SEYMOUR TRANSPORT
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Seymour Transport, based at Larkfield in Kent, began trading in 1972 and now runs 50 HGVs on general haulage. The fleet, a mixture of artics and rigids, is dominated by Mercedes, but about a third are ERFs inherited through the merger with a company in Stroud last September.
"We would not have bought the ERFs by choice,'' says commercial marketing manager Mick Anstey. "In a nutshell we buy Mercedes trucks for reliability. The local dealer Sparshatts is very good and, through negotiation, prices are competitive. We bought two Atego six-wheelers back in February fitted out as block carriers with Palfinger cranes. They were bought for a contract with Bournecrete in Sittingbourne which makes concrete lintels and other concrete products.
"They have a 14.5-tonne payload capacity and they cover 60,000 miles a year, about half of which is laden. They are returning 11mpg. We would always like more but, after comparison with other trucks in the fleet, we are satisfied with that. Because we have a mixed fleet and the work is so varied we don't have a fixed replacement programme; we have financed the Ategos over four years and expect to replace them after seven.
"There was a school of thought that we would swap the cranes onto their replacement chassis, but after seven years they will have been well used and technology moves on over that period of time. Our own workshops do all of our own servicing and inspections. The only things we don't do are warranty repairs. We have investigated the logistics of using contract maintenance with the main dealer but keeping it in-house gives us the level of operational flexibility that we need to meet operational pressures on a daily basis.
"If we have a fault on a vehicle we can respond to it immediately and get the truck back on the road quicker than if we had to rely on the dealer. We don't have a problem with the dealer supplying parts: anything they don't have in stock is delivered the next day. Over the years we have found the Mercedes-Benz warranty to be exceptional. They have entertained claims, in part and sometimes in full, on vehicles after
\linbiria• three and four years with 500,000km on the clock. If Mercedes does have a problem they don't back away from it. "We have had a few irritating minor electrical problems with both Atego six-wheelers associated with the ECU showing wrong displays of oil level or I oil consumption and tempera
ture. Sadly one of the engines cracked in half at four weeks old.
Sparshatts put in a new engine and it was back on the road, working, two days later.
"The small cab is just about right for our operation. I can't think of anything I would want to be changed...the Atego is a shining star in our opinion."