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HEADING FOR A BREAKDOWN
Page 58
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They were warned... Britain's truck manufacturers and importers knew
our phantom breakdown test was coming, but not where or when.
Brian Weatheriey and Colin Barnett rIsk a black eye to tell all.
This year we moved out -mystery breakdown site from Rugby to Bedford; specifically the massive Argos warehouse complex operated by Exel Logistics at Kempston, just off the A421 ,which forms a busy link between the Ml and Al. It wasn't until the first vans started bowling up that we realised just how many of the truck and van manufacturers have local dealers or service agents within the Bedford 'pocket'. Consequently, some of the call-to-arrival times may well flatter to deceive! We can't make the point often enough that our test can only reflect the situation at a single time and place.
Who to include was once again the cause of some discussion; in particular the question of related brands Although Volvo and Renault share some support functions they operate independently so they were included. MAN and ERF, on the other hand, share almost all their dealer networks,so they were treated as one.The tricky decision concerned the two Paccar brands, but as they have independent support networks both Daf and Foden were included.
How we did it
The time of the first call was deliberately held back until well after 10am so the morning traffic on the A421 had died away, giving everyone as equal a chance as possible. In fact our first call was made at I0.15am, with following calls made so that we were dealing with no more than two manufacturers at one time, on separate phones.The final call was made at 12.06pm. In each case the notional fault was the same: no electrics on trying to start up and the same information was available for each truck.
There are four times quoted in our tables.The first, the duration of initial call, starts from when the network message pointing out that we would be charged for calling an 0800 number ended and the first ring was heard; it finishes at the end of that call. We then recorded the time taken to call back with an ETA, together with the ETA quoted. For the final time -the time to arrive we quote the overall time from the start of the first call to being seen at the RDC gate, as recorded by the gatekeeper.
The Argos shed is so large that, following the site speed limit, it took the rescue operatives another few minutes to reach our 'breakdown' site.