A fourth HINO in the national SASKO Bakery’s fleet recently clocked up more than one million kilometres service. The Eastern Cape based truck is a 700 series 2845 purchased in 2015. It is one of a fleet of 183 Hino trucks in the SASKO fleet. The only major repair to the vehicle was a clutch replacement at 865000 km, and a few minor oil and water leaks have been repaired over the years.
“This HINO has been serviced at 40 000 km intervals, strictly to HINO’s schedule requirements. The services were performed at the Algoa HINO and SASKO workshop in Port Elizabeth,” explained Arno Lourens, Technical Manager. Lourens is responsible for the national fleet and services 13 bakeries countrywide.
SASKO has been using HINO trucks in its mixed fleet since 1990. Lourens says the most impressive feature of these trucks is their reliability and durability as well as the support from the countrywide HINO dealer network.
“Reliability is critical in terms of our operation, delivering bread countrywide. Bread is a staple food, so we strive to deliver it on time every time. We cannot afford unscheduled downtime with our trucks.”
“SASKO allocates a dedicated driver per truck, which we believe plays an important part in the reliability of the trucks for lengthy periods of time with only regular maintenance. We make our decisions on the truck replacement based on the cost of ownership and do not necessarily replace at defined kilometre reading. If the trucks are still operating efficiently, we do not see the need to replace them. This is the case with these high kilometre HINO’s,” concluded Lourens, who has worked for SASKO since 1992 when HINO’s were already part of the fleet.