PPG has announced it is introducing a fuel surcharge on all auto glass deliveries effective October 13. (See glassBYTEs™, September 20, for complete information.) Just to clarify, the fuel surcharge is for retailers buying from PPG distribution. There is no fuel surcharge on truckload buying.

Will the surcharge stick? At the distribution level, opinion is that it won't.

"It's a good thing if it holds and everyone does it," a distributor from the East Coast told glassBYTEs. "This is common on the flat glass side," he points out, "but we have to go along with industry practices and we're going to have to see more than just PPG do it or it won't fly."

He adds, "I believe we all need to have some way of coping with these added costs. But is the insurance industry going to accept it? That's the rub. They don't want to pay any additional costs."

He suggests that the big retailers will have "discussions" with the supplier.
"It's not realistic to think that retailers and distributors can absorb cost increases such as the jump in gasoline prices. There's only so much belt tightening you can do, and it's been done," he says.