Who you gonna call?
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You're late, your boss isn't happy with you and your truck won't move who can you turn to for help?
Words: George Barrow! Imayes: :urn Cunningridrh Your delivery is late, the boss is on your case and you're stuck at the side of the road. You need to get going, but like a character from Harry Enfield and Chums, the last thing you want is someone telling you what you want to do... or is it?
If it's chirpy Yorkshireman Richard Hughes, you'll certainly be glad to see him The joy might not be immediate, but when you hear the raucous rumble of engine cylinders springing into life, you'll probably want to kiss him; and the pleasure this unassuming Assistance Non-Stop breakdown technician brings will be immeasurable.
With more than 12 years in the business, there's not a lot that can stump Hughes when attending a breakdown; from the driver who couldn't select reverse gear because an airline suzie had been trapped in the driveline, to the chap who'd driven from Liverpool to Leeds with his main beams "stuck" on, Hughes has seen it all. Yet there is always a common element to each breakdown — drivers are always very happy when they can get going again.
It starts with a call to the Iveco Assistance Non-Stop centre in Italy, where drivers are put through to a multilingual switchboard that records the problem and alerts the nearest dealership with roadside assistance support.
CM is at Northern Commercials' Brighouse site when a call comes. The breakdown is quickly logged, and details passed to the workshop manager who assigns it to one of his four trained roadside technicians. Hughes gets the nod, and puts down his metaphorical spanners — he's actually conducting an inspection, one of the more easily droppable jobs the roadside technicians try to do while on call.
Northern Commercials group general service manager Nigel Chaffer wants his boys out on the road within five minutes of the call coming in, but Hughes is in his Iveco Daily van in just a couple. Preparation is the key to this fast getaway; the van is kept fully stocked with a massive list of parts that is regularly reviewed to ensure no item sits idle for too long. Everything from bulbs to batteries, and connectors to clutches is kept in the van alongside cans of water, fuel and anti-freeze. A total of 305 different items can be found in the front-line service vans, the cost of which comes to a staggering £11,723.
Most common jobs Any given day might see Hughes called out once, twice or even three times, but on average there are around 10 calls a week for the Brighouse team to deal with — the Northern Commercials site in Irlam, Manchester, gets around three times that number.
"We don't get as many calls as we used to," Hughes says. "Back in the day, at this time of year you'd find the fuel waxing up, or that the cold weather would make air lines freeze. The most common jobs now vary from fuel leaks to non-starts, but I'd say that most are non-starts, whether it's not turning over, or just won't start. Whoever the manufacturer is, trucks are a lot more reliable so we just don't get the calls."
When the calls do come, Hughes is ready and relishes the challenge he might face. "You're thinking about it on the way, half diagnosing the problem in your head. You go through the process of what might have caused the problem and your past experiences of similar call-outs," he says.
The paperwork ensures Hughes already knows what awaits him, but he is keeping CM in suspense until we arrive. He has already confirmed his attendance by logging into a reporting program on his mobile phone, and will do so again when we arrive on scene so that Iveco, Brighouse and, more importantly, the driver's employer know assistance is on hand.
Hughes has ADR qualifications as well as health and safety certificates that allow him to work on petrol tankers and at the side of the motorway, but he won't need to show his ID badge to the Highways Agency today: the driver is stranded on a country lane just a few hundred yards from the site of his delivery point.
Hughes pulls up about 20ft from the back of the trailer, positioning his van at a slight angle to warn motorists of the wider lorry partially blocking the carriageway ahead. With his van's LEDs flashing and beacons blazing, he quickly sets out a line of cones behind his vehicle, then gets down to business. The driver is pleased to see us. His 07-plate Iveco Eurocargo 180E25 is refusing to start.
"There's enough power to light the dashboard, but that's about it," Hughes says. "It's quite common when we have a cold snap like this that the batteries go. Cold weather shows up a lot of electrical problems, and in the summer there'll be a load of other problems caused by the heat."
Despite the Eurocargo's reluctance to turn over, the lights on the dashboard are a good sign, and Hughes can sense an easy fix on the way.
