The City of Banyule in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne has added to its fleet of hardworking compactors, with two new ACCO 6x4 trucks equipped with Bucher Municipal side loaders.

The trucks are assigned to residential refuse collection duties and were selected following a competitive tender process and input from Council employees including drivers, mechanics and Fleet Services Engineer, David Walczak.

Mr Walczak, who is largely responsible for overseeing the purchase and maintenance of the City of Banyule’s fleet of cars, light and heavy commercial vehicles and other equipment, says the ACCOs had many benefits compared to other models.

“Our fleet of side loader compactors are exclusively based on the ACCO platform, for this demanding start and stop application we’ve found them to be very good,” he said

“Some of the other truck brands we’ve used haven’t provided the same longevity – from my personal experience the ACCO delivers the right formula for this sort of work.”

At the heart of ACCOs ruggedness is a premium American driveline and tough ECE-R29-rated cabin, while safety is aided by ABS brakes and traction control – for side loader work, the model’s three quarter side window also provides excellent visibility.

Maintenance on all vehicles is undertaken in-house by Banyule Council’s own team, where the ACCO is well regarded by mechanics for its ease of servicing and strong local support.

“The ACCOs are easy to work on and maintain and there is a wide availability of spare parts for them that we can access without delay, this adds to the trucks’ low whole of life cost,” Mr Walczak said.

Typically the Council’s side loader compactors work to full capacity for five years or 7,000 hours, but after this some are kept as spare trucks for when vehicles in the regular fleet are being serviced or to accommodate extra garbage runs that are sometimes needed.

“These spare trucks are finally sent to auction at between 11,000 to 13,000 hours still with the original engine and transmission – it’s testament to the quality of the ACCO product but also to Banyule Council’s maintenance schedule and the skills of our operators,” Mr Walczak said.

ACCO models are manufactured at Iveco’s Dandenong, Melbourne facility using 85 per cent local content, and when combined with the locally-built Bucher Municipal compactor body provides a real ‘home-grown’ product, according to Mr Walczak.

“Aside from supporting Australian jobs and local manufacturing, there are other benefits in having locally-built trucks,” he said.

“The local support is great – both Iveco and Bucher have extensive local engineering divisions so I can have questions answered promptly and there’s also the convenience of being able to make final adjustments to the specification during the build process. I always inspect the vehicles during build.

“In short the ACCO models are reliable, fuel efficient and the back-up is very good.”