The Scrappy-Doo of trucks

One man’s trash… 

…is another man’s livelihood. And so, in selecting the T-Way, Dave had to be sure he was opting for the right truck for the job, but also that it was specced for ultimate productivity.

“We did the fitout of the hydraulics in our workshop. Chris is an engineer; I have an engineering background as well. He looks after all our repairs – tyres, minor servicing, engineering, hydraulics… When you do scrap, you have so much gear and variation in all the gear. So, we’re able to keep the overheads down, and when something of sufficient importance goes wrong, we’re onto it. We don’t have to wait for a call-out,” Fretwell says.

Koromiko Engineering in Mt Maunganui was drafted to mount the 22-tonne Palfinger T22 Telescopic Hookloader, while a local engineering company applied the finishing touches with custom toolboxes and step plates. The team from Coastline Auto Electrical in Whakatane fitted the cameras, hazard beacons, Si Lodec scales, and Eroad.

No day is the same in the scrap game – you could be barely bothering the scales one day and perilously close to overstepping weight limits and axle loadings the next. Our first meeting with driver De Vos and the T-Way is early on a Monday morning at Waste Management Whakatane, where he’s already loaded two skips of aluminium cans onto the 12-m, five-axle flat deck that did duty behind the Actros.

Operations manager Rob Watkins introduces us to our chaperone, Terry Southland, and we go in search of the newest, neatest vehicle on site.

“It’s a real nuggety looking thing, isn’t it?” comments Dave McCoid, editorial director of New Zealand Trucking, as we approach the T-Way. I agree: “Yeah, looks like it means business. Very cool, I like it.”

De Vos pauses to introduce himself before uncoupling the trailer and nipping to the other side of the yard to swap out a couple of bins. We didn’t yet know it – only watching from the sidelines at this stage – but the T-Way has two very important features that work together to make his job immeasurably easier.

The first are a couple of rear-facing cameras, one above the trailer coupling (as is common these days) and one on the bumper just over to the driver’s side. “They’re great to check my loading. However, I can actually see the hook with the T-Way’s mirrors, which you can’t on some other trucks,” De Vos comments. Later, Fretwell adds: “It doesn’t give you a perfect line-up, but it gives you the height. We found that when we changed to the air-suspension trucks, they don’t always sit at the same height.”

The second handy feature is the T-Way’s 800-Nm engine-mounted switchable PTO. “It’s a game-changer,” notes Fretwell. “You can be backing in and just put your foot on the brake – which essentially clutches in – alter the hook height, and carry on without having to go into neutral for the PTO. It’s a great feature.”

Load secured, De Vos hits the starter button to head out. Like all modern Euros, the Cursor 13 is whisper-quiet on start up. It’s a Euro 6e unit, and Iveco’s retained its signature Hi-e selective catalytic reduction (SCR) aftertreatment system, with a few additional planet-friendly acronyms to help it reach the current level of emissions compliancy mandated on its home continent.

We’re all familiar with the diesel particulate filter (DPF) and SCR, but there’s also now a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) and a clean up catalyst (CUC). They are all neatly positioned behind the right-hand second steer, in what appears a surprisingly compact aftertreatment package.

Back at base, De Vos makes a quick swap-out of bins once more and, since the FM is on around-town Hiab duty, he hooks up its Koromiko tipping tub trailer to load up for a transfer to Metalco Te Puke. Before leaving, he crosses the on-site Neville Marsh 50T weighbridge. “It’s fantastic, exceptionally accurate,” comments Fretwell. “We bought a pit weighbridge for a permanent installation, but with this one we’ve just never seen the need for it.”

The T-Way is also fitted with SI Lodec scales, a must for a job where the contents and weight of the bin can be a bit of a lottery. “One of the big issues with hook trucks is that you’ll often turn up to pick up a bin and you don’t know what is in it,” Fretwell points out. “Sometimes it’s too heavy, and sometimes the payload is okay, but we’re overloaded on one of the axles.” The onboard scales allow De Vos to monitor the axle groups and adjust the bin position accordingly.

With Metalco’s scrap deposits now a few tonnes to the good, we shoot over to the truck dismantlers at the other end of town for the next bin rotation. This sort of local pick-up, drop-off, and swap-out work makes up most of the T-Way’s duties. It does, however, also get to stretch its legs fairly frequently. Tomorrow, it’ll be loaded to the brim with non-ferrous metals including aluminium and copper, destined for Phoenix Metalman in Takanini. The 12-m flatdeck will be in tow, loaded with full “pallets” – bales all stacked and strapped – and “pods” – IBCs with the tops chopped off.

“This is the metal we don’t have in enough volume to export ourselves,” explains Fretwell. “So we sell it to them. We would have to wait a long time to justify doing a 20-tonne export load of copper, for example, and it would also impact our cashflow.”