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ROADRUNNER
Competition winner Ricky Herbert's prize, the Roadrunner 8.15 has joined the Garfield Lewis fleet carrying aluminium and stainless steel and the occasional three-piece suite.
• When former merchant navy captain Ricky Herbert entered the Commercial Motor competition in our 7.5-tonne supplement to win a £22,000 Leyland Daf Roadrunner truck for a year his colleagues at work all joked that he was wasting his time.
Herbert had never won a competition before, but as newly-appointed warehouse and distribution manager at Garfield Lewis in Leeds, he was fast acquiring a detailed knowledge of trucks.
As part of the competition, contestants had to identify six different trucks from photographs. Herbert had little difficulty with five of the six photographs, but the first, a shot of an engine, definitely had him stumped.
"I had a feeling it was a Renault," he says, "but 1 wasn't sure. So I went to the local Renault dealer and said I was interested in one of their trucks. They showed me it and I asked to see the engine. I knew right then that I'd got the right one."
Herbert admits he could not believe his luck on hearing that he had won the Roadrunner 8.15 for a year. "At first I didn't know what to do with it," he says, "The company uses it during the week, but one weekend we put a three-piece suite in the back and took the in-laws to the seaside. You should have seen the look on people's faces when we lifted the curtain sides."
KNOCKS SPOTS OFF
Herbert says he was a 'Mercedes-Benz man' until he drove the Roadrunner. "Until we got this one I would have gone for the Mercedes-Benz 814," he says, But this one would knock spots off them. We've had those Mercedes in on hire, but for driver comfort and even torque the Roadrunner seems to have more than Mercedes-Benz."
The Roadrunner is used to distribute Garfield Lewis's range of extruded aluminium and stainless steel throughout the country. It has been with the company for a month, but has already completed 9,000km on journeys to Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham and Exeter. The truck is based at Garfield Lewis's Leeds depot, one of 10 holding non-ferrous metal stock around the country.
Unfortunately, the truck has already had a prang. One of Herbert's drivers pulled out in front of a motorcyclist. Nobody was hurt, but local dealer Chatfields had to replace the little kerb window, a bumper and one of the nearside lights. The repairs will probably cost several hundred pounds.
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING
Despite the accident Herbert says his drivers love the Roadrunner and its fuel economy is 'absolutely amazing'. So far the 120kW (150hp) Roadrunner is returning 14 litres/100km (20 mpg) compared with 18 litres/100km for the company's Cargos and 17 litres/100km for the company's E-reg Renault. The Roadrunner's performance is all the more impressive given that it is fitted with a BoaRoy curtainsided box body, while the three Cargos and the Renault are all dropsides.
Herbert asked for a curtainsided body to be fitted to the Roadrunner because he feels it provides better protection for the loads. "If you get the aluminium wet it gets water stained," says Herbert. "Some of our customers use it in buildings where any water stains would show, so we have to handle and pack the load properly."
Herbert was impressed with the set-up at Boalloy's Congleton plant. For what it is the Tautliner is a very good little body," he says, "The majority of our customers accept curtainsiders because they fork-lift or handball the product off the truck nowadays. Besides, curtainsiders are easier for the driver and give a better image for the company."
"Most of our extrusions are five metres in length and the Roadrunner is fitted with a five-metre body. It provides the immediate answer to our problem of responding to urgent customer orders from our existing fleet. If we get a customer screaming for an early delivery we can use the Roadrunner, whereas before we had to go to a third party for transport. There was a time when we were paying £1,000 a month to a guy who was basically operating Transits. Quality and service is what we pride ourselves on. We're not the cheapest, but if the customer wants the delivery by next Monday, we'll invariably get it to them this Friday."
Business is booming at Garfield Lewis's Leeds depot, so the company is considering locating to larger premises. "Since I've been here we've been breaking records left, right and centre," says Herbert. "Even some of our little customers are building-up quite substantial repeat orders," he adds.
COSTS PROVIDED
To deal with the extra business at present, Herbert is finding he still has to bring in hauliers for large orders. He hopes that Garfield Lewis will agree to keep the Leeds fleet at five vehicles when the 12 months with the Roadrunner ends next June. By that time the A-reg Cargo should need replacing too. "Ideally at the end of the year I would like another 8.15 Roadrunner and to keep this one we won in the competition."
"We don't have to be very costeffective on running the Roadrunner because all the standing costs are provided," says Herbert, "But for owner operators and fleet operators it's got to be a good choice on fuel economy alone."
0 by Richard Scrase