ITPA February 2016 Bulletin

05 February 2016

The ITPA Bulletin keeps you up-to-date on association information and meetings.

Announcing the ITPA Spring Meeting

Join us in Portland, OR for high caliber speakers and networking with the best in the industry.

2016 ITPA Spring Meeting

Courtyard Marriott City Center

Portland, OR

April 6-8, 2016

Speakers: Donald Cooper, Bill Gryzenia from AxleTech, Larry Sanford from ConMet, and Skip Potter from NASTF.

Tours: Anderson Bros and Columbia Corp

For full details, click here.

ITPA Meet and Greet at 2016 HDAW

It was tough to figure out how many people stopped by at the ITPA Meet and Greet at the HDAW. We figured around 95 since some came in to say hi and some stayed for the entire reception. It was great to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones!

OEM Service Information Access to HD Independent Techs

The heavy duty/commercial vehicle industry announced in September 2015 a Memorandum of Understanding (HD MOU) between the Commercial Right to Repair Coalition and the Truck & Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA), where original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of heavy duty vehicles would provide service information to independent service providers by way of their OEM technical websites. To assist in managing the understanding, search and feedback related to this cooperative effort between HD OEMs and independent HD service specialists, the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF) was asked to expand its scope with the addition of heavy duty to its similar service already being provided to the light vehicle industry.

During the fourth quarter of 2015, NASTF began updating its popular OEM Service Website index, www.nastf.org/OEMtechsites, with the addition of technical website URLs for all heavy duty vehicle and major component OEMs. "The easy part," said Skip Potter, Executive Director of NASTF, "is to connect with the right people at each OEM and get their technical websites listed in the NASTF index. The real work is then ongoing as NASTF assists the HD industry in matching the needs and expectations of independent technicians with the legal, intended and practical intentions of the OEM."

To handle the ongoing dialog between independent technicians and OEMs, NASTF accepts questions from independent HD technicians by way of the NASTF Service Information Request (SIR) feedback feature, www.nastf.org/FileSIR. The rules of the SIR process include an attitude of cooperation between the OEM and independent service community. First, the OEM programming file or other service information is assumed to be available and released by the OEM and that the independent technician has done all they can do to qualify themselves to conduct that specific repair. SIRs filed to NASTF are investigated and forwarded, when appropriate, to special senior contacts designated to NASTF by each of the participating OEMs. NASTF SIRs are often resolved in time to assist the filing technician in completing a repair on a current job. In some instances, however, resolution may be delayed and while the filing technician may need assistance from a dealership to get this one customer vehicle back on the road quickly, the eventual correction in missing service information by the OEM will have saved this and other technicians from delay in the future.

As HD OEMs and independent HD service technicians gain experience in their new level of shared service information, NASTF will attempt to add helpful features to www.nastf.org to assist HD techs in finding the OEM resource they need and to assist HD OEMs in successful delivery to those techs of what they have made available.

NASTF was established in 2000 to identify, communicate and resolve gaps in the availability and accessibility of motor vehicle service information, service training, diagnostic tools and equipment for the benefit of independent service professionals. NASTF was incorporated in 2006 as a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization. To learn more about NASTF, visit the organization's website, www.nastf.org and watch the 5-minute video, "Access to Service & Programming Information from Vehicle OEMs" found under the ABOUT NASTF tab, www.nastf.org/about.

Caution on Credit Card Transactions

An ITPA Member explains a situation he had with a credit card transaction. One of our guys had a sale pending where a customer agreed to purchase a truck and ship it to Belgium. The customer paid 13k with a credit card. Shipping, paid for by the customer, was 7k paid by credit card today. Our instructions were to wire the funds for freight directly to the shipper and freight will be set up for today.

The concern that we had was a charge back and with the truck being shipped out of the country we would not be able to recover the loss. We called Heartland Processing (our merchant service) to inquire the best way to protect our company from a potential charge back. Their suggestion was receive a wire. In this case the fraud was not in the truck purchase; the fraud was in the freight. We assume that once we wired the money to the "shipping" company, they would never pick up the unit.

Credit Card purchases are easy and an everyday occurrence. In this case the target was a truck and the sales yard but it could have very easily been an engine or cab and the salvage yard.

Please be sure all of your credit card documentation is complete and accurate.