Mercedes-Benz

Date: 24.01.2007

Building trucks for specialist applications can be a costly and time-consuming business, but Mercedes-Benz now offers a better solution in New Zealand.

Mercedes-Benz

It’s called the Mercedes-Benz Advantage.

Thanks to the way Mercedes-Benz has set up its truck manufacturing systems in Germany, customers in New Zealand can now get vehicles tailored to suit specialist applications before they arrive here, thus saving time and money.

An example is the new concrete pump truck purchased by Aotea Pumping (part of Dominion Construction), which recently went into operation in and around Auckland.

Don Wright of Trucks & Trailers Ltd, the North Island sales agent for Mercedes-Benz, explains:

"We are able to configure the truck and have all the options factory fitted so that it exactly matches the pump and the legal requirements in New Zealand, well before anyone here set eyes on it.

"This means the truck chassis will come with the right mounting fixtures already in place, the PTO positioned in the correct location, and allowances made for the remote control. We even have some chassis components relocated in the factory to clear stabiliser legs and other items that are pump specific."

According to Don, it’s a much better way of building a truck and the system can apply to any specialist application, from concrete pumps to multi-use bodies.

The Mercedes-Benz Actros 3246 8x4 used in this particular application is an ideal platform to work from. The high-strength chassis and components are well-known strong points of Mercedes-Benz trucks and so is the driveline – in this case the 460hp 12-litre V6, which is matched to a 16-speed electronic transmission, both designed and made by Mercedes-Benz, of course. This truck also features Mercedes-Benz planetary tourque drive, Mercedes-Benz air suspension on the rear, ABS anti-lock brakes and air conditioning in the cab.

A lot of thought went into its design and with the help of the engineering team in Germany it is completely street legal with its pump set-up, says Don, hinting that it is always a challenge with specialist units to fit within our dimension and weight laws so travel times are not restricted by permit conditions.

The pump selected for the job is the Putzmeister BSF 36.14H Z-fold, supplied by Concrete Pumping Equipment NZ Ltd and it is claimed to be the most flexible 36m pump on the market.

Warwick Binning of Concrete Pumping Equipment was very impressed with the way the Mercedes-Benz truck arrived already set up to accept the pump, and said it made his team’s job much easier.

Truck-mounted 30m class concrete pumps make up the core of most concrete pump fleets around the world, and selecting the right machine is critical for a successful operator. The BSF 36 has become very popular, thanks to further development of the Z-folder, which increases flexibility as the cross section of the arm assembly is almost 40 percent smaller. Obstacles on building sites no longer present a problem as the BSF 36 can be installed in places where otherwise larger machines or boom extensions would be necessary. It also has the new ergonic boom control (EBC), where the operator uses a simple joystick to work the boom. It’s quicker to use, simpler and safer.