A complete breakdown
Page 10
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• Readers of our Breakdown Test (CM 12-18 Dec 1991) will recall that we were unable to include full evaluations of Foden's Fodensure and MAN's MAN Rescue emergency callout services.
We have since completed these tests using different trucks and a different story on the phone. The venue and all other details were as for the original test.
MAN
This time around our call was met with speed and efficiency, both from AA/BRS and Coventry-based Listers Truck & Van Centre whose Mick Stackemann came to our aid. He had received the call at 08:40hrs, 10 minutes after our call. Before leaving he called us to see if he could discover a little more about the fault, which we de
scribed as total electrical failure. He brought along a battery master switch and reached us 20 miles and 28 minutes later. This made MAN the second manufacturer to respond to our breakdown within the hour; Leyland Daf did it in 40 minutes.
Stackemann confirmed that most faults at this time of year are fuel and electrics related. Callouts also come in groups, he said: a few days earlier he had been out until 04:30hrs coping with a series of four breakdowns.
Foden
Our call to the National Breakdown-operated service produced another efficient response which asked all the right questions. The dealer and account was soon identified, our phone number was noted and we were promised a return call in about 15 minutes to update us. The call didn't come, and two hours later we called Fodensure again on its 0800 number.
This time we heard that a fitter from Franklin Services, the Northampton-based service agent, was busy on another callout, but would soon be with us. John Bulmer arrived 35 minutes later with a set of brake valves with which to tackle our mystery air loss, He had to drive from Kettering to reach us, a distance of around 45 miles.
Bulmer was scathing about maintenance standards. At this time of year up to 75% of callouts are down to plain poor maintenance, he says. For example, he had been called to unfreeze five trucks in early December and none of them had any anti-freeze.
0 The 'ghost' MAN was supplied by L Hunt & Sons, the Basingstoke-based family haulage business, and the Foden by Roger Bettley Transport of Sandbach. Our thanks go to Gordon Hunt and Roger Bettley for their help.