Pinbins, the Skip Hire division of Pinden Ltd. Dartford, Kent, recently took delivery of four Volvo FE, 18-tonne GVW 4×2 rigid skiploaders from Volvo dealer MC Truck and Bus.
All the vehicles have been configured for skip hire duties by Boughton Engineering of Burton-upon-Trent. The three FE-250s’ with day cabs and a single FE280 with a sleeper cab, feature 3.7 m wheelbases, steel rear springs, 8-litre, 6-cylinder D8K engines and the innovative Volvo I-shift automated transmissions.
Director Steve Bishop said: “All vehicles are only as good as the main dealer support service you receive. We are fortunate that we enjoy an excellent relationship with MC Truck & Bus and throughout the past 10 years they have consistently dealt with all of our requirements properly. This level of support is crucial when running a large fleet and is now instrumental in our purchasing decisions.”
Such decisions over the past 10 years now see Pinden operating an 80-strong fleet, of which 52 units are Volvo – 30 FE and FL skiploaders, 9 FMX hooklifts, three FH tractor units and 10 FM tippers.
“We like Volvo,” says Steve. “Uptime is extremely important and in the case of the new FE skip loaders the payload capabilities and manoeuvrability ideally suit the business.”
Started by Steve’s grandfather as a dedicated demolition company in 1929, it has grown to become one of the South-East’s leading waste management, recycling, demolition and asbestos disposal specialists.
The company very much remains a family concern. Steve says: “In total we have eight family members working across the group. We have the second, third and fourth generation all working side by side.”
“In 2005 we, as a group, decided to diversify into Waste Management. This also coincided with us buying our first Volvo – an FL6 – which was a beautiful little vehicle. It gave us reliability and longevity as well as being perfect for the work we undertook. This was the beginning of what has been a strong relationship between Pinden, Volvo and MC Truck & Bus,” says Steve.
“This relationship has now progressed, we now have the new Volvo FE units, which I have to say look extremely smart and all of the drivers enjoy operating them,” adds Steve. “We ordered them to a high specification, including heated seats, air conditioning and Bluetooth telephone connection. And with the added cab space over the FL we’ve simply not had any negative feedback.”
“Furthermore, on average the FE skip loaders are returning fuel consumption figures in the order of 9 mpg, which is close to what we achieved with the smaller FL units. Our vehicles each average approximately 85,000 miles per year and we don’t anticipate much change in the fuel costs, despite having stronger and larger trucks.”
Pinbins currently operates from three depots in Detling near Maidstone, Orpington and Longfield. “Generally we work within a 30-mile radius of each depot so we manage to cover the majority of Kent and South London,” says Steve. “All waste is brought to the Longfield site for processing, where we recently invested in a new recycling system. We are very proud of the fact that we manage to recycle all of our waste meaning nothing goes to landfill. Our recycling means we are able to utilise our end-of-line product as fuel for European power stations, while we segregate other materials and recycle them for further processing or creating a reusable product.”
