The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it would explore whether additional national regulations were needed to protect consumers from “unscrupulous” brokers involved in moving household goods. Brokers who use the Internet to solicit customers are the focus of this investigation.

Commercial and automotive component supplier Hayes Lemmerz International Inc. said it was beginning to explore the sale of its commercial-truck hub and brake-drum business, following an unsolicited inquiry from a potential buyer.

November’s U.S. retail sales of new Class 8 trucks climbed 46.4% to 17,793 units, from the previous year, as manufacturing sources said growing demand for both on-highway and vocational truck replacement expanded the market.

Led by a steady surge in demand for Class 8 trucks, registrations of new Class 4-8 vehicles increased about 26% in the first nine months of 2004.

CHICAGO — Confident engine makers said their products would easily meet government diesel-emission standards coming in 2007, but they questioned how to integrate exhaust aftertreatment devices into new trucks, and debated the virtues of selective catalytic reduction to meet even tougher rules scheduled for 2010.

CHICAGO — Michael Burns, chairman and chief executive officer of vehicle component supplier Dana Corp., said a strategic increase this year in his company’s inventory of heavy-duty axles and drive shafts had allowed Dana to take away business from other suppliers that were unable to fill truck makers’ orders during a surge in demand for Class 8 trucks. br clear=all.

CHICAGO — The Environmental Protection Agency’s top air-quality official said the agency may endorse an emerging congressional proposal for financial incentives to help buyers of heavy-duty trucks offset the expected higher cost of trucks coming in 2007 that meet EPA’s diesel-engine emission regulations.

Despite hopes that the next generation of diesel engines coming in 2007 would have the same fuel efficiency as current models, early concerns are surfacing that ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel might actually reduce the new engines’ efficiency as a by-product of the way it is refined.

U.S. retail sales of Class 8 trucks in September jumped 44.5% over the previous September to the highest total in more than four years as buyers added capacity to meet strong demand, replaced aging vehicles and accelerated purchases ahead of higher price tags coming in 2007 when new emission regulations begin.

LAS VEGAS — The American Transportation Research Institute, meeting here this week, discussed research on highway-construction-zone safety and said it would study driver hours-of-service rules.