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Mississauga, Ont. -- Carriers with loads en route to General Motors docks should take a closer look at the trailers they use to haul goods.
Some designs will be turned away as of July 31.
It all traces back to "safety-related actions" unveiled in a Dec. 21, 1998 memo issued by Tom Gaines, manager of NAO Logistics corporate programs. Not only would General Motors ban any trailers more than 10 years old, wrote Gaines, but it would deny the use of any fibreglass reinforced plywood designs -- better known as FRPs. For that matter, all semi-trailers will need to hold a 20,000-lb. dynamic floor rating over the 10-year period, to be verified through annual ISO 9000 certificates.
It was a response to two accidents within four months, caused when trailer floors "zippered" away from their walls as fasteners ripped free, one by one.
But "zippering" isn't only caused in FRP designs, says Al Boughton, president of Trailcon Leasing in Mississauga, Ont. He refers to a Trailcon post-and-panel trailer that separated without any interior damage. The floor collapsed instead because of an improper patch on what appeared to be an insignificant cut on the curbside panel.
"This isn't the first unit of the post and panel construction that I have seen where this type of failure has occurred," Boughton...