Daily delivers for Mitre 10

Mitre 10's Richmond store in Melbourne has turned to Iveco's new Daily to carry out deliveries of timber and building supplies throughout the inner city and CBD.

The store now uses a Daily 50C170 single cab/chassis with drop-sided tray and racks to deliver building materials and supplies to budding DIYers and professional tradespeople alike.

The inner-city Richmond location of the Mitre 10 store presents particular challenges to delivery vehicles, which must be comfortable and manoeuvrable to drive while still being able to transport worthwhile payloads of around 1.5 tonnes.

Richmond Mitre 10 Operations Manager, Ben Shaw (pictured), said the Iveco Daily needed to fill several important criteria before being selected to join two other trucks on fleet.

"At the moment we have a large crane truck, a medium-sized truck and the replacement we were looking for was a smaller-sized cab-over truck," he said.

"We needed a vehicle that would enable us to deliver in the inner city, in smaller, tighter spaces where the other two vehicles just couldn't get to.

"The Daily's dimensions and size of the tray work in the inner city; it allows us to get multiple deliveries out that are substantial – we can keep the vehicle out longer with more deliveries on it rather than running a ute out all the time, and having a new vehicle is always good."

The Daily's 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel produces 125kW and 430Nm, the urge fed via an eight-speed automatic transmission.

"Having something with a full automatic transmission was handy for us in the inner city because there's nothing worse than constantly having to change gears in slow-moving traffic," said Mr Shaw.

"We also wanted any staff member who has a car licence to be able to drive it. Previously we had a medium rigid manual vehicle which only endorsed drivers could operate, and that made it quite difficult for us on the weekends to do local deliveries. It also made it awkward for us in that we had to have a dedicated driver for that vehicle.

"Now we can use a yard person with a licence, put them in it and it's like driving a ute."

The Daily usually completes three cycles of four drops per day in the inner city, along with the occasional longer trip throughout Melbourne's wider metropolitan area and surrounding regions.

Mr Shaw said the Daily's comfort was another major drawcard, as was the ease of leasing the vehicle through Iveco's in-house financier, CNH Industrial Capital.

"The financing options which are available with Iveco were attractive and not available in the current Japanese models," said Mr Shaw.

"It's certainly made us think about capital expenditure for the next financial year and also about renewing our fleet, as it makes more sense in the long run to have a fully serviced vehicle that's been paid for, or at least factored to be paid for, rather than having to constantly service old and aged vehicles."