Cedars cleans up act with Roger Dyson recovery vehicles 05 January 2012

London operator Cedars Recovery has been gearing up for recently introduced rules governing the capital's Low Emission Zone, with a little help from Roger Dyson.

To operate within Greater London medium and heavy trucks must now meet the Euro 4 standard for particulate emissions, or incur a daily penalty charge.

Hence Cedars has been buying new, LEZ-compliant chassis over recent months, and relying on recovery equipment manufacturer Roger Dyson to prepare them for work.

Some have been fitted with brand new bodies. Examples include a pair of Hydraloader slidebeds with 3,000kg capacities. One, a 3000SLa with a super low approach angle of 4.9°, has been mounted on a 7.5-tonne gvw Isuzu NQR chassis. The other, a 3000La with Cedars' first aluminium deck and a second vehicle lift, has been based on a 7-tonne Iveco 70C18 crew cab chassis.

In several other cases, though, technicians at Dyson's production facility in Droitwich, Worcestershire, have removed equipment from older vehicles, before refurbishing and remounting it on new, LEZ-compliant truck chassis.

Among these was a small crane body, demounted from an ageing, US-built Ford 350 chassis that had been something of a mascot for Cedars Recovery. Company boss Gary Driscoll had bought the vehicle from a previous employer in 2005 and Roger Dyson undertook its initial refurbishment.

"We ran it for a few years but the chassis had reached the end of the road and was just worn out," states Driscoll. "So Roger overhauled the crane and fabricated an additional locker, repainted where necessary, then fitted it to a 7.5-tonne Renault Midlum, also supplied by Dyson.

"It's now proving very useful to recover vans as well as cars," he continues. "It looks great too. In fact, you'd never know the body had ever been on anything else."

Author
John Challen

This material is protected by MA Business copyright
See Terms and Conditions.
One-off usage is permitted but bulk copying is not.
For multiple copies contact the sales team.