Scania rises to used truck challenge

Faced, like most manufacturers, with a large stock of used Euro 5 vehicles, Scania opened a new dedicated used truck showroom in Warrington as Transport Operator‘s March edition went to press.

It displays 70 vehicles in an indoor showroom, and offers a full range of funding and support packages to customers.

Scania UK sales director Andrew Jamieson said: “I think this one definitely comes under the banner of ‘dare to try and manage the risks when it comes to leadership principles,’ but it is something different for our industry and I hope that it will be a success.”

Speaking to journalists at a UK press event, Mr Jamieson said he was proud that Scania had managed record new truck sales in the UK for two consecutive years, and that he thought this performance was particularly impressive given that the new generation Scania R and S series vehicles had arrived too late in the year to make any real impact on the figures.

He added that 2017 had got off to another good start and order intake for January was just 27 down on January 2016.

He described used truck sales as “perhaps the greatest challenge for the industry in the coming years with volumes of vehicles increasing,” as “a function of the historical market volumes and three out of the past four years being record volume years for Scania in the UK.”

Scania was “heading for a similar record volume of used vehicles being available in the marketplace.”

The Scania network was currently selling just over one used truck for every two new examples, with a total of 3,765 used trucks passing through the dealerships. These trucks were disposed of through retail, trade and export channels, and some were recontracted back to their original operators after the initial lease periods had expired.

Mr Jamieson said that Scania was careful to maintain the residual value of its products, and the first step in this was to resist the temptation to discount new sales too heavily.

“I often take the approach with customers that there is only so much we can do in terms of discount, it is all about projecting and managing the residual value position, and the smart ones recognise this.”

Scania kept a stake in a large number of the vehicles sold, with 41 per cent of new vehicle deals enabled by Scania Finance GB.

Support to the customer extended into driver training: Scania now delivered as many hours of driver training as it did of technician training. Over 9,000 days of driver training were undertaken last year, covering everything from licence acquisition, through Driver CPC to individual coaching.

Telematics was also important; there were now 34,000 connected Scanias in the UK, with the number expected to rise.

Mr Jamieson said: “I see driver training and coaching as the next big partnership between us and our customers, and I tell the sales team if you don’t grasp it you’ll be left behind, just as it was when we first started selling R & M all those years ago – it’s the norm now and driver coaching will be the same.”

Scania chills out with Hultsteins’ engineless reefers

Engineless reefer units from Swedish manufacturer Hultsteins are to be supported in the British market by selected members of Scania (GB)’s service network.

The fridge units are operated by hydraulic power-take off from the truck’s engine, and are suitable for vehicles with gross weights from 7.5 to 26 tonnes. While they impose an extra load on the truck engine, this is environmentally preferable to the noise and fumes given off by donkey engines on conventional fridge units, which are currently not subject to any emissions regulation at all.

There are currently estimated to be some 84,000 powered truck fridge units in the UK, with annual emissions equivalent to those from about half a million Euro 6 trucks.

Scania GB aftersales director Mark Grant told assembled journalists at a Scania press conference that one of the reasons for the deal was that the increased service intervals and greater reliability of the new Scania product meant that the manufacturer’s dealers needed more in the way of external work.

The Hultsteins UK service network would include wholly-owned and private capital Scania dealers, and would offer parts and technical support.