A very special device in Czosnów, the only in the country, is a test bench ZF Services Functional Test Bench CH-EG 110 Lite. The guests who arrived for the grand opening had a chance to see themselves how does a check of a 12-gear transmission work. The test bench is fully automated and computerized machine for testing transmissions, wet clutches WSK and retarders virtually from whole product range of ZF. It allows simulating different states of work at different load. The service has chemical-steam wash which makes it possible to clean all the elements before repair, repair benches, crane, ZF special tools, which make work much faster and easier. And the warehouse contains over 1,500 different transmission parts.
It all started with Sachs
The idea of servicing gearboxes is dated back to September 2012, but before that Inter Cars had been cooperating with Sachs for many years, what was reminded by Krzysztof Oleksowicz, company founder and member of the board. Sachs was the biggest supplier of clutches and shock absorbers for Inter Cars, which back then was focussed on trade. When Sachs was taken over by ZF, Inter Cars gained access to even bigger quantity of products.
– Inter Cars in 20th century was a trading company – said Krzysztof Oleksowicz. – Now, in 21st century we think that it is not only important to sell the parts but to merge it with selling the competence and the know-how. This investment, realized together with ZF is an example of what we want to do. Not only the parts, not only the trade, but trainings plus competence. And this is our future.
The milestep was signing on 4th July 2014 a contract with ZF Friedrichshafen AG on selling and servicing transmissions by Q-Service Truck, a daughter company of Inter Cars. As a result, the mechanics underwent a full training cycle which included mostly repair techniques and also topics related to guarantee and claims. The first gearbox was repaired in April that year and the test bench was delivered in the middle of October. The last stage was finalized by grand opening of authorized service station on 1st December 2015. The contract includes mechanical transmissions Ecosplit, Ecomid, Ecolite, automated AS Tronic Lite, AS Tronic Mid, AS Tronic, and automatic transmissions for passenger vehicles.
Witold Kmieciak, the President of Q-Service Truck, also stressed that in Czosnów, Inter Cars will be training its business partners during real repairs, not only on training models.
Professionalism guarantee
The team of ZF Services Partner is composed of seven people; the manager of the service is Adam Fąk, foreman Wojciech Gałczyński. This may bear some doubts about the experience. As employees in some independent garages gain knowledge about transmissions for years. The doubts are dispelled by Adam Fąk.
– Wojciech Gałczyński was the manager of an authorized MAN service, he knows very much about transmission. He took part in MAN and ZF project on controlling the clutch using a press-button on the gearshift lever. Other mechanics also have experience and underwent trainings in ZF.
Repair categorisation
The manager emphasizes the fact that the garage in Czosnów will only be focussing on the most difficult cases. Our garage is going to implement repair categorisation by their level of difficulty. Partners of Inter Cars will be just advised on less complicated cases and shall deal with the problem themselves. If it turns out that the repair is too complicated, such a transmission will be sent to Czosnów. Also authorized services will be able to use the offer of garage in Czosnów, even if the vehicle is equipped with the most modern module transmission TraXon. A mock-up of such a transmission, together with four other, was presented during the event on 1st December.
And when a vehicle with ailing transmission gets to 27 Gdańska Street, it does not have to be disassembled and dismantled. This applies especially to AS Tronic models. This is because many times the malfunction is not caused by the transmission itself. So the full diagnostics plays a crucial part.
But ambitious plans do not end on ZF. Soon Q-Service Truck shall also become an authorized partner of pneumatic systems by Knorr Bremse, Wabco and Haldex.
Source: trucks-machines. pl
2015-12-23
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