Valley Grown Salads has renewed its heavy truck fleet with three new Volvo FH-500 6x2 tractor units – and has immediately boosted fuel economy.
The Essex-based company has been operating Volvos for over 14 years and its faithful five-year-old FH-440s have just been pensioned off to make way for the three new FH-500s.
"The new 500bhp FH's are proving to be a real eye-opener. We're getting better fuel consumption that we did from our Euro-3 440s and the drivers love them," comments operations director Ian Parrott.
He reveals that he was getting around 8.4mpg from the previous trucks, while the new 500s are already turning in 9.5mpg – and this after only six weeks on the road.
"I needed the lowest possible downtime and a service regime that fitted in with our intensive operation," states Parrot.
"It's working well," he adds. "The Volvo Dynafleet telematics and the I-Shift automated gearbox have topped it all off. In conjunction with driver training from our Volvo dealer, it's enabled us to get the best possible driving economy."