"We're looking for an ampage reading," he says as he clips on a digital battery monitor. "It should be 350A, but in fact we've got OA. You're not going to charge [the battery] overnight, so we can give the driver the option of jump-starting him so he can get back to the depot, or change the batteries for him "We actually haven't got batteries for this particular model on the van — we usually carry smaller batteries for Dailys, 7.5-tonners and some Eurocargo models, but we don't have the ones needed for this truck as they are bigger batteries than usual because of the tail-lift. But I'll give him the option. We're not far from the workshop, so can easily replace them."
The driver opts for a jump-start — but were the batteries needed, and had the breakdown been further afield, Hughes says it is not unusual to have parts brought from the workshop or for more unusual items to be couriered from the customer service centre at Winsford.
Courier service "We've built up the list of parts over the years — but if you need to go back for a part, or have one sent out, you have to call Italy, [where they will inform the customer and make the arrangements. I had a trailer control unit couriered over just the other week," says Hughes.
Having connected the rapid battery charging pack, Hughes is able to start the Iveco — but there's another problem: the EDC light is now on.
"If [trucks] sense a voltage drop, it's normal for the ECU to register a fault. There are over 2,000 faults that could trip the light, so it's not easy to tell," he says.
Fortunately, the breakdown van also contains a Panasonic Toughbook laptop used for checking ECUs. "If it's not obvious, you'll have to get the laptop out. It has the whole Iveco product on here, even Seddon Atkinson. You can do everything with the laptop, from diagnosing faults and programming keys, right down to turning on the ignition or changing gears," says Hughes. A A total of 305 items can The truck has reported an immobiliser fault, a bybe found in the front-line product of the drop in amps, but had it been something service vans more sinister, the laptop would have given a detailed repair guide suitable even for a novice.
"Sometimes you'll look at the guide, and it will set you off on the right path," says Hughes. "I joined Iveco in 2001, and didn't have anything like this before then. I wanted to be a driver, but couldn't untill was 21, but my dad had a workshop so I started there at 15, learning. The lads who go straight to work for a main dealer don't know anything; working with fleets you have to think differently."
Closing the laptop, he adds: "It's not just about what's on this. If it says there is a wiring fault, you tend to know where to look, and usually the broken wire will be in a place where you've seen it before. You get repeated component failures on all makes and models; it's the experience that tells you where they might be."
Job done, Hughes packs up his equipment, gets the paperwork signed, and logs his success and the fault code on the mobile system.
He always follows the driver for a few miles or a junction or two, just to be safe, and believes the best part of his job is knowing you've helped someone.
"They're always happy when you leave them, especially in winter when it is thick with snow — they are very grateful. Getting out on the road, facing the challenges each job might have, and helping people are what I enjoy most about this job, but you also get to see some funny things. I got called out to the set of Emmerdale once and got lost, so I stopped to ask someone for directions and it was Sam Dingle [actor James Hooton] out for a jog. The call-out was for the make-up trailer, and when I got there [the cast] all came out dressed to the nines for a wedding scene. It was surreal."
Today's breakdown hasn't been as eventful, but it typifies the sort of jobs Hughes is regularly called to attend. As he heads back to the workshop to wait for the next call, he seems pleased at having got another truck back on the road. As for the driver, he was more than happy to have Hughes wave him off. • ASSISTANCE NON-STOP Response times are important to Northern Commercials group general service manager Nigel Chaffer. In 2010 and 2011, his Brighouse depot was the leading Iveco dealer for its Assistance Non-Stop (ANS) response times. With a target of 48 minutes set by Iveco, Chaffer's ANS technicians are averaging just over 44 minutes from the time a customer calls to a technician arriving at the roadside.
"When we receive the call, we don't sit on it," says Chaffer, a former roadside mechanic. "As soon as we get the call, we allocate the breakdown technician, and try to get them out in no longer than five minutes — that makes all the difference. Breakdowns are prioritised over everything else. 48 minutes is just to sneak onto the list. It's the minimum requirement, if you hit that you've only just scraped in."
The majority of breakdowns are repaired within two hours, which Chaffer puts down to the training support his workshop staff receive via Iveco's Virtual Workshop, a global system used to practise fault diagnosis. As a result of their training, Chaffer says his technicians react positively to attending "unscheduled maintenance" of any vehicle — even those that don't have an Iveco badge.