It is never going to be easy to persuade an operator of one manufacturer's trucks to go to another manufacturer's franchised dealer to buy replacement parts, as many of the UK truck and trailer makers trying to expand into the "all-makes" parts aftermarket would testify. Names and perceptions count for a lot in this business. Ask Multipart. A survey commissioned two years ago by this Lex Service subsidiary revealed that it was already perceived as an all-makes brand. The reality at the time was rather different. Multipart's £80-million-a-year parts logistics contract with Daf Trucks accounted for around half the company's turnover, with most of the rest coming from a clutch of smaller one-make contracts with manufacturers such as Leyland Trucks, LDV, Isuzu Truck and Hyundai. Only about £9 million of sales revenue, most of it from the bus-and-coach industry, could be described as genuinely "all-makes".
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