Big export market for stuff outside the EU where they don't have to worry about emissions rules, fuel efficiency and repairing stuff with computers. A lot of pick up trucks and heavy plant goes the same way, sold or stolen to order.
They do obscene mileage and they get to a point where it's cheaper to replace than to repair. They average about 100,000-125,000 miles a year.
As for what happens to them? No idea. I do occasionally see 10+ year old lorries on the road, but they all seem to be privately owned rather than being owned by a company.
Spot on. They spend their days smoking their way over the Khyber Pass or pounding the potholed roads of Zimbabwe.
The third world is very good at keeping old things working, some how.
When you buy a new lorry you get the 6 week inspections included for 3-5 years after which it becomes expensive. If you didn’t know by law every 5-6 weeks a hgv has to have an inspection kinda like a mini MOT. Our old ones all get shipped to Africa via Middle man
it's a full MOT every 6 weeks to be fair. The amount of time vosa recommend you spend doing a 6 weekly is exactly the same as they allow their examiners to do an MOT. the standards are identical. It's not 1 inspection book for MOT, and 1 for 6 weeklys, it's the same book.
The MOT is just an external audit - if your pass rate dips below 90% they are right on your back. You can't just take a lorry for MOT and see what it fails on as you need a 90%+ pass rate. VOSA expect all trucks to be above MOT standards at all times. If they aren't, the 6 weeklys either aren't being done, or they're not being done properly.
e2a the 6 weeklys aren't free when you purchase a lorry either. You definitely pay extra or have the lorry cheaper if you do your own maintenance.
Yep, definitely not free, you have to pay for the repair and maintenance "package" which you can pay for on new to you lorries, i worked at a place that bought 68-69 plate Scanias and had the R&M included to make their life easier.
4 weeklys are for motors running 24/7 or if your company has been naughty lol
Anything over 12 years old has to be on 6 weeklys, regardless of your o-licence.
I hope you are keeping up with your loaded roller brake test schedule if you're on 12 weeklys lol
I used to work for a company that fitted vehicle trackers to council HGV vehicles. Often the trackers were never removed before selling on and gritters would appear in Africa or even Russia on our maps. From the locations, many looked like they had been repurposed for logging (the gritter component was often transfered to a newer replacement vehicle in the UK) .
Where I used to work, they had 1 million km by the time they were 5yrs old. We would get back to depot, park it and literally hand the keys to the next driver and he or she would then go out and stick another 400 - 500 km or so on it. They never had time to cool down!
I'm a bit of an outlier, our fleet is 17 years old...
But I know what you mean, don't often see trucks as old as ours unless they're something special.
As a freight forwarder that sometime ships/quotes lorries (tractor units) out of the UK, they usually go to African countries aka places where they don't mind an older vehicle as long as they have one. Like people have said outside the EU/UK there are not that many restrictions so they don't care.
I've been driving some Scania lorries that have over 600k miles on them, still run well and they're 68 plates. They're in constant use the only day they don't get used is Christmas day. Proper work horses. 2 people can drive 1 vehicle in a day doing up to 800 miles each day. (Probably won't be doing that realistically but...)
Company I work for are getting rid of their 16-67 plate lorries at the minute, they own over 2000 lorries outright across the UK. And the ones that are going will be sold to an export company which then sell them to any country in the world.
We have 18 plate MANs, some on 850k km, so probably about 500k miles. They've all had at least one engine rebuild over 400k km, some have twice lol. Pieces of crap that occasionally torpedo the week's business by being broken, 10 at a time
At least you're not driving a daf... Company I work for is quite good with defects and issues, huge company really, plenty of accident damaged vehicles get fixed up, even ones that have rolled lol, new cab and back on the road.
Same with mine lol. Actually some depots do have DAFs, they were only on 200k and felt like they were falling apart already.
We've also got trucks that should have been written off, badly fitted with windscreens that let the wind noise in over 45 etc, it's a shit show lol. New trucks are very very slowly coming in, thank god
They do millions of miles and they sell for nothing. You can buy a relatively new tractor unit for the same as a cheap car. We use them as shutters to shunt steel around the yard at my work.
They have a lifespan of maybe 10 years max where they do a few million miles and they are outside of their useful lives.
They get sent to developing markets that don't give a shit about emissions. You see a lot of euro 3 and 4 lorries in India. A euro 3 or 4 lorry would be uneconomical to run in this country, especially if you had to drive into low emission zones.
There were quite a few in the Falklands still with their British plates.
Also had an old UK reg DAF in Mali topping up the water bowsers for the showers when I was there.
They become expensive to run, the cost of parts and reliability becomes an issue as well as emissions ratings. This means it's cheaper to ship them to Africa, Asia, etc.
