessary follow-up call.
    With regard to after-market parts support, both companies use the third-party “parts123.com” database and retrieval program originally developed for vintage car buffs.  Actual pricing and shopping access are restricted to dealers and national accounts, so we can’t really evaluate how well they work when buying.  Review of the catalogues and experimentation with the search engine, however, was very positive.  Neither site offers much in the way of instruction for first-time shoppers, so curious and courageous clicking are required.
    Trailmobile also has an intriguing new site feature called TMAC (Trailmobile Advanced Configuration System) which appears to be an on-line quoting system for TM salespeople and dealers.  Again because of restricted access, we couldn’t get into TMAC to evaluate its power and ease, but, if it works, it’s a great idea.  It’s just too bad that it’s not available to end-users to spec and design their trailers on-line. 
OEM Website Review (Continued) 

Trailer News Briefs From Around the Web:

Schneider Chooses Qualcomm for Untethered Trailer Tracking - Number one truckload carrier Schneider National has announced selection of Qualcomm’s TrailerTRACS for its nationwide trailer fleet.  Schneider will also lead an industry consortium to guide Qualcomm’s product development. (Also see our related article, “State-of-the-Art: Trailer Tracking” from our July ‘03 issue.)

Trailer Brake Failures Analyzed - The Canadian Maintenance Council has concluded that trailer brake failures are an “all-too-frequent” safety issue.

New Tire Pressure System Offered - AirGo Systems of Edmund , OK has an new constant tire pressure system that they claim reduces the risk of damage to wheel-end components.

Jan.–June North American Trailer Shipments Up 44% over 2002 - A leading industry forecaster, Economic Planning Associates of Smithtown, NY says 2003 trailer deliveries are up sharply.

European Trailer Manufacturing Continues to be Soft - Industry researcher, G Beecroft/CLEAR of Twickenham , UK sees no recovery until 2004.

New Legislation Could Force Railroads and Steamship Lines to Repair Trailers - Long an intermodal hot-potato, the question of who is responsible to fix container chassis and piggyback trailers may finally be answered.  The US House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is now considering a bill that will fix the problem once and for all.

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