Logichaul is a transport company based at Yatala on Brisbane’s south side that uses a variety of vehicles including semis and 19-metre B-doubles delivering masonry and palletised building materials in Queensland and New South Wales.
Last year the company added five UD Quon prime movers to its fleet, and according to Brian ‘Spud’ Murphy, National Fleet and Logistics Manager at Logichaul, the Quons are proving to be an ideal prime mover for this medium-distance haulage operation.
In his current role, Spud is charged with the task of keeping the fleet working as efficiently as possible and introducing the most reliable and fit-for-purpose prime movers to progressively replace the older units.
The prime movers bought by the company’s previous owner are a mix of Volvo FM and FH, Mack Super-Liner and Kenworth T359 and T401 units.
After doing his research, Spud reckoned the majority of Logichaul’s work would be capably handled by the latest version of UD’s Quon. As a result, the fleet of 37 prime movers now includes five Quon GW 26 460 6×4 units.
“UD is a truck that’s always been on my radar,” says Spud. “The Japanese are very quality-focused and meticulous in the way they do things. When I was at Direct Haul, we had 60 light vehicles and they were predominantly Toyotas. We had a number of brands of light vehicles over the years, but the Toyota vehicles proved their longevity in the harsh Territory environment.”
In terms of the UD product, Spud says he has been particularly impressed by the company’s willingness to listen to his suggestions on how the trucks can be further improved to suit specific Australian operational conditions and customer needs.
He recalls an occasion when he was with some senior UD representatives in Japan and their eagerness to hear his input.
“I was at the test track with a couple of the Senior Engineers and the Vice President of UD Trucks showing them a few things about the truck that I would like to see changed, and the VP was straight on the phone relating what I’d said to others in the company,” says Spud. “There was no mucking around, they are very receptive to what can be improved and proactive in making it happen.
“Over my career I’ve attended plenty of drive days with the various manufacturers and often the senior management people and engineers will be there for the opening function before making themselves scarce.
“Not these guys at UD, they were right there at the coalface, looking, touching and feeling and genuinely wanting to know what I thought about the truck and how it could be improved. That really stood out to me.”
According to Spud, UD has taken up the challenge of developing its products for the Australian market, understanding that whatever stands up well in this country’s harsh environment will work well anywhere else in the world.
“We definitely have a great testing ground for vehicles in this country,” says Spud.
The marriage of UD with parent company Volvo has, in Spud’s view, been the making of the UD marque. But he also believes that technology has been added in a carefully targeted manner, rather than technology for technology’s sake. This means the highly desirable UD core strengths of relative simplicity combined with excellent reliability and durability have been maintained.
“The meticulous, solid and reliable way the Japanese build machinery coupled with the technology from the Volvo Group is a match made in heaven, I reckon,” says Spud.
“For our application it’s the complete package – a strong performing, cost-effective and robust truck. In essence, they’re a down-to-earth workhorse, built to do a specific task and that’s what appealed to us and led us to choose these trucks as replacements for some of our older units.”
Spud goes on to suggest that with ample room around the engine to facilitate the simple replacement of components like the compressor, for example, the Quons give him the impression that they have been designed by people who actually work on trucks themselves.
Another down-to-earth feature Spud likes about the UDs is the greaseable universal joints and kingpins. He reasons that when someone is regularly under the truck greasing these items they are naturally checking out the entire undercarriage and are therefore more likely to notice if a component is broken or on the way out.
He also appreciates the ease with which drivers can carry out pre-start checks, with the power steering oil and engine coolant levels, along with the engine oil level, able to be checked visually without opening the front panel or tilting the cab.
On the other hand, Spud is also fully impressed with the relevant Swedish technology that has migrated into the UDs thanks to the Volvo Group family connection, specifically the engine, transmission and disc brakes on all axles.
In fact, Spud says there are only two elements of the current UD GW 26 460 that he would like to see modified, specifically to better suit the 19-metre B-double task. The shortest wheelbase currently available is 3,300mm, a measurement Spud would like to see reduced to a neat 3,000mm. He also wouldn’t mind an extra 40 or so horses under the shed.
“It would be handy to have 500hp and a shorter wheelbase to let us transfer more weight onto the steer axle,” explains Spud, emphasising that the 4.6 tonne loaded steer weight of the current Quons in B-double trim should ideally be around 6.0 tonnes.
That said, Spud acknowledges that the operating conditions are entirely different and that navigating a truck through suburban Brisbane throws up its own unique set of challenges.
“We’re in the metro environment here in the hustle and bustle with the narrow streets and the tight building sites so the drivers do have a much more confined workspace in which to operate,” he concedes, adding that minor bumps and scratches on the trucks are a reasonably regular occurrence.
This prompts Spud to mention another thing he likes about the Quon, the fact that the three-piece front bumper is easy to remove and replace when the inevitable occurs.
“The left and right front corner panels are where most of the damage happens,” says Spud, gesturing to a line-up of new panels on the floor of his office. “The Quon is great because these panels can be changed in about 10 minutes, it’s unbeatable in that respect. It shows the engineers have put thought into these things and designed them with the technician in mind.”
All in all, Spud and the team Logichaul are extremely pleased with the 11-litre Quon package and looks forward to seeing the product refined further still in the future.
