Used Volvos in Essex
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Commercial Motor takes the used truck and trailer business seriously. If you're opening a new site, expanding your existing business (or taking one over), offering new services, changing jobs—or just want to express some views on the trade in general, then ring Steve Banner now on DITT8 34268: or fax him on 01778 345057. • A Volvo distributorship is expanding its second-hand sales operation as the manufacturer's Selected approved used truck programme gains momentum.
MC Truck & Bus has set up a purpose-built used site in Oliver Road. Thurrock, Essex, not far from Truckworld. "It covers an acre at the moment, but we're looking to expand this to two acres and set up workshops too," says used vehicles sales manager Paul Hughes.
The site, which is about a mile from MC Truck & Bus's other local depot, usually has 50 or more vehicles on display. Most of the stock is ex-contract, with some part exchanges, but the company buys at auction too.
Not surprisingly, most buyers of second-hand tractor units are after big engines, big cabs and top levels of specification. But they don't all want 6x2s; Hughes deals with a lot of international hauliers who favour 4x2s with big fuel tanks.
"The vehicles we sell tend to be M to P-plated," says Hughes. "Anything before an M -plate is classed as an old truck these days." More recently registered examples are affected by the competitive deals available on new vehi cles. "And £40,000 is the most you can ask for a used truck," he believes. Almost 70% of the tractors sold at Thurrock are covered by the Selected programme, and anything without a Volvo badge is usually traded out. "Rigids account for 30-40% of our business," he says.
Faced with plenty of low-horsepower ex-fleet FH tractors to dispose of, MC often converts them to six-wheel rigid s. Some of these tractors are re-equipped with bigger cabs, says Hughes. and there's always the option of uprating a 34ohp engine to 38ohp.
It's not just new vehicle customers who are in search of contract hire with maintenance agreements, he finds: "There's a lot of interest in them from people looking to acquire used trucks too."
Business is set to receive a further boost when Oliver Road becomes a link road to the M25. And Hughes neatly encapsulates in a single sentence why operators should think about buying secondhand vehicles: "They've had most of the depreciation taken out of them, they're half the price of a new one, but they earn the same money"