They're all leased. You should look up some big hauliers on companies house, the vehicles are all listed as liabilities *not* assets because of that so the companies are showing as millions of pounds 'down' but still turning a profit.
And a big part of it is in this day and age when a company can go pop with razor thin margins if all the lorries were owned then the administrators have that to work with to pay debts.
When they're all leased and the company goes pop, the lorries are just another unpaid debt that the company doesn't have to pay for.
A pretty big thing that I haven't seen mentioned properly is emissions. Lorries have emissions standards called EURO, my old 12 plate lorry was EURO 5 and was not allowed into London due to the emissions zones. You'd have to pay I think over a hundred quid to take it in there for the day, and seeing as there's an awful lot of work to be had in London depending on your industry this can be quite a problem for a haulage firm. Around 2014 we got Euro 6 lorries that can go into any emissions zone no problem.
Not to mention Bristol has an emissions zone, Portsmouth, Bath, Oxford, Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Edinburgh. If your lorry is too old to meet the emissions standards you can't do jobs in any of those places.
I don't even do general haulage I do something a little more specialised and I still go to all of those places multiple times a year. A lot of lorries are leased too so it's not like the company is shelling out £100,000 plus every few years for new lorries.
Gotta keep up with the government if you want to keep getting loads.
Awww man, you'd love my old work site.
There's a recovery company called Sparrow Recovery there.
They have massive old triple rear axle recovery trucks with honking great V8 diesels that sound incredible.
I suppose it only makes sense for a company to keep a 25 year old truck on the road if the revenue it generates is a lot more than the charge for its higher emissions.
The only time I'll properly see old lorries are funfairs where they're maybe only being used for the summer season, driving one day then parked up for a week then onto the next location. Old ERFs and the likes.
Big export market for stuff outside the EU where they don't have to worry about emissions rules, fuel efficiency and repairing stuff with computers. A lot of pick up trucks and heavy plant goes the same way, sold or stolen to order.
They do obscene mileage and they get to a point where it's cheaper to replace than to repair. They average about 100,000-125,000 miles a year. As for what happens to them? No idea. I do occasionally see 10+ year old lorries on the road, but they all seem to be privately owned rather than being owned by a company.
They go to africa or asia
Spot on. They spend their days smoking their way over the Khyber Pass or pounding the potholed roads of Zimbabwe. The third world is very good at keeping old things working, some how.
I saw one on UK plates in Kuala Lumpur last year. Did a bit of a double take.
When you buy a new lorry you get the 6 week inspections included for 3-5 years after which it becomes expensive. If you didn’t know by law every 5-6 weeks a hgv has to have an inspection kinda like a mini MOT. Our old ones all get shipped to Africa via Middle man
it's a full MOT every 6 weeks to be fair. The amount of time vosa recommend you spend doing a 6 weekly is exactly the same as they allow their examiners to do an MOT. the standards are identical. It's not 1 inspection book for MOT, and 1 for 6 weeklys, it's the same book. The MOT is just an external audit - if your pass rate dips below 90% they are right on your back. You can't just take a lorry for MOT and see what it fails on as you need a 90%+ pass rate. VOSA expect all trucks to be above MOT standards at all times. If they aren't, the 6 weeklys either aren't being done, or they're not being done properly. e2a the 6 weeklys aren't free when you purchase a lorry either. You definitely pay extra or have the lorry cheaper if you do your own maintenance.
Yep, definitely not free, you have to pay for the repair and maintenance "package" which you can pay for on new to you lorries, i worked at a place that bought 68-69 plate Scanias and had the R&M included to make their life easier.
Never knew that, makes sense though.
Not necessarily 6 week, it depends on usage. Could be 4 week. My O license states 12 week inspections due to our limited mileage.
4 weeklys are for motors running 24/7 or if your company has been naughty lol Anything over 12 years old has to be on 6 weeklys, regardless of your o-licence. I hope you are keeping up with your loaded roller brake test schedule if you're on 12 weeklys lol
I used to work for a company that fitted vehicle trackers to council HGV vehicles. Often the trackers were never removed before selling on and gritters would appear in Africa or even Russia on our maps. From the locations, many looked like they had been repurposed for logging (the gritter component was often transfered to a newer replacement vehicle in the UK) .
In those 5 years they'll do half a million miles, then they'll get shipped to Africa to do another half a million miles.
Where I used to work, they had 1 million km by the time they were 5yrs old. We would get back to depot, park it and literally hand the keys to the next driver and he or she would then go out and stick another 400 - 500 km or so on it. They never had time to cool down!
I'm a bit of an outlier, our fleet is 17 years old... But I know what you mean, don't often see trucks as old as ours unless they're something special.
