The best an MAN can get
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After more than 10 years, a franchised workshop is back at Shepton Mallet haulier Framptons – and this time it’s MAN
Words: Steve Banner One of the drawbacks of running a non-franchised truck workshop is the limited access you have to the latest technical data from manufacturers. It is not that it is completely unavailable: it’s just harder to obtain than if you were a fully-ledged franchised dealer, and that can make it more dif�cult to diagnose faults correctly.
That is one reason Somerset-based Mendip Truck Centre (MTC) has become an MAN service dealer. Owned by distribution and warehousing specialist Framptons Transport Services, a family-owned company that has run a transport business in Shepton Mallet for around 40 years, it occupies a site on the town’s Crown Trading Estate.
It is not the frst tie-up the workshop has had with a manufacturer, says Framptons director and general manager Richard Fry. “10 years or so ago we had close links with ERF, but when MAN took the company over, we opted out.” Since then MTC has been an independent service and repair operation, looking after the 65 trucks operated by Framptons as well as those run by third parties. “Recently, however, we were approached by MAN and asked if we would consider coming back – it needed to improve its aftersales coverage in our part of the country – and we decided that it would probably be good for our business,” he says.
Framptons had been approached by a couple of other manufacturers anxious to build up their service and parts presence in the West Country, but MAN seemed a more natural choice: MANs account for around 80% of the company’s leet.
Extremely busy
With 12 technicians and ive bays, MTC should do MAN proud. “So far as MoT testing is concerned, we were designated premises for a number of years and became an authorised testing facility [ATF] 12 months ago,” Fry says.
With Vosa’s own test stations steadily closing – Taunton, the one closest to MTC, ceases testing at the end of August – the ATF is extremely busy, says Fry. “We’re testing for up to eight days a week,” he says. Eight days? “We’ve put a second test lane in,” he laughs.
“We’re pulling in business from as far aield as Bournemouth, Poole and Exeter, with some customers wanting to book tests three or four months ahead.” He is pleased to see such a high throughput given the level of investment that is required to set up an ATF. “You can end up spending as much as £250,000 without even blinking if you’re starting from scratch,” he says.
Trucks prepared for test by MTC are scoring a irst-time pass rate in the high 90%, says Fry, an achievement that should help the site pull in more service and repair work.
“Bookings have quietened over the last 18 months or so, and I think it is because many operators are only having jobs done when they really and truly have to. Everything else is going on the back burner.” Fry and workshop manager Bob Miles are trying to bring in more aftersales customers by offering ixed prices for certain repair jobs, as well as lending them either a truck or van if necessary while their own vehicle is being worked on. MTC has diversiied into servicing LCVs and has just taken on a contract to look after a leet operated by a local builder.
Petroleum Regulations
It installs and calibrates tachographs and can steam-clean vehicles. “We service trailers as well – we’ve got around 125 of our own – and we can look after petrol tankers because we comply with the Petroleum Regulations.” While maintaining trailers used to be classed as semi-skilled work, that is increasingly no longer the case, he contends.
“They’re now itted with ABS and anti-rollover systems and the new longer, semi-trailers have got command steering too,” says Fry. “The days when all you needed were a spanner, a hammer and a grease gun have gone.” MTC employs three apprentices at present and has been running an apprentice training programme for several years. “I guess you could say we’ve had an 80% success rate, which I don’t think is bad.” While the workshop is not in operation round-theclock, it starts early and closes late. The doors open at 6am and close at 10pm Monday to Friday, as well as opening at 6am on a Saturday and closing at noon.
MAN emergency roadside assistance is provided round-theclock seven days a week and MTC runs two vans for the purpose.
“We typically provide support within a 25to
30-mile radius of our premises and we’ve already had a couple of call-outs,” says Fry. ■
DEALING WITH OTHER BRANDS
While MTC is clearly in an excellent position to diagnose faults on MANs, it is presumably in no better a position than a non-franchised workshop when resolving faults on Dafs, Scanias and so on. Not so, says Fry. Because it regularly gets calls from franchised dealers representing other makes that happen to be working on an MAN and are stuck, it can easily obtain assistance from those self-same dealers if it has a problem working on a make of truck they represent.
That is not, of course, to imply that franchised dealers will never assist an independent workshop that encounters a problem: far from it. What is true, however, is that main agents can often find it easier to work with other main agents, especially when it comes to exchanging knowledge.
“Small independent workshops may of course quote a lower hourly rate than we do, but they don’t have our equipment and expertise,” Fry observes.
Are other hauliers in the area reluctant to use MTC because it is owned by Framptons, who might be a competitor?
“That was something that concerned us when we first set the business up, but it’s never been a serious issue,” he replies. “In fact, I can only think of one operator who has taken that view: and we do after all have a reputation for putting customer trucks first.”