Service After Sales Vitally Important
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rr HANKS to the reliability of the modern commercial vehicle, it will run for considerable periods without the need for serious attention. Most fleet owners, of course, have their own repair depots and apart from relying on spares availability, they can get along quite happily without much or any outside aid.
The majority of operators, however, has no such facilities, neither have they the financial backing to meet the contingency of having a vehicle off the road for an extended period. It is the many hundreds of small men who look to the vehicle makers and distributors for those facilities which will enable them to keep the wheels turning.
Every week hundreds of new vehicles take the road and although a small number also finds its way to the breaker's yard, the problem of providing adequate service facilities throughout the country grows from month to month.
To sell a vehicle may be easy, but how many distributors can back their energetic sales propaganda with comparable after-sales service?Even those who have extensive facilities find themselves hard pressed to satisfy all their customers, simply because the demand on their services exceeds their capacity despite the amount of overtime that is being worked. One of the problems is also the increasing demand upon the limited supply of materials.
The growing popularity of the oil engine will not tend to improve the position, as the servicing of such units calls for specialized knowledge which the mechanic, used to dealing with petrol engines, does not possess.
Whilst the private-car owner does not, in most cases, suffer a financial loss when his vehicle is being repaired or overhauled, many commercialvehicle operators could become financially embarrassed should one or more of their vehicles have to be out of commission for a lengthy period. Commercial road transport is a vital link in the economic life of the country and as such every addition to the means provided for keeping the wheels turning is to be applauded.
Vehicle manufacturers should do everything in their power, even to offering financial assistance, to encourage the building and equipping of premises for the speedy servicing of the vehicles they build.
From practically every vehicle factory in the country comes news of increasing production which, in its turn, means more work for the service depots. The question is, are they being developed at a rate commensurate with our ever-increasing output of vehicles?