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" Michael O'Donovan
Michael O'Donovan is managing director of the skip hire and waste company started by his father, Joe, back in the 1950s; the firm now runs three depots north of the Thames, recycling building waste.
"We have 52 trucks and the fleet is split about 50/50 between eight and four-wheelers," he reports. "We mainly operate Volvo eight-wheelers but we also have a few Fodens, Mercs and Scanias. Our association with Volvo dates back to the F86. We get good service and the local dealer, Duffields, is only about two miles away. We put our first FM12 340 on the fleet about 18 months ago; before that we ran FI.10s.
"We buy our trucks outright with a two-year warranty; all the Volvo FMs are on contract maintenance.
"Problems have been minimal but we get a good parts discount and it is very rare that we have to wait for any replacement. The FM cab is higher than the FL but that is not a problem either—our drivers say that the FM's cab is much nicer. It has more room and is generally better, with a fully loaded specification that includes air conditioning. They are comfortable and the controls are light.
"Some of our FM chassis have hook-loader equipment and the tippers have 15m3 steel bodies with front-end tipping gear. Our drivers ask for front-end gear, because it's more stable when discharging on landfill sites.
"The tippers have a payload of about 19 tonnes, which is OK. Most of our troubles come from running onto landfill sites where something underneath might get snagged, and tyre costs are unbelievable.
"We could do with more ground clearance under the chassis as vulnerable parts do get knocked—both the Iveco EuroTrakker and Oaf 85 chassis are higher off the ground.
"Most of our running is within a 25-mile radius in heavy traffic. The FM gives us a readout for average speed and fuel consumption: the other day one was returning 6.0mpg at an average speed of 10mph. If you think that fuel consumption figure is bad, our other eight-wheelers are 20% worse. Under such heavy traffic conditions you might expect the clutches to give us problems, but they don't.
"We average about 55,000Iun a year and we anticipate keeping the trucks for five years. We would like to replace all of our eightwheelers with the FM12 in due course."