be purchased at the lowest cost. Tey’re looking at more budget-line value as oppose to a premium brand offering,” said Mollie Blagg, president of Western Bus Sales in Boring, Ore., a Blue Bird dealer which serves the state and five Washington State counties with a “robust” parts department. “Additionally, there are a growing number of players within the parts market- place. Tese trends put extra pressure on dealers to be as price competitive as possible.” Jeff Reitz, president and CEO of Central States
Bus Sales in St. Louis, said as transportation depart- ment parts inventories have declined, his staff has seen school district customers take more of an on-demand approach when it comes to parts or even new bus pur- chases. Te Blue Bird dealership has four full-service facilities, including a parts inventory in four warehous- es, and serves five Midwestern and southern states. “We’ve seen some of the equipment and features
on new bus purchases scaled back,” he said, citing a range of examples, from removing storage compart- ments to modifying suspension systems specifications and horsepower requirements for fuel economy. Barry Huebner, vice president of Midwest Transit
Equipment in Kankakee, Ill., which sells IC Bus models and parts in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, said he is seeing some district customers delaying bus purchases due to uncertain funding, which is having an impact from a parts aspect. Parts for older-model yellow buses that are no longer under warranty can be available through non-dealership parts providers, but customers should compare with competitive dealer pricing, Huebner pointed out. “We also think that inventory on hand to respond
quickly is also important. It comes down to a combi- nation of price and availability,” he noted. At Carolina Tomas, a Tomas Built dealership for
North Carolina and commercial bus dealer for North and South Carolina, General Manager Tom Schaaf said he’s seeing the business pick up with aftermar- ket parts for remanufactured school bus engines and transmissions. “Some entities are looking at reducing their number of vendors, and they’re looking to us on guidance for parts that we wouldn’t have supplied five years ago,” he said. Schaaf noted the dealership
had to “reinvent” itself five years ago as warranty-re- lated service began to decline and PM inspections, collision repairs and other service requests increased. In fact, for the past year and a half, Carolina Tomas has been running the parts department for a North Carolina county school district, an arrangement that has worked out to be mutually beneficial for both the district and the dealer. “Tis means more than just providing parts. We
operate the entire parts department,” Schaaf said. “Our people source the needed parts, we inventory, we control the dispersion of the parts, and we deliver the parts needed in remote locations.” Brian McCool, Tomas Built’s manager of parts
marketing, added that this practice might be a trend for the future, but it not widespread yet. “Tere have been inquiries by several customers, but a lot of re- quests for quotations have been put on hold,” he said. Independent aftermarket parts distributors also see
increased price competition within the market, so they let their customers and potential customers know they offer a wide varitety of non-proprietary products that they don’t have to purchase at the deaerlship. “Tere are very few ‘proprietary’ parts on a school
bus,” said Shelle Johnson, sales manager at Manlius, N.Y.-based Bus Parts Warehouse, who also noted
£ Many bus dealers are seeing new school bus purchases with less equipment and features in an effort to curb costs. Many transportation directors will then shop around for the best value in non- proprietary parts.
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