Victims of Freightliner parts thefts struggle to get replacements

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Larry Gilliam returned to Norfolk, Virginia, from a drayage operate to Ga on Monday to locate 1 of his trucks with a hole punched in the passenger-aspect window. He considered a thief preferred to steal the radio from his 2015 Freightliner Cascadia.

Then he appeared nearer. The sprint experienced been pried open. Wiring jutted from a gaping hole where by the truck’s prevalent powertrain manage module (CPC) utilized to be. 

The brute drive brain surgical procedure remaining Gilliam’s truck immovable. It is a single of hundreds of related thefts hitting preceding-technology 2014-2017 Freightliner Cascadias nationwide and in Canada. Operator-operators. Smaller trucking corporations. A made use of SelecTrucks dealership in Iowa. An auction garden in Pennsylvania. No just one is exempt.

It is a huge enough difficulty that Daimler Truck North America issued a press release Monday detailing the challenge. The unusual sharing of bad information referred to as attention to the rip-offs. The sector-major Class 8 truck maker pledged to do what it could to assist dealers and legislation enforcement crack down.

But it can not do substantially. The thefts are a prison response to a world scarcity of semiconductors that electrical power numerous truck capabilities. Chips inside the CPCs are so in need that black marketplace charges leading $8,000 for a component DTNA lists at $1,400.

Smash-and-grab

“I found a hole the dimensions of a fist in the passenger window. … It appeared like it was smashed out,” Gilliam told FreightWaves. “When I opened the door, I recognized the dash wherever the air brake strains have been was ripped out. My ELD pill was lacking, and the jumper cables I just acquired were missing.”

He did not know the CPC even existed in his Freightliner Cascadia. 

“I just thought it was odd that the dash was ripped out rather of the factor with the radio,” Gilliam said. “I realized there were these 4 plugs, so I went on the web and [read] about the theft of these laptop matters.”

The 2015 Freightliner Cascadia is the newest of four trucks and three drivers that make up Lane Jockey Transportation in Norfolk. 

Trucking company owner Larry Gilliam in black and gray jacket standing in front of his 2015 Freightliner Cascadia.
Larry Gilliam with his 2015 Freightliner Cascadia ahead of it was broken into and its typical powertrain command module — the brain of the truck — was stolen. (Photograph courtesy of Larry Gilliam)

“That truck is really substantially a paperweight,” Gilliam said. “There’s basically absolutely nothing I can do with it now.”

Following filing a law enforcement report, he paid out to have the truck towed to a rental room at a safe property in Chesapeake, Virginia. 

Component scarcity

Gilliam stories no luck so significantly locating a alternative element.

“Every Freightliner Cascadia supplier I have termed so significantly has advised me that they’ve acquired like 50 orders of these things that’ve been on back get due to the fact April 2021. I was likely to go wherever they had a person. I was heading to fly out and get it. Actually nobody I referred to as has it.”

The number of models readily available on line are suspect since they may well be stolen or tampered with. They also are expensive. 

Gilliam pulled his own authority and started off his business enterprise a calendar year ago soon after driving for some others since 2009. Now his enterprise is in jeopardy. His 2007 Freightliner Columbia is in the shop waiting around for other components, leaving Gilliam with just his 2013 Kenworth T660 and a 2011 Navistar Worldwide.

“I took a major blow because I’m down to two trucks. The ’07 Freightliner is finding worked on and I want parts for it. That 2015 Freightliner was my latest and best truck. There are contracts I’m likely to have to void due to the fact I’m not heading to have the extra power [units] to do ’em.”

Volvo Trucks North The usa and Peterbilt explained they are not going through related thefts. Navistar mentioned it had “nothing to share” on the matter. Kenworth did not respond to a FreightWaves question.

Freightliner Cascadia dealership dismay

The SelecTrucks of Omaha dealership in Council Bluffs, Iowa, across the Missouri River from Nebraska, discovered 17 utilised Cascadia crack-ins with CPCs lacking on May perhaps 8.

Truck Heart Organizations owns the retailer, one of 17 in four states. SelecTrucks is a DTNA brand name, offering it priority in having company enable.

“They are expediting what they can and looking into other suppliers to get us more than enough of the elements in a timely manner,” Rob Cygan, Truck Middle Firms president, informed FreightWaves. “We’ve experienced vehicles sitting down and ready for weeks. We’re accomplishing the best we can to consider care of prospects.”

A consumer prepared to decide on up one of the trucks on the working day the CPC thefts arrived to light. 

“As long as I have been all around, we’ve had random factors like tires [being stolen]. Copper was a seriously very hot product a couple of years back. We have safety all more than our dealerships, so anything like this is a quite rare occurrence,” Cygan claimed. 

The dealership rip-off built the rounds on the world-wide-web. At the very least just one Michigan seller group alerted staff members to choose safeguards.

Email  text with photo of a Freightliner Cascadia common powertrain control module
A warning email despatched to just one dealership. 

Pennsylvania auction hit for Freightliner Cascadia modules

The major identified theft of CPCs transpired at Hess Auctioneers in Marietta, Pennsylvania. Two dozen vehicles waiting around to go on the line misplaced modules in one particular incident.

Hess Auctioneers has limited on-website security and surveillance cameras, in accordance to a report by WGAL-Tv in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The enterprise turned around the online video to Susquehanna Regional law enforcement.

“It’s a quite brazen thing that anyone would do to acquire that proper out of the sprint,” Bill Troop, Hess Auctioneers normal manager, advised the Television station.

Quick to obtain

But the modules are quick to access, according to a diesel technician in the Los Angeles space. He declined to use his name. 

DTNA a little bit moved the area of the CPC in the New Cascadia that debuted as a 2020 model.

“It’s nonetheless straightforward to get to. It’s continue to in the dash,” the technician stated. “You pull a protect off the passenger side held on by clips, unscrew the fuse box and it stares you in the facial area.”

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Click for far more FreightWaves content by Alan Adler. 



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