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One way to save on maintenance
Page 47
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Some time ago a director of a vehicle hire firm, talking about the importance of CM of light vehicle topics, told me of a problem he has with leasing vehicles to pop groups. Servicing them is something which never crosses their minds, he said. The leader of one group, returning his van, remarked: "What's that flashing red light on the dashboard? It's real cool man."
"If you have all this trouble, is it worth renting to them?" I said.
"We don't want to loose the business," he replied. "There are probably a thousand small pop groups about. Their members split and regroup and so they seldom buy their own van. We tell them to watch out for oil, etc, but the message doesn't get across. I wonder what other hirers do. These pop groups don't play sophisticated music, and they don't want to be bother with mechanical snnhistications."
A colleague was chatting socially to a London hgv driver the other day. -At our depot," he said, "the mechanics disconnect certain lights so that there's less to go wrong. And, if, say, a new vehicle comes in with two mirrors, one for long distance and the other for short distance, they take them off and replace ihem with an allpurpose job. They don't want to have to replace two if there's an accident."
So who wants sophistication? Neither the amateurs nor the nrnfessionals?