Bell loader fits with Angus Council recycling needs

Scottish local authority Angus Council has taken delivery of a Bell L1506E wheeled loader and quickhitch- mounted high tip bucket for material handling duties at its Forfar recycling plant. Selected through a competitive tender process over six other machines, the L1506E was shown to offer the best value for money when taking into account fuel efficiency, servicing and residual value over a five year period.

The machine is fitted with Bell’s QuadCool cooling system tto protect the radiators from dust build-up to prevent the engine overheating. The loader has been supplied with L5 extra heavy duty Michelin tyres with a polyeurothene fill to protect them from punctures and a Viby Jern high tip bucket with a centralised greasing point to simplify servicing.

Angus Council’s fleet services manager Graham Robertson wasn extremely satisfied with the ‘no stone unturned’ tender, which has provided robust information on the level of performance the Council is expecting to see from the L1506Er: “It’s a great looking and thoughtfully designed piece of apparatus, being sturdy, strong and with all the right features for the tasks at hand. This makes it entirely suitable for the recycling plant environment and we’re expecting it to truly perform,” Graham explains.

“The decision to choose Bell’s L1506E was not made lightly. The tender we embarked upon enabled us to visit and evaluate seven different competitor machines, each of which was scored and marked out of 100. On quality, our criteria included elements such as operator training, vibration, purpose appropriateness, delivery and warranty, with Bell rating only 0.05% behind the leader but substantially ahead of the others.”

He went on: “true value for money can only be determined over the whole life of the loader. We asked all seven manufacturers for data on residual value, servicing and fuel economy; the results confirm that Bell represents the lowest cost over five years. A comparison of marks brought the Bell machine out-on-top in terms of price and quality, with an overall score of 93.7%. The closest competitor scored 91.71%, with the remaining contending machines achieving significantly lower marks, further down in the 80s,”