With a history of hauling fertilizer across Tasmania with another European brand, McDougall Fertiliser Services say they are super-impressed with what their Iveco trucks have delivered in recent years.
Those earlier trucks from the other brand started to have some reliability issues and that meant the successful Northern Tasmania-based business looked elsewhere when it came to a new hauling solution.
Business owner Aaron McDougall says the Iveco Trakker (pictured above) was the truck that won the argument.
“In the end, it came down to Iveco and another brand. The Trakker gave us some tare weight benefits (AD360 has 18t GVM and AD450 offers 33t GVM) which helped us make the final decision to go with Iveco.
“I’ve also seen several other companies in Tasmania with Trakkers and this gave us confidence, and I spoke to a high-profile operator in New Zealand, and he rated the Trakkers as well.”
McDougall Fertiliser Services runs a fleet of eight fertilizer spreaders, including three Iveco AD360 Trakker 4x4s – a further four on-road trucks make up the fleet, while a Trakker AD450 6×6 is also currently being built.
Aaron’s existing Iveco trucks feature a 6-cylinder, 7.8-litre turbo-diesel engine producing 360hp and 1500NM of torque, while the soon-to-be-delivered Trakker 6×6 has a displacement of 12.9-litres and develops 450hp and 2200Nm.
In both instances, the engines are coupled to 16-speed manual transmissions although an AMT option is also available.
“On the fuel front, the Trakkers perform better than our previous brand trucks – I’d say they’re pretty good, using about 11-12-litres per hour.
“We’ve been pleased with the Trakkers since purchasing the first one, which is why we’ve continued to use Iveco.”
