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"We want our customers to be confident in the truck. Many know the Daf
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name." Chris Whiting
Rental companies buy about 40% of the medium-weight trucks sold in the UK and The Oxford Van Company, which set up in business about ro years ago, is no exception.
Partners Chris Whiting and Andy Middleton both worked for a Leyland Daf dealership before the Daf crash. Undeterred, they started again, selling light commercials and hiring in some vehicles from bigger companies to rent out. After a while, it made more sense to buy them and today they own about 130 cars, vans and light commercials up to 7.5 tonnes.
"We took on an lsuzu franchise for a while but the back-up was not what we wanted, more so on the Continent, so we've got out of that now," Whiting says. "We are just about to replace our last three Isuzus with three LFs to add to the dozen 7.5-tonne LF tippers, dropsides and boxes we already have on the rental fleet. We need the backing of the manufacturer because as a small company we can't give the cover we would like when the trucks are operating far and wide. We have some customers who run down to Spain, for example.
"We want our clients to be confident in the truck. Many know the Daf name and they are comfortable with it.
"The 7.5-tonner with a box body is still a big favourite for day-to-day shortterm hire. The average rental is for a couple of days, often by companies levelling out the peaks in workloads; but now the license regulations bar a lot of the newer car drivers from driving a truck of this weight. On private hire, they are turning to the big-bodied 3.5tonne vans to do their house removals instead. The dropsides keep very busy and are a particular favourite with scaffolding companies. The LF has proven to be a tough little truck for that work.
"We are a local company but we have grown in size over time. That has been helped by some of the majors such as TLS and Kennings moving out of the area. At the beginning, we didn't have much spare cash to play with and we bought the rental vehicles on hire purchase. We still fund them over three years. It is a manageable payment and it means we owe less on finance than each vehicle is worth. We retail all of our light commercials and rental often leads to sales. So if we find a demand for a vehicle, we always have the option to sell it on before we might normally think to replace it. A freeing up of the market has seen new prices drop and the knock-on effect is that it costs less to rent a 7.5-tonner today than it did seven years ago.
"We bought the first LF in the area two years ago from Barnes, the Daf dealer next door. We take the version with the i5ohp engine, which is enough power for everyone. We tell our customers that the payload with a box body and tail-lift is about three tonnes to keep them legal. We specify the standard day cab with the three seats but include the optional radio/cassette. The brakes are fabulous.
"We have our own workshops and service other people's fleets, so we do have experience of other makes too. Some can be more difficult on warranty work and parts prices, arid parts availability can be a problem at times.
"Our customers say that the LF does about 19.ompg with a box and that's a bit better than we were claiming for the Isuzu. The LFs are easy to drive and that means they are less likely to be returned with damage. We did have a problem at first with fuel gauges that wouldn't register a full tank. That's a particular problem when you are renting but otherwise we can't find fault with them.
"A final thought though: most cars and vans come with a three-year warranty these days, and it's high time that was extended to include the 7.5-tonner—or are they not quite that good yet?" is