Northern Ireland-based Hill Engineering has been supplying WD Lewis with Tefra for the last six years but these are its first Titan buckets.
Based in Mid Glamorgan, William D Lewis (Aberdare) was established in 1972 and today turns over more than £25m a year from its groundworks operations and the manufacture of concrete blocks.
WD Lewis group plant & transport manager Graham Ponsford says: “We were introduced to Hill Engineering and the Tefra six years ago – one of Hill’s area sales managers visited us to show us the new Tefra hitch as we were looking for a new supplier as our current supplier in Tredega was closing down. We liked the design – it was new and very different to other designs we had seen and very well made. The price was right and also Hill Engineering offered a very good back-up service.”
Mr Ponsford continues: “We went on to buy 20 hitches to fit to our fleet of JCB machines ranging from 13 to 21 tonnes. I showed the new Tefra hitch to our old supplier – the rep said the Hill product was excellent and gave it thumbs up. It was good to hear the opinion of what was a rival manufacturer’s dealer.”
“Three-years later we replaced our fleet again with another 20 machines and bought a further 20 new hitches from Hill. We have recently replaced our fleet once more, 2.5 years on, with 20 new Case machines, comprising nineteen 13-tonne machines and one 21-tonne machine, we also bought an additional 20 new Tefra hitches.
“The buckets we had were ten years old and they had been repaired many times so we decided that as we had renewed our fleet and hitches we decided on replacing our existing buckets with Hill’s Titan HD buckets. We have purchased three buckets for each machine – so 60 in total.”
Graham Ponsford goes on: “We are often asked why we replace the hitch every time we replace the machine? Well, it’s my view that it’s pointless putting an old bit of kit on a brand new machine, despite the fact that the hitches would probably go on to last another three years.
“The operators can’t fault Hill’s Tefra and are equally as happy with the new Titan HDs. When we first bought Tefra there were a few teething problems as the product was so new,” he admits. “However, Hill Engineering quickly sorted this out and since then the hitches have been excellent. As a company we have used rival manufacturers hitches – but the Tefra is by far the best one out of the lot – and we have had plenty of time to test them!”
