Firm in dispute over breakdown contract
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• A Nottinghamshire haulier is warning all operators to check the terms of their breakdown contracts after its ATS Euromaster cover was unexpectedly terminated.
Cliff Dickens, general manager at Newark-based JR Marriott, says he has beer dealing with ATS in Newark for 20 years and has a perfect credit record with them. He believes that the contract was terminated because he did not use 415 as his sole tyre supplier.
Dickens only found out the company had been deprived of its cover when a vehicle broke down. He says he was told there was an unofficial policy requiring nim to buy 100% of his tyres from them. "Because we hadn't done that, our cover had been removed," he says.
Dickens insists that there was never any agreement to buy either a percentage or all of the company's tyres from ATS.
"We feel we've been hard done by," he adds. "You buy tyres on price. ATS have sometimes been 110-15 dearer, so we have gone elsewhere."
ATS refuses to explain, on the basis of client confidentiality, why the cover was removed. A spokeswoman for ATS apologises for failing to tell Marriott that its cover had been removed. But she adds: "We do stand by the principle under which the agreement was cancelled."
ATS declined to show Commercial Motor the contract. This was despite Marriott sending a fax authorising us to see it. The ITS spokeswoman says the dispute was about a "local agreement that was rot communicated properly".
Dickens estimates that Marriott buys about 60% of its tyres—roughly 120 a year— from ATS in Newark, spending more than £11,000. "We were lucky that we found out in the UK," he adds. "It could have happened somewhere in the middle of eastern Europe."
One ATS depot has told Commercial Motor that it has no knowledge of such agreements. An employee says: "It doesn't matter if you buy two tyres or 200 tyres a year; there shouldn't be any reason why you don't get breakdown coverage."