Getting Your Cores Back
©2006 Sonnax Industries Inc.
When torque converters first transitioned
from the early bolt-together units to the welded/sealed units
of the present day, transmission shops were faced with a new
challenge. Most customers weren’t willing to pay for a
new OEM converter on top of the cost of a transmission
overhaul. The only alternative available at that time –
reusing the customer’s original converter – seldom
saved the customer or the transmission shop any money. More
often than not, reusing the original converter created new
problems when contamination from the original failure entered
the newly overhauled transmission.
The need for a lower-cost replacement led
to the birth of the torque-converter-rebuilding industry. This
new industry relied on a good supply of rebuildable cores to
meet the needs of its customers. In the early days of the
rebuilding industry, cores were plentiful. Over time, the
demand for rebuildable cores grew faster than the supply, and
prices increased as availability decreased. Torque-converter
rebuilders understood the value of tracking and retrieving
their customers’ original cores, but few shops had an
efficient way to do this.
Dick Lewis from Midwest Converter in
Minneapolis has been in the business since 1985 and knows all
too well how important it is to get your cores back. In the
early days of the E4OD converters, Dick was fortunate enough to
buy 100 good cores for $60 each. Five months later Dick could
account for only 20 of the original 100 cores. He realized he
couldn’t continue to replace valuable cores at that rate
and decided to do something about it. Dick created a very
efficient program for tracking both the converter and the core
that was created by the sale of the converter.
When a customer calls, an order log is
created. The sample order log in Figure 1 shows the shipping
method, customer name, converter part number and quantity
ordered. It also shows the invoice identification and the dates
and times the orders were taken and printed. Next, the invoice
and the bar code are created. The bar code appears in the
upper-right corner of the invoice (see Figure 2). The line
items for that bar code are automatically placed on the
invoice, and the serial numbers for each converter that is
being delivered are entered on the lower left of the invoice.
You may select a line item or a ship method with all invoices
created for the same shipping method at one time.
If there are core charges on the invoice,
the system will create an orange core-charge label for each box
(see Figure 3) and a credit memo for each converter that will
be returned for a credit (see Figure 4). That same bar-code
information also appears on the core-charge label and the
credit memo.
Simply scanning the bar code when the
converter is returned starts the return process and the proper
method of refund. The serial numbers that are on the lower left
of the invoice originate on the converters. They are
computer-generated and put on the converter by a dot-peen gun.
The printed label on the converter during the marking process
guarantees accuracy. Those serial numbers may be used to find
the production date, the part number, the date the converter
was sold, the customer’s name, the invoice number and the
shipping method. The system also will track any future
transactions that occur with the same serial number. For
instance, if the converter is returned unused and later sold to
another customer, or if the converter is returned for any
warranty issue, Dick’s system will pick up this
information.
Most customers have come to realize that
the core charges they are asked to pay help to guarantee a good
stock of rebuilt converters when they are needed.
Dick Lewis has created a great core return
system, and we thank him for telling the industry about it. 
©2006 Transmission Digest