Caterpillar announces that its North American Cat Dealer network will be fully prepared to offer whole-truck service and sales support for the company's first ever Cat Vocational Truck, the Cat CT660, which will be unveiled in March.


Since announcing the new line of on-highway Class 8 Cat Trucks in 2008, personnel at all 54 U.S. and Canadian Dealerships, including their over 400 service locations and 2,300 service bays, have been engaged in training to ensure they are ready to meet customers' product support needs for the trucks.

The capabilities dealers have been adding to provide customers with bumper-to-bumper support for the CT660 are a natural expansion of their existing truck capabilities and expertise, according to the director of the On-Highway Truck Group, George Taylor, who leads the design, development and launch of the new trucks. "Caterpillar and Cat Dealers already had extensive experience supporting on-highway customers from our 40-plus-year history of serving the truck industry, especially with powertrains," he said.

Kerry Miller, truck business manager at Cat Dealership Carter Machinery, which serves Virginia and southern West Virginia, says their dealership has taken an inter-departmental approach to make sure they are ready.

"From sales to parts to service to any group impacted by the truck-and that's everyone," Miller said, "we're all involved and engaged, and working hard to prepare, including our training department that has really stepped up to make sure our sales team and technicians are ready."

"Our preparation plan has been focused on truck uptime and preventive maintenance," Miller explained. "We also have the infrastructure in place to support these trucks bumper-to-bumper through on-site service, with 120 bays in over a dozen shops and from our field service trucks. So we'll be more than prepared to offer a whole-truck solution for customers."

At Empire Cat Dealership, which serves Arizona, Southeastern California and portions of Northern Mexico, they have been busy rounding out service capabilities. Rocky McKay, truck product support manager, said they've been doing more bumper-to-bumper, preventive maintenance preparation and training, along with hiring sales consultants and service technicians that already have a great deal of truck experience. "We've also been stocking parts, and we have the right tooling in place," McKay said. "So we're in a great spot."

He added, "Our equipment customers who buy Cat Trucks can expect the same 'routines' and processes Empire has developed over the years based on customer preferences. It's not as if we're some OEM that just popped up over night -- we're an established company. So our customers don't need to be concerned about Empire being ready to support Cat Trucks. We are."

Cat Vocational Trucks will be sold and serviced exclusively through the Cat North American Dealer network, with production beginning after ConExpo in Las Vegas in March for customer delivery later in the year. The Class 8 vocational trucks will offer custom solutions, including many different body types such as dump, refuse, hauler and mixer, for a large variety of job applications.