UK-based haulage company Fagan & Whalley has expressed its satisfaction with the service provided by Continental, in particular the levels of durability provided by the company’s tires.
Fagan & Whalley has around 50 tractor units and 100 trailers to keep on the road, with the majority of the haulier’s 360 trailers on a constant rotation.
Simon Brindley, workshop manager, said, “With over 22 months now of running Continental tires on our trailers, and 10 months on tractor steer axles, I am seeing far fewer issues than in the past. Tires are probably any haulier’s second biggest running cost, so at Fagan & Whalley we regularly trial various makes, to see what they might contribute in terms of economy and safety.”
Continental tires were introduced to the Fagan & Whalley fleet in early 2014, when an order of 100 new Lawrence David trailers were specified with the manufacturer’s HTR2 product. Since then, with support from Continental’s local field service manager, Paul Ridler, the haulier trialled the new Conti Hybrid HS3 steer axle tire at the start of 2015, and is now using them on a fast-growing number of tractor units.
“One of the biggest issues any operator can face is the massive financial penalties uneven tire wear can generate. Degradation on tire shoulders, just from routine running, means tires have to be taken off and replaced with anything up to 40% wear still available across the rest of the surface. That’s not acceptable, and it is one big difference I have noticed with the Continental tires – we get good, even wear from them and that is delivering considerable savings for us as we get the full ‘natural life’ from them,” said Brindley.
The Fagan & Whalley fleet consists largely of Scania units, each averaging around 140,000km a year on long distance tramping work.
February 23, 2016
