Refurbishing? We've done it for years • Further to Malcom
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Taylor's article on the market for refurbished trucks in America (CM31 Dec6Jan), readers might be surprised at the extent to which J Roberts (SPV) has already developed the points that he raised, here in the UK First, while it might be obvious to expect second hand trucks to cost less than new, many operators will be concerned about reliability. Our approach, as touched upon in the profile article on Civic Trees in the same issue, is to source selected pre-owned chassis then totally strip, refurbish and reassemble them to customer's specification, typically at a cost 50% below that of a comparable new chassis.
Malcolm Taylor posed the question: "Would the finance houses consider extending facilities to cover refurbished trucks?". The answer as far as we are concerned is yes. We offer refurbished trucks with warranty and leasing facilities.
We have also found a second major reason operators come to us for refurbished trucks— the exact specification needed to match operating needs cannot be found in the OEM catalogues. For example, we have recently designed and produced 225kW (300hp) 4x4 artic tractor units based on the Leyland Daf T45.
As a typical J Roberts refurbishment might involve changes to axles, chassis and drivetrain, or the fitting of winches or PT0s, the possibilities of producing "Glider" kits would be, as the Americans put it, "no problem".
Andy Smith Sales manager, J Roberts (SPV), Sutton ColdfiekL