Special Coating Promises Better Corrosion Protection
While grease protects the interior of chassis components from corrosion, paint and other coatings protect the exterior of the vehicle. One company is trying to convince the industry that it has a better way to protect underbody parts from rusting.
PRP Industries markets Corsol, an advanced metal treatment intended to replace paints or soft coats. It's painted on and when applied to steel or aluminum it chemically grows a plastic skin on the substrate, explains Phil Pierce, president of the company.
"That coating has now become part of the steel or aluminum and is not affected by salts like sodium, magnesium or calcium chloride," he says. "The difference between this and paint is it literally becomes part of the steel. It doesn't just lie on the surface. So if you do chip or scratch it, the corrosion can't get underneath the surface." (That's especially been a problem with some of the new road de-icers, which apparently find their way into those nooks and crannies more easily than plain old road salt.)
Corsol has been available for about eight years in automotive and military applications, and was introduced to the trucking industry a few years ago. So far, equipment manufacturers have been slow to adopt it, Pierce says.
One exception is Holland, which is using the advanced coating under the Black Armour name for its landing gear and trailer suspensions. PRP is talking to several other companies, mostly trailer makers, but so far they have had more interest directly from fleets.
For instance, Wal-Mart is using Corsol on its refrigerated trailers, Pierce says, applying the coating in its own refurbishment facilities. A Con-Way subsidiary that makes trailers for its parent company is in the process of switching over to Corsol instead of paint, he says. And the Michigan Department of Transportation is about halfway through a multi-year evaluation of the product on its snow and ice removal equipment.
"Wal-Mart has saved a lot of money converting from their standard paint," Pierce says. "(Corsol) can be used as a stand-alone product – you can apply it to a piece of steel and that's all you have to do. It doesn't require any top coating or an additional processes."
One area where Pierce sees great potential for Corsol is on upper couplers and crossmembers of van trailers.
"The work we've been doing in the less-than-truckload fleet arena has shown us that if you prevent those two components from corroding, the life of these trailers can be extended dramatically," he says. "They often look at the coupler and the crossmember as kind of a nonrepairable item, and once those go, the trailer is pretty much sent to the scrap yard or used as storage."
PRP Industries is in the process of developing a network of facilities that will offer Corsol in the aftermarket, most likely for use in refurbishing used trailers. As far as new equipment is concerned, Pierce says, fleets need to be vocal to their suppliers about their desire for this type of corrosion prevention solution.
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