Just moved house and rented a 7.5T MAN truck with tail lift for the move. Everything completed, I went to start the truck to return it to the hire centre and found the battery was flat. On speaking with the rental company they suggested that I was at fault for draining the battery and have subsequently been charged 80 quid for the call out because it was 'driver error'.

During the move I must have driven around 15miles over 30min between the two houses and operated the tail lift no more than 10 times at the new place. I can't help but think I didn't do anything wrong and the truck is maybe not maintained as well as it could be. I used to do class one and two HGV work with palletised deliveries some years back and never had issues. It was a mild January day too so not exactly the coldest. Anyone got any experience with this sort of thing? Would like to get my money back and don't mind using the courts to do it if I have reasonable grounds.

Cheers.

Matt

I think your strong point here is that you're an experienced Class 1 and Class 2 HGV driver and experienced with delivery work. Write to them formally disputing the charge and pointing out to them the level of your experience; intimate to them that failing satisfactory resolution of the dispute by other means you will be bringing an action against them.

Yeah, totally agree. Sounds like they're just body-swerving their responsibility and trying it on to get you to fix their truck for them. I'd have none of it.

Tail lift? Electrically driven hydraulic motor? Did you do 'a lot' of up-and-downing?

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FWIW, Years ago I did maintenance for a small local firm. My duties included driving a luton van between site A and Site B collecting and delivering pallets of goods. The luton van had a tail lift and was probably used at least 30 times per day (the distance between sites was about 800yds) Not once did the battery fail in the 2 1/2 yrs I worked there. I did used to take the van out for a battery charging run (about 30/ 40 miles during the daytime) once a month as the short distance trips and using the tail lift were fairly heavy on the battery. I can't see that you are to blame for their battery losing it's charge in the short time you were using it, specially considering that most 7.5 tonners have 24v batteries.

Not sure of the technicalities but the log splitter I have runs some 750 watts to provide 4 tons of 'chopping power'. Assuming a similarly rated motor to lift a tail (???) you are talking 30A at 24V which will flatten a truck battery in a couple of hours of 'heavy duty' work.

Now I don't claim my figures are accurate but what else was left on? Hazard lights? Radio? Side lights? We are not fully informed here.

Starting an engine takes relatively little energy from a battery (due to the very short duration) but running a tail lift for a 'longish' while could cause a problem

Anyway the positive proof of a 'fault' would be a repeat of the flat battery situation..... I'm assuming the battery wasn't replaced? If it WASN'T then the battery was presumably ok. If the alternator wasn't replaced, again, there was no fault with it. If it was a simple case of recharging the 'flat' battery then it sounds to me like a simple case of it being run flat - either by the hirer or perhaps in conjunction with a previous hirer that was over-zealous in tail lift use?

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I agree, unless they specifically said in the hire terms that you should run the engine to recharge the battery if you are using the tail lift.

The van clearly wasn't fit for the purpose you hired it.

If running the engine in order to use the tail lift were required, then it would be a two-man exercise. You can't have the (main or only) engine running with the vehicle left unattended, which it's bound to be when the materials removed via the tail lift are taken away from the vehicle by the driver.

Very true. Quite a number of ups and downs at the one destination are normal for a tail lift. It's up to the owners of the vehicle to ensure that suitable batteries are installed in order to cope with the demand which could reasonably be anticipated and to ensure that the state of charge of the batteries is checked before each hire.

In this instance the owner of the vehicle should have to provide evidence of
i) the make and model of the batteries fitted
ii) the age of the batteries fitted
iii) checking of the batteries immediately before the hire on which they failed
iv) evidence of checking the current draw of the tail lift
v) evidence of the manufacturer's specification for the tail lift

Quick update on this one. I contacted a couple of MAN truck dealerships and they confirmed that this was unacceptable performance for a battery to fail like this. I wrote to the rental company to inform them I would go down the county court route. Two days later I have my money back.

Good news. Thanks for your comments.

Matt

That's brilliant!

It just goes to show that it is worth complaining.

Glad it's worked out well for you. Batteries vary in performance and for really heavy-duty, in my opinion, there's little to beat the gel-type batteries. As a LandRover owner over several decades they're the only sort that seem to last the pace -- expensive at £150-£200 apiece, but worth every penny of it. Fit them and stop worrying for a few years.