Reduced Running Costs
Our really savvy customers care about the running cost of their trucks.
They know down to the $ how much it costs to run the truck; daily operating and maintenance cost, the real cost of downtime and the potential value of the truck at the end of the finance period.
Really savvy principal contractors will eventually understand that if they are paying the same hourly rate for a truck that produces less work and breaks down more often, they will eventually find a contractor who is better value for money and own a more reliable, more effective truck.
At Vacvator we understand this. We make machines that give our customers the best chance at being the preferred hourly rate contractor on site, and for the owner who purchases a truck to support their own projects, a reliable easy to operate truck which will value add to their operation.
Here are some of the facts around costs associated with running vac trucks.
Servicing costs:
If you own an NDD truck that uses an auxiliary drive motor to run your blower you have two serviceable engines. Its two engine oil changes, two sets of fan belts, two radiators, two batteries, two starter motors and so on. The truck engine may not do large engine hours under this configuration, but they are usually more cost effective and produce far less emissions than stationary engines.
If the truck engine is the primary source of power, as Vacvator trucks are, they are more efficient and produce less emissions because they can operate at much lower RMP to produce the power needed to run the truck. The truck engine is also a lot quieter than a stationary engine. The cost of servicing two engines itself is not the biggest cost for truck, it is the double down time when the two engine servicing intervals don’t line up. A truck engine that is maintained by an authorised truck dealer, has less change of failing than a stationary engine that randomly gets serviced and maintained.
Pre-Starts
All good contractors, and most job sites require their staff to do pre-starts on the plant & equipment every day. Having only one engine that can easily be checked each day, not only reduces the time it takes to do the service, but because it is simple and can be done easily from the front of the truck, it actually gets done. Having to lift cabinets or climb up over the machine to check an auxiliary engine means extra time each day, or in some cases the pre-start doesn’t get done properly, or at all, and can lead to engine failure.
Breakdowns
Reliability is important for all machinery owners. Good reliable, well built, and easy to maintain equipment is what make contractors money. Vacvator have spent years perfecting the design of their trucks to ensure that breakdowns are minimal.
We manufacture everything to last for years, we choose the right products to partner with, and integrate technology to allow us to quickly diagnose issues real-time for our customers remotely. Good engineering, ease of servicing and maintaining, and a well-made product ensures reliability.
Blockages
Vac trucks can be renowned for blocking up hoses, or worse still up on top of the truck before it goes into the tank. Vacvator have given this a lot of thought and designed a truck that minimises blockages by creating a path of least resistance for the spoil to flow right through to the top of the tank.
For a well-trained operator, this means that the unit will almost never block up and therefore minimises any downtime associated with blockages.
Legal carrying capacity:
Most manufacturers rate the volume capacity of their trucks in 1,000’s of litres, but how many can actually carry the weight they claim.
We all know a 1,000lts of water equals a 1 tonne, in non-destructive digging depending on the type of soil density and the amount of water required to cut the ground, a 1,000ltrs can be greater than 1.4 tonnes. If your truck cannot legally carry the capacity you think it should, then you haven’t got value for money.
The extra time lost driving to dump spoil is a loss of productive revenue for fixed priced projects and added cost for hourly rate clients.
At Vacvator we have gone to great lengths to ensure your truck can legally carry the weight we say it can, our CAN BUS system ensures you know your real time payload and the built-in safety feature of overload protection.