"You sampled the trucks with complaints. You cannot use that result to claim the remainder are safe, and you cannot divide it by the number of valves purchased. Those are three different populations." Victoria asked whether Priya believed the entire lot was defective.
"I don't know," Priya answered. "Neither do you. That's why we're here."
She spent the next two hours in the maintenance bay speaking with technicians, inspecting the available equipment, and watching the documentation process. She did not tell the mechanics to improvise a fast procedure because she understood the temptation to save time when four hundred loads sat waiting. Instead, she worked with Norah and the shop leads to draft a screening protocol appropriate to the affected air systems and existing manufacturer guidance. A thorough examination of one unit could require about ninety minutes when records, physical checks, controlled tests, and signoff were included. Some vehicles could be cleared sooner once the evidence improved; others would need repairs or more extensive testing.
"How long to clear the fleet?" Victoria asked when Priya returned. "If everyone works two shifts and the parts are available, seven to ten days for the first complete screening," Priya said. "That is an estimate, not a guarantee, and it assumes we don't discover another problem." The words landed heavily.
Graham began typing new figures into his model, and Dale looked through the glass toward the waiting drivers. Victoria stared at the engineer. "You're telling me nobody can give a blanket release?" Priya met her eyes. "A blanket release would be the same as saying we already know what the tests are supposed to tell us."
Then Priya asked who had first noticed the supplier connection. Norah gave her Owen's name. "Can you get him here?" the engineer asked. Nobody replied immediately.
Victoria folded her arms. "He's no longer with the company." Priya waited, sensing that the short explanation had a much longer story behind it. "Is he still willing to answer technical questions?" she asked.
Norah looked at Dale. "I don't know," she said. "We haven't asked."
Outside the office, the delays were ceasing to be abstract figures. Reggie Ellis called his wife to explain that he might lose several days of mileage and that they should postpone replacing the tires on her car. Another driver canceled a visit to his mother because the route that would have taken him near her house was now uncertain. In Marysville, a warehouse manager walked through an aisle of prepared orders and called Blackwell for the fifth time. He had a refrigerated shipment that could not wait indefinitely, and he was being told repeatedly that the company cared about safety without anyone being able to tell him when a truck would come. He cared about safety, too, but his business was now paying for a problem he had not created.