The growing cost of maintenance, especially with the current exchange rate issues, has spurred the growth of low cost, low quality spurious replacement parts. Andrew Yorke, director at Metric Automotive Engineering, says that this is especially true in those sectors, such as earthmoving and mining equipment, where maintenance costs dominate the lifetime of equipment.
“While many service providers stake their hard earned reputations on extending the life of a machine, there are those who are less ethical and see an opportunity to make a larger profit. Add to this scenario that some buyers within the larger organisation may not actually understand the long term ramification of using sub-standard replacement parts,” Yorke continues.
“Essentially, we continue to see the weighing up of short term versus long term viability with respect to the choice of component supplier. Where the person responsible for purchasing the essential replacement parts decides to cut costs to the bone and purchases spurious parts this may save costs in the short term, but could result in complete engine failure with the high associated costs thereof,” he explains. “And we are not even touching on the costs resulting from the unplanned downtime or the possible safety issues.”
Metric Automotive Engineering is the authorised distributor of IPD Parts in southern Africa and Yorke is quick to explain that these are engineered replacement parts that are manufactured in the IPD Parts ISO 9001:2000 accredited quality controlled environment. “USA-based IPD Parts has more than 50 years of engineering and manufacturing experience and this certainly shows in the quality of the final products.”
The IPD range of Caterpillar replacement parts covers in excess of 8 000 line items. One example of innovation in the IPD Parts range includes the Multilayer Steel (MLS) cylinder head gasket sets for Caterpillar® C13 engines, which include graphite mating surface treatment. Yorke explains that the additional thickness on the head gasket compensates for the fact that when an engine’s major components are overhauled they are skimmed and height is lost on the block, which a critical dimension.
Another example is the Caterpillar® C9, C13 and C15 crankshafts. These follow on from IPD Part’s successful crankshafts for older generation Cat® engines such as the 3306, 3406 and 3408.
Making life easier for customers rebuilding the latest generation Caterpillar® engines, the IPD Style1-2-3™ gasket sets allow customers to simply order one part number and receive one box, with everything contained within that single box. Another advantage is that the components are packaged according to substructure which means the parts are packaged accordingly for the water and oil pump, for example.
The IPD Caterpillar C9 engine gasket kits incorporate cost effective yet high quality designs including rocker cover base seals made from moulded rubber with metal inserts and, for selected applications, composite type oil pan seals come with integrated metal inserts.
“IPD’S new C12 engine basic overhaul kits, cylinder kits, bearings, IPD Style 1-2-3™ and multiple style gasket sets, valve train and cam and pin bushings provide all the basic overhaul parts necessary to rebuild the Caterpillar C12 engine. The kits include IPD Steel® articulated two-piece pistons with IPD patented cast steel crown and aluminium skirt, together with piston pin, rings and liner,” says Yorke.
Metric Automotive Engineering can refurbish large diesel engine components and offers services such as cylinder head remanufacture, cylinder block line boring, milling, honing and boring, camshaft grinding, crankshaft grinding, engine assembly and dynamometer testing. Subsidiary company, Reef Fuel Injection Services offers Bosch, Delphi and Denso approved fuel injection services and is acknowledged as the specialist in CAT fuel systems.