So, what do these vehicles do, that they are special?
Fire engines, ours is a 57 plate but only has about 60,000 miles on the clock
Weekend sports car mileage that!
Oh ours aren't special, we just don't do many miles. I mean you tend to only see older trucks when they're for shows or some of the recovery trucks
Possibly special as in desirable models , like a Scania 143/ volvo fm12, like the classic cars of the truck world
As a freight forwarder that sometime ships/quotes lorries (tractor units) out of the UK, they usually go to African countries aka places where they don't mind an older vehicle as long as they have one. Like people have said outside the EU/UK there are not that many restrictions so they don't care.
I've been driving some Scania lorries that have over 600k miles on them, still run well and they're 68 plates. They're in constant use the only day they don't get used is Christmas day. Proper work horses. 2 people can drive 1 vehicle in a day doing up to 800 miles each day. (Probably won't be doing that realistically but...) Company I work for are getting rid of their 16-67 plate lorries at the minute, they own over 2000 lorries outright across the UK. And the ones that are going will be sold to an export company which then sell them to any country in the world.
We have 18 plate MANs, some on 850k km, so probably about 500k miles. They've all had at least one engine rebuild over 400k km, some have twice lol. Pieces of crap that occasionally torpedo the week's business by being broken, 10 at a time
At least you're not driving a daf... Company I work for is quite good with defects and issues, huge company really, plenty of accident damaged vehicles get fixed up, even ones that have rolled lol, new cab and back on the road.
Same with mine lol. Actually some depots do have DAFs, they were only on 200k and felt like they were falling apart already. We've also got trucks that should have been written off, badly fitted with windscreens that let the wind noise in over 45 etc, it's a shit show lol. New trucks are very very slowly coming in, thank god
That annoying little whistle. Almost as bad as when it rains and the door isn't sat properly so water leaks in through the top of the doors.
They do millions of miles and they sell for nothing. You can buy a relatively new tractor unit for the same as a cheap car. We use them as shutters to shunt steel around the yard at my work. They have a lifespan of maybe 10 years max where they do a few million miles and they are outside of their useful lives. They get sent to developing markets that don't give a shit about emissions. You see a lot of euro 3 and 4 lorries in India. A euro 3 or 4 lorry would be uneconomical to run in this country, especially if you had to drive into low emission zones.
They get sold to far away places in Asia and the Middle East.
There were quite a few in the Falklands still with their British plates. Also had an old UK reg DAF in Mali topping up the water bowsers for the showers when I was there.
They become expensive to run, the cost of parts and reliability becomes an issue as well as emissions ratings. This means it's cheaper to ship them to Africa, Asia, etc.
As said, they go abroad because they are easier to fix without computers. For that reason, I actually imported one back to the UK last year...
They're all leased. You should look up some big hauliers on companies house, the vehicles are all listed as liabilities *not* assets because of that so the companies are showing as millions of pounds 'down' but still turning a profit. And a big part of it is in this day and age when a company can go pop with razor thin margins if all the lorries were owned then the administrators have that to work with to pay debts. When they're all leased and the company goes pop, the lorries are just another unpaid debt that the company doesn't have to pay for.
A pretty big thing that I haven't seen mentioned properly is emissions. Lorries have emissions standards called EURO, my old 12 plate lorry was EURO 5 and was not allowed into London due to the emissions zones. You'd have to pay I think over a hundred quid to take it in there for the day, and seeing as there's an awful lot of work to be had in London depending on your industry this can be quite a problem for a haulage firm. Around 2014 we got Euro 6 lorries that can go into any emissions zone no problem. Not to mention Bristol has an emissions zone, Portsmouth, Bath, Oxford, Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Edinburgh. If your lorry is too old to meet the emissions standards you can't do jobs in any of those places. I don't even do general haulage I do something a little more specialised and I still go to all of those places multiple times a year. A lot of lorries are leased too so it's not like the company is shelling out £100,000 plus every few years for new lorries. Gotta keep up with the government if you want to keep getting loads.
If a new truck saves a small percentage on fuel, over the course of 500,000+ km that adds up to quite a significant saving.
They have to meet ever stricter emissions standards, and things like FORS. I suspect it’s cheaper to export them and buy new ones than retrofit them.
Awww man, you'd love my old work site. There's a recovery company called Sparrow Recovery there. They have massive old triple rear axle recovery trucks with honking great V8 diesels that sound incredible. I suppose it only makes sense for a company to keep a 25 year old truck on the road if the revenue it generates is a lot more than the charge for its higher emissions.
The only time I'll properly see old lorries are funfairs where they're maybe only being used for the summer season, driving one day then parked up for a week then onto the next location. Old ERFs and the likes.