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RESCUE 1101114 Up
Page 56
Page 57
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When your truck breaks down, you need help — in a hurry.
We compare the responses to the call "I'm a broken-down artic driver — get me out of here!"
It's become a mantra among the truck manufacturers: "It's not the salesman that sells the truck it's the service backup." How true that is. Most hauliers will tell you that when it comes to deciding on a particular badge their choice is usually driven by the quality of the local dealer and, especially for long-haul operators, the reliability of the manufacturer's emergency breakdown cover.
Rather than insisting"our vehicles never break down" the manufacturers have accepted that the breakdown-free vehicle has yet to be invented.They have all invested serious money in UK and pan-European call centres, designed to get roadside support to you wherever you are. In fact, they actively promote their breakdown schemes and include them in standard warranty cover.
When it comes to boasting about your breakdown service it all comes down to time the time a stranded driver spends waiting for help to arrive, and the time taken to repair the truck or tow it away.The manufacturers are often to be found quoting their average breakdown response time in minutes, so after a lay-off of a couple of years we decided to put those claims to the test.The results make fascinating and occasionally embarrassing reading.All manufacturers were offered a chance to comment on their performance before publication.
How we did it
Tibbett & Britten kindly allowed us to use its Daventry International Distribution Centre (DIDC) at Crick as our 'breakdown venue'. The DIDC site handles Marks & Spencer and Mothercare contracts and is ideally placed, being pretty much in the middle of the country close to major road links including the M1/ M6/A14/A5M69/M42 and surrounded by a cluster of dealers and service agents.
You can't test a breakdown service without a breakdown so we needed some 'ghost' trucks.Thanks to Tibbett & Britten,Alan Firmin. Macfarlane Transport, Exel,Faber Prest,Pulleyn Transport and Maal Transport we had soon rounded up the requisite registration details and chassis numbers of our`crippled' artics, along with details of where each was normally based and where it was usually serviced. They were all less than three years old and covered by their respective manufacturers' breakdown schemes.
To make things a little easier for all concerned we staged our test mid-week after the morning rush-hour, sending out our SOS calls to the various emergency breakdown numbers from 10.30am onwards. Ironically, as we checked into the DIDC we noticed a Dafaid van on site fixing an LF -we made sure he'd left before making our call.
Our phone message to each call centre was simple:"We've backed our truck onto the loading bay at T&B Crick and when it came to pulling away it was dead on the key help!" We then timed how long each manufacturer's breakdown service took to arrive and asked the technicians:"How was it for you?" The figures for the initial call are based on the length of time from dialling to putting the phone down once the callout had been initiated, at which time the clock started ticking as we waited for the cavalry to arrive.