• It was one dark and stormy night in November
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1987 that Commercial Motor last set out to test the combined roadside call-out services of the UK's 10 major manufacturers. On that occasion it was a night-time operation involving real vehicles, with real faults to fix when the fitter and van arrived high on the A590 Lindale bypass. This was mainly a test to see if the dealers and their staff could get us rolling again given an awkward venue, a tricky fault and the unsociable hour.
The results were mixed, though conclusive. And everyone asked us when we would do it again. Well, we have.
The test was held on a wet and windy Tuesday morning near Crick. The 10 manufacturers were asked to attend breakdowns at four sites along the A5; two at the Crick and BP truckstops and two others nearby. This time there were no vehicles present — the emphasis was on efficiency and speed of response. This was particularly interesting as all except Volvo and Leyland Daf contract out this part of their service to one of the nationwide breakdown organisations.
Of course, we still had to have details of real working vehicles, the dealers who supplied them, and account numbers with those dealers to cover the job. We therefore owe the following a vote of thanks for allowing us to use their names and ghost as one of their drivers: Alan Firmin Transport (ERF) Elite Contract Hire (Foden and MAN) Paul Selway International Transport (Iveco Ford) Roger Bettley Transport (Leyland Daf) Yates SAY Transport (Mercedes-Benz) Bosman Transport (Renault) Ponsonby (Scania) Sheffield Auto Hire (Seddon Atkinson) KM Williamson (Volvo) rain across much of the UK. We discovered that all the call-out services were working to full capacity that morning. The fault we reported was a loss of air, although we varied it slightly so not to arouse too much suspicion.