Australia’s largest lift truck rental company, Crown Equipment  marked a milestone recently with the attainment of 10,000 lift trucks in its rental fleet.  The fleet covers the full spectrum of electric, diesel and petrol lift trucks from pallet movers to stackers, IC trucks and stockpickers.
Crown has built its reputation as the market leader and manufacturer of the highest quality lift trucks in Australia. However, the company has for many years also been at the forefront of the rental business, operating out of its 24 company owned branches nationally.
　　In the highly competitive rental business where larger lift truck companies compete with dealers and smaller operators, renting direct from the manufacturer has distinct advantages.  Often, they are able to offer more competitive rates on late model equipment with greater flexibility on rental terms.
　　 “The Crown rental fleet is turned over regularly so that we are offering our customers greater variety of modern lift trucks from varying sizes and specifications to suit their needs,” says Steve Takacs, General Manager Rentals for Crown Equipment.
　　“People often think of rental trucks as beaten down old units but that is certainly not the case with Crown’s fleet.  We can offer brand new models or those that are only a few years old.”
　　Renting new models as they come out onto the market is an efficient way of testing a vehicle to see if it suits the warehousing requirements.  It can also be  more cost efficient than outright purchasing of a lift truck particularly if a warehousing business is seasonal or fluctuates due to external forces.  Crown offers long-term rentals from one year to five years but also has the option of renting out on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
　　“Being flexible with our rental fleet has been a major factor in the growth of our rental business.  Now that we have expanded the fleet to over 10,000 units, we can be even more so,” says Takacs.
　　The ability to maintain its own fleet of lift trucks has been one of the distinguishing features of Crown’s business.   With over 280 service vehicles each stocked with over 2000 individual spare parts operating around Australia, Crown achieves response times of less than 2 hours in over 90% of situations.  There is also an after hours breakdown service that operates 24 hours everyday.
　　Genuine Crown spare parts are available at call from the dedicated 2500m2 spare parts distribution centre in Smithfield, Sydney.
　　“All our service technicians are trained in-house and with maintenance  included in the rental of a Crown lift truck once a rental truck goes out to a customer, they no longer need worry about running costs or maintenance invoices every month.  Crown takes care of all of that for them.”