Safety and reliability really matter.
Safety is and will always be our #1 priority when designing, engineering, and manufacturing pet grooming and veterinary vehicles. We can proudly stand behind our track record. We have approximately 4,000 vehicles on the road, and we have never had a significant safety issue.
Wag’n Tails is a listed manufacturer with NHTSA. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the governing body for vehicle manufacturers and converters. We comply with all of their wide variety of requirements. View our listing here: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/mid/manufacturer/details/8927.
If you want to research which converters are listed, just go here: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/mid/ and do a search using the grooming van converters name.
Wag’n Tails is also a certified exporter, and we are registered and recognized by TC (Transport Canada). The process of certifying with them is also a very involved process and some of their standards even exceed those of NHTSA. We build each vehicle to comply with both NHTSA and TC standards and we use the stricter standard of the two when they differ.
Wag’n Tails complies with all required safety standards set out by the FMVSS here in the U.S. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards comprise a wide range of requirements that cover the entire vehicle and everything involved in the conversion process.
We meet or exceed these required standards of the FMVSS on every vehicle. For example, these standards include items like:
- Fuel system integrity (Standard #301)
- Flammability (Standard #302)
- Noise emissions (Standard #1106)
NHTSA and FMVSS are the federal agencies that Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Mercedes and all the vehicle companies sold in the U.S.A. must comply with. We think if those standards are tough enough for them, they’re tough enough for Wag’n Tails.
To ensure FMVSS compliance, our practices are verified by Progressive Engineering, Inc. (www.p-e-i.com), an independent testing laboratory with customers all across the United States. Progressive was founded in 1979, and their accreditations include ISO Guide 17020 and 17025 for independent testing laboratories and quality control inspection agencies.
Supreme Groom Van Being Tested at Progressive Engineering
In addition to FMVSS standards verification, Progressive Engineering also conducts other tests on our vehicles that go beyond any governmental mandates. They perform center of gravity testing, axle weights in relation to axle weight ratings, weight compliance tests at all 4 wheels, and overall weight compliance in accordance with weight ratings of the vehicles
As far as we can determine, Wag’n Tails is the only vehicle conversion company in the industry that takes this expensive and very time consuming extra step to be completely sure that our vehicles are as safe as we can make them for our customers. We order our vans from OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) suppliers like Ford and Mercedes/Freightliner with maximum Gross Vehicle Weight Ratings (GVWR) and maximum Gross Axle Weight Ratings (GAWR) to ensure safety and longevity. The payload capacity is absolutely crucial to building a safe van. You can’t just take any old van and convert it to a grooming van. All vans are not created equal! Lesser vans are not designed to carry the weight of a tub and a table and hundreds of pounds of water and… you get the idea. A lighter-weight chassis just isn’t safe for our type of grooming or veterinary conversion.
Our Onan generators are installed by Onan Indiana technicians in Elkhart, IN. They are a “factory” Onan store meaning they are owned by Cummins, Inc. They have the highest level of expertise, training, and engineering talent so we’re sure that our vehicles receive the optimum installation of their products. This is yet another step that we take to make sure our grooming and veterinary vehicles are the best available.