Freightliner shares the Tooele, Utah real estate with other companies, including Detroit Diesel. The engine maker has a 410,000-sq.-ft. remanufacturing facility near Freightliner's buildings, where Series-60 and Series-149 engines, as well as MTU-396 engines, Fontaine fifth wheels, axle carriers and housings, transmissions, and numerous components are re-manufactured.

According to James R. Morrow, president of Detroit Diesel Remanufacturing, "We can take an engine block with a hole in it smaller than your fist and repair it so well that I guarantee you can't find the repair; it will have a full [second] life." The "reliabilt" remanufactured engines, which are covered by a 1-yr./100,000-mi. warranty, are restored to the latest performance specs, adds Morrow.

Detroit Diesel's re-manufacturing effort "has brought re-manufacturing into a new era of legitimacy," he adds. "Today, there's a tremendous opportunity to recycle and reuse [major components] into second and even third lives."