Walters add more Volvos to growing plant fleet
Plant hire firm purchases 22 new machines including Volvo excavators and G-series articulated dumptrucks
THE Walters Group have bolstered their equipment fleet with the addition of 22 new Volvo articulated haulers and four of the Swedish manufacturer’s excavators. This year has been the company’s busiest period ever for bulk muck shifting in the highways and quarrying sectors, and the latest plant deal means Walters now have 350 items of equipment across their fleet.
The Tier IV Final-compliant articulated haulers – eight A25Gs, six A30G units and eight A40G models – bring the total number of Volvo ADTs to 57 in Walters’ fleet. Many of the haulers have already been deployed across the UK on bulk earthmoving contracts currently being undertaken by the company.
The G-series machines are powered by a electronically controlled, six-cylinder, turbocharged Volvo V-ACT diesel engine which delivers high torque at low engine speeds, resulting in good fuel efficiency, high performance, quicker engine response and reduced wear/longer service life.
Purpose built by Volvo, the engine is designed to exactly match the Volvo drivetrain, ensuring the best use of power and torque, even in tough working conditions. It is matched to a torque converter with built in lock-up function and fitted with a fully automatic fast adaptive transmission. The rest of the Volvo designed and built powertrain has been reinforced to cope with the higher torque output of the engine.
With carrying capacities of 24, 28 and 39 tonnes, respectively, the A25G, A30G and A40G haulers have a maximum speed of 53km/h. The articulated dumptrucks are also fitted with Volvo’s CareTrack telematics system as standard, allowing remote monitoring of a wide range of machine functions (location, fuel consumption, service reminders etc) to help optimize customer operations.
The new Volvo excavators purchased by Walters – two EC380Es and two EC220Es – have been added to the fleet to replace older machines that are approaching 10,000h of service life. The latest E-series excavators, powered by a Tier IV Final-compliant engine, feature an Eco mode which contributes up to 9% of the machine’s total improved efficiency– without any loss of performance in most operating conditions.
Volvo’s integrated work mode system on the excavators offers the operator a choice of five work modes according to the task in hand – I (Idle), F (Fine), G (General), H (Heavy) or P (Power) – for optimum efficiency and machine performance.
