CST Hire rates Hino the highest

CST Hire is a company that provides a wide range of project-spec trucks for the construction and mining industry. The company has offices in Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne and can supply all kinds of trucks throughout the country.

We caught up with General Manager Todd Wilton to find out a bit more about the company and why it chooses Hino trucks.

CST Hire only started in 2016. The company then had three trucks; its assets now total around 750 vehicles from small buses and four-wheel drive vehicles through to medium-duty trucks, crane trucks, 8x4 and 8x8 trucks and even prime movers.

“I’ve been with the company since the beginning,” said Todd Wilton. “We started off pretty smal but then around 2019 to 2020 things really started to pick up.

“We do infrastructure, civil works, construction, railways, pipelines, that sort of thing.

“We’re more of a long-term dry-hire company. Our customers usually take them for weeks or months at a time, and we also do project solutions where we’ll provide the entire vehicle fleet for a construction project.

“We’ll also support that with field service mechanics,” Todd said.

“We’re currently doing a project in Rockhampton which is a water pipeline, and we have just over 100 vehicles on that job. It’s a mixture of heavy and light and we have our own mechanic on site.

“We have our own workshop here in Brisbane, and one in Perth and our branch in Melbourne, and then we have three field mechanics who are constantly out and about.”

“We put them to our bigger projects. We have one mechanic that floats between three jobs at the moment.

“One of our field mechanics is currently down in the Snowy Mountains to cover some vehicles we have on the Snowy Hydro job.

“One of our challenges has been getting vehicles. Even though it has freed up a bit [since Covid], it’s still difficult to get a big truck built up. It’s six to 12 months sometimes to get it built.

Todd told us that the local Hino dealer Sci Fleet has been a great help over the years. “We’ve bought over a hundred trucks through Sci Fleet,” he said. “The sales people over there are great. We work with them and other suppliers when we’re building up a truck as we pretty much know what we want these days.”

Todd says the Hino trucks are great because of their reliability and versatility. “The Hinos fit requirements really well,”he said. “Whether we’re doing a water truck, tilt-tray or service truck, the Hinos fit the bill – and they don’t break down, they’re very durable.”

Todd says the company mainly sticks to rigid trucks, and only has a handful of semis, so the Hino range is perfect.

"Some of the more popular models are the 500 Series GT 4x4, crane trucks, tilt trays and dual-cab trucks," said Todd.

“We choose Hino because of their reliability and support and the overall quality of the product. They’re durable too. Even when they come back off a big job, we just give them a clean and they’re right to go again. I think we’ll be buying Hino for a long time to come,” he concluded.