Service departments at Peterbilt dealerships are ready to support the new Paccar MX diesel, say executives at the builder's headquarters in Denton, Texas. Dealers will also begin using Paccar's Engine Rapido program, an online shop manual originated by Paccar's DAF subsidiary in The Netherlands, and DAVIE, a truck-laptop interface device.

Trainers in Denton have instructed more than 1,500 technicians on the ins and outs of servicing and repairing the engine's systems

, and each tech has attended a five-day class. Dealers, meanwhile, have been stocking special tools and parts at 674 locations.

Trucks with the new 12.9-liter MX-13 diesel have begun showing up at dealers, and the builder is determined to make ownership of an MX-powered truck a pleasant and mostly uneventful experience, executives said. Many sales people, too, have had hands-on training on the MX, with each attending a three-day course.

On August 24, trade-press writers went through a greatly abbreviated training session, removing fuel and lubrication components from stand-mounted MXes and then reinstalling them. The exercise showed the "attention to detail" that went into designing the engine so it could be easily worked on, instructors said. It won't be much harder for technicians to work on the engines as they sit in chassis, they said.

(Sister company Kenworth has trained more than 700 technicians at its MX engine center in Chillicothe, Ohio, a spokesman said. KW's 300 dealer locations are all prepared to support the new engine.)

Prior to the MX, Peterbilt didn't have to actively sell engines because it installed vendor-supplied diesels, executives noted. Now sales people are expected to promote the MX against Cummins products, though Cummins remains an important partner to Paccar and its two builders, Peterbilt and Kenworth.

Engine Rapido is an electronic shop manual that includes service procedures with step-by-step repair instructions, a list of specialty tools and parts needed for a given task, complete drawings, and color 3-D graphics that can be moved on screen to help technicians better understand how the engine is assembled. Unlike a paper manual, the Rapido program is continually updated without CDs. It's available through Peterbilt's dealer intranet, executives said.

For now Rapido (which means quick in Spanish) is available only for the MX engine. Later, Peterbilt hopes to expand it to include entire truck chassis, as DAF does in Europe. The North American version can be read in English, Spanish and French. It's a dealer tool now, but it will be available later to fleet service people and maybe to independent shops.

DAVIE - diagnostic analysis for vehicle interface equipment - is a "brick" that's plugged into a truck's underdash J1939 port and then into a laptop for troubleshooting fault codes and other tasks. It's required for working on MX diesels, and dealers are acquiring the tool, executives said. It comes in a kit with cables and instructions, and costs about $3,000.