Payload-friendly Volvo FL broadens Hale’s horizons 26 June 2012

A short-wheelbase Volvo FL rigid, equipped with a purpose-built drop-side body and Palfinger crane. is enabling Hale and Company to deliver a wider range of building materials to sites generally out of bounds to other suppliers.

Specified by general manager Jake Hale and transport manager Martin Nealon, and supplied by Truck and Bus Wales & West, the 16-tonne gvw Volvo FL boasts an 8.5-tonne payload, and is used to carry everything from bricks and blocks to timber and sacks of bulk sand.

Hale makes the point that payload is a critical factor, so the low tare weight of the Volvo FL-M proved a very big attraction.

"We pride ourselves in being able to provide excellent customer service by delivering to locations that many of our competitors can't. That is why we have gone to great lengths to ensure that we specified a short wheel-base truck with a compact 4.2-metre body and rear-mounted crane," he explains.

Powered by a Volvo 240bhp diesel, the FL is equipped with a manual gearbox, which Nealon believes is essential for the terrain and conditions in which the vehicle works.

"We have considered automatics and have nothing against them," he says. "But for our sort of work, where we often have to shunt back and forth in order to get into private driveway, we feel that a manual gearbox is required" says Nealon.

Author
John Challen

Related Companies
Volvo Group UK Ltd

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