The 25,000th truck—a Volvo VNL 670—built with Remote Diagnostics has been delivered to Averitt Express of Cookesville, Tennessee. Averitt operates 700 trucks with the proactive diagnostics and repair planning program.
“The Remote Diagnostics feature allows our corporate maintenance team to work with our drivers and in-house shops, to proactively assess and address issues,” said Steve Maxson, vice president of equipment for Averitt Express. “This dramatically reduces downtime, which keeps our equipment on the road delivering the freight on time. This contributes to driver and customer satisfaction; as well as reducing costs associated with road breakdowns and towing.”
Standard on all new Volvo-powered vehicles, Remote Diagnostics has helped reduce the average diagnostic time at a service location by up to 70% and lowered the average time of repair by more than 20%, Volvo said.
In addition to providing proactive diagnostic and repair planning assistance, Remote Diagnostics helps improve parts availability and provides technicians at the repairing dealer with easy-to-read repair instructions before the truck arrives for service. Remote Diagnostics also provides service case communication and documentation among Volvo Action Service, dealers and customers through ASIST, Volvo’s web-based service management tool.
“Fuel efficiency and vehicle uptime remain two of our greatest focal points as we continually work to increase the value of ownership for Volvo customers,” said Göran Nyberg, president, Volvo Trucks North American sales & marketing. “A single day of additional uptime delivers about the same cost savings as a 2 percent fuel efficiency improvement yields during the course of a year. Knowing the tremendous value of uptime, we continue to invest heavily throughout our organization to help keep our customers on the road and making money.”
To serve the needs of the vehicles on the road equipped with Remote Diagnostics, Volvo will open a new Uptime Center in Greensboro, NC, in the fall. Roughly one-third of the 123,000-sq.-ft. facility will serve as a dedicated Uptime Center housing Volvo Action Service (VAS), Volvo’s 24/7 support team. VAS agents receive alerts via Remote Diagnostics when monitored fault codes appear. They then work with the customer’s defined decision maker to establish a course of action. VAS also works with the designated repair facility to ensure parts are on-hand before a truck arrives at a service location, helping maximize vehicle uptime.