New Volvo trucks for Jet Plant Hire
Plant hire firm acquires new FMX drawbars and FH double-drive for road planing contracts
TWO new Volvo FMX13-460 6x4 drawbars and an FH13-540 6x4 double-drive tractor are helping family run business Jet Plant Hire deliver a high-quality round-the-clock service, seven days a week, to customers across the country.
Jet Plant Hire, who have operating centres in Evesham, Worcestershire, and Newton Abbott, in Devon, specialize in all types of road planing work, including trunk road and motorway maintenance where company is given a precise window to carry out work so as to minimize disruption to traffic flows. Hence, maximum vehicle uptime and reliability are crucial.
‘That’s why we buy Volvo trucks. They’re the best quality kit to do the job,’ said Jet Plant Hire’s managing director, Sean Witheford.
The company has prior experience of operating Volvos; their first was an FL7-230 6-wheel tipper in 1990, after which they owned a number of FL10s and FM12s.
After a period away from the marque, Jet Plant began operating Volvos again in 2005 when a 6x4 and an 8x4 FM joined the fleet. This was their first experience of I-Shift, Volvo’s automated gear-changing system.
‘The move back to Volvo was made largely because of I-Shift,’ explained Mr Witheford. ‘Even the best drivers can’t match I-Shift all the time for fuel economy. It levels the fleet average out, and wear and tear is also reduced with clutch replacement times increased to up to four years.’
The new FH13-540 6x4 tractor for low-loader work and the two Globetrotter-cabbed 6x4 FMX-460 drawbar tippers were delivered in 2012 along with an 8x4 tipper.
The Boweld-bodied FMXs, operating at 44 tonnes gross combination weight, deliver Wirtgen planers to the job location. Each tipper is then loaded direct from the planer and the scalpings removed for reuse on farms and as substrate for temporary site roads, with none going to landfill.
Jet Plant worked closely with Volvo and supplying dealers Truck and Bus Wales & West to achieve optimum gearing to suit the varied conditions of the job, which combines motorway trunking and low-speed stop-start work with a requirement for off-road capability.
All the trucks are on Volvo’s Gold repair and maintenance contracts, with inspections and maintenance carried out at Truck and Bus Wales & West’s Gloucester workshops.
