Light on service
Page 24
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
T often hear of transport Imanagers complaining about the poor service and inadequate backup they receive from truck dealers.
I run a fleet of vans on long-distance work and believe me, transport managers have got it easy.
To say van dealers are absolutely useless is an understatement. If I had the same level of support for my vans as truck dealers give their customers, life would be easy.
First, if a van goes wrong you have to book it in to the dealer who can't do anything for at least two weeks. Hardly any of them let you bring a vehicle in straight away for a minor fault to be rectified, it disrupts their system. None of them seems to have loan vehicles or even vans to hire.
I recently had a van off the road with a cracked cylinder head. The local dealer had the van with him for more than a month and couldn't find the problem. In the end a diesel engineer identified the problem over the telephone, towed it away and fixed it in three hours. The result—I was billed heavily by the dealer for doing nothing.
My own conclusion is that all van dealers are car dealers employing car mechanics. Vans are just a necessary burden to them—all they want to do is sell you another van.
Steve Dawes
Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire.