Here, Carwood highlights a few of the team members behind its brand.
In the aftermarket, Carwood believes it is best known as a remanufacturer of OE-approved fuel pumps, injectors, and turbochargers. More recently, it has taken on the distribution of products from OEMs, the likes of Bosch, BorgWarner, Mitsubishi, and Garrett amongst them.
But behind this is a team of 280-plus, based at facilities in Coventry – Carwood’s hometown, HQ and the lead site for auto-electrics, electronics and HVAC – Birmingham (fuel systems), Nottingham (turbochargers), Telford (engines) and Yeovil (electrical rewind and motorsport). In this edition, the company introduces you to just a few of those people: the faces behind the Carwood brand:
Will Johnson, an avid Leeds United fan and self-confessed turbo geek, will be known by many of you already. Having served in the automotive aftermarket for over 15 years, Will is Carwood Turbocharger Sales Manager. Since joining back in 2018, he has more than doubled sales of the turbo line, a trend which he attributes to having a great quality product, the right range on the shelf, competitive pricing and excellent customer support.
Will said: “There’s no doubt that the past few years have been challenging, but despite this, we have continued to grow the business, thanks to the strong relationships we enjoy with all our customers.”
Of course, remanufacturing relies heavily on consistently good core availability – the charge of Carwood’s dedicated core team. Led by Bally Patel, who celebrated 40 years’ service in May, the team manages stock of up to 10,000 pumps and 60,000 injectors. On receipt, all parts are carefully inspected to ensure they’re in an acceptable condition – after all, having good core at the start is key to ensuring a product that performs just like new at the end. They’re then individually sorted, labeled, and stored in a 6,000sqft warehouse. Vehicle and engine manufacturers have outsourced their core handling to Carwood too.
Based in Birmingham, Liezl Cramer heads up Carwood’s fuel system customer service team. If you’ve enquired about or placed an order for a fuel pump or injector recently, chances are you’ll have already spoken with Dutch-native, Liezl, or one of her team: Stuart, Craig, Rochelle and Nicole.
Working hand-in-hand with the supply chain, they are responsible for getting the right parts to you as quickly, and as efficiently, as possible. Whether it’s for a 10-year-old tractor mid-harvest, or a late-generation passenger car on the ramp awaiting repair, the aim is to pick, pack and ship it within 24 hours. And if it’s not available off the shelf, you can rest assured the team will go out of their way to make sure it’s on yours ASAP!
Keen motorsport enthusiast and former Hartridge Engineering Director, Lee Jacobs, runs Carwood’s automotive engineering division. Much like his favourite pastime, Lee is responsible for continuously pushing boundaries to deliver the very best performance – just in the lab, not on the track!
He and his team spend hours designing, engineering, validating, and then bringing to market, new remanufactured solutions.
Lee said: “As technology evolves, the challenge is to meet these same standards, without adding cost or material back in. Thankfully, we have a wealth of experience and know-how in the business, so whatever the task, we’ll always find new ways of thinking and working, to come up with the best solutions for our customers.”
Undertaking the warranty is the job of Robin Sibiya, who joined the team earlier this year from Cummins Power Generation.
Warranty adjudication can take up to an hour for a single part. To start, Robin conducts a full surface level inspection to identify any anomalies. He then performs a series of OEspecification tests on bench, plus an in-depth assessment of the assembly’s individual components, in order to determine the cause of failure. The results are recorded, communicated to the customer and, where appropriate, fed back into manufacturing, to improve both process and product quality. We receive few claims – and when we do, we typically find no fault.
In 2019, Carwood acquired Brise Motorsport, now known as Carwood Brise, bringing with it 40 years of expertise in high-performance solutions. Based in Yeovil, Eddie Miller designs, engineers and builds, often by hand, compact, lightweight and powerful starters and alternators for classic, competition and specialist road cars.
The company also supplies a range of high-performance Garrett turbochargers, an uprated fuel pump for popular BMW applications and a range of lithium-ion batteries from Antigravity. Its customers range from factory-owned and independent race teams to small workshops and individual enthusiasts.
