On December 7, 2020, the news took various Volvo Tucks customer transporters in Mexico by surprise . The Volvo Group statement was forceful: “Volvo Trucks has carried out a deep analysis of its business strategy and has decided to discontinue sales of its entire portfolio of tractor trucks in Mexico.”
This decision led various transporters to look for new sources of tractor supply to meet their fleet modernization and growth needs, still in the context of the covid pandemic.
Transportes Peñón Blanco (TPB) had selected Volvo Trucks as a tractor truck supplier in 2013, with the promise that the model would meet the needs of double semi-trailer operation, also complying with current regulations such as NOM-012 on weights and dimensions. , “and all the capabilities to work in Mexican territory in said configuration ,” Ricardo Tamez Flores, legal representative of TPB, shared with T21.
According to the manager, from the beginning there were problems with the performance of the units, and precisely because of the promise that the VNL630 tractors could handle the double trailer configuration, the vehicles began with failures, especially in the transmissions and engines.
“At first there was some interest in meeting the guarantees, however, the period of the management of the managers who headed the brand in the country was so short that a definitive solution was not achieved, and even with the last CEO ( Luz Elena Jurado), with her there was no interest in resolving the underlying issue, we always looked for ways to resolve it, but despite a couple of meetings to review this delicate issue, she never showed interest in resolving the issue in issue,” said the legal representative of Transportes Peñón Blanco.
Faced with this scenario, since the departure of Volvo Trucks from Mexico, Transportes Peñón Blanco began a legal process in the United States to make a claim for the guarantees , “in addition we wanted to make latent the mismanagement of Volvo Mexico, the reaction of Volvo Trucks North America was suddenly leaving Mexico and dealing with its distributors, we found out from the press, they didn’t even give us a notice and it is a date that they have not communicated,” said Tamez Flores.
The action undertaken by Transportes Peñón Blanco against Volvo Trucks México and Volvo Trucks North America aims to set a precedent for the commitment that must be assumed with Mexican transporters, emphasized Ricardo Tamez.
“(The fundamental objective of the lawsuit is) to prove that the model offered in the Mexican market (VNL630) did not comply with the characteristics and specifications required in its applications to support the load or tonnage authorized by the Official Mexican Standard (NOM-012) which could range from 65 to 75 tons, and from recent information we learned that the factory where these trucks are produced now claim that they could only load up to 35 tons, which evidently deceived the buyers of this type of truck. trucks bringing a series of recurring problems, in which the transmission and the engine or engine head had to be forced when climbing these slopes, for not considering the orographic conditions of our country,” described Ricardo Tamez.
In the manager’s explanation, this had serious losses with the transporters who had their units detained at the distributors, even reflecting in retention issues for operators who could not use their units to generate resources for their families.
“For all these reasons, we are suing for concealment of information by not only Volvo Group Mexico but also Volvo Group North America, who were completely certain of this problem and, above all, of the deception that was done to the Mexican market when offering a truck or in what In particular, a model supposedly with the necessary capabilities and requirements to travel the roads of Mexico with a double or full trailer,” stated Tamez Flores.
Volvo Group recently announced the installation of a production plant in Ciénega de Flores, Nuevo León, and although it has not been specified whether this represents the re-entry of marketing in Mexico, Ricardo Tamez pointed out : “We believe that it is a highly complex given the widespread resentment among transporters, distributors and consumers of Volvo, this due to the abrupt, dishonest, irresponsible and disrespectful way in which they left the country, leaving a trail of dissatisfaction, annoyance to the Mexican motor transport industry, who at the time trusted in the brand because of its prestige.”
In the first half of the last decade, Volvo Trucks Mexico defined its 15/15 plan, where by 2015 it was to achieve a market share of 15%, and in that aggressive strategy many transporters trusted the brand, a situation that for Ricardo Tamez aggravated the situation.
