Too good to be scrapped

Many, many years ago, I was reading a Sunday Times supplement. There was an interview with the Sex Pistols drummer, Paul Cook.

I was a little too young when punk hit. I was 12 when the Pistols achieved true notoriety with the song “God Save the Queen”. That said, the article was very good.

But the best bit of it was the photo of Paul Cook. He was wearing jeans and a pair of tan-coloured brogues. I fell in love with the shoes in an instant.

So I went in search of a pair just like them. And I found precisely what I was looking for - a pair of brogues from Northampton-based Loake.

Now at the time, the most I had ever spent on a pair of shoes was probably ￡30 or ￡40 quid. The Loake brogues were ￡100.

But the heart wants what the heart wants. And so I swallowed deeply and I parted with the money, reassuring myself with my dad’s old mantra: “Always buy a good pair of shoes and a good bed. Because if you’re not in one, you’re in the other”.

In this, as in so many other things, my dad was right. I bought those shoes more than 20 years ago. For many years, I wore them each and every day. I wore them with suits and chinos and jeans. I still wear them regularly to this day.

Now, admittedly, those shoes are a bit like Trigger’s broom in Only Fools and Horses. On two separate occasions, I have sent them back to Northampton to be resoled and reheeled. On each occasion, they have returned looking like a new pair of shoes.

The artisans at Loake not only strip off and replace the underside, they add new insoles and new laces; and the uppers have been buffed to an as-new shine while retaining the patina of age.

And here’s my point. Those shoes cost me more than twice what I would normally spend, but they are already on their third life. They look every bit as good today as they did the day I bought them, only now they are moulded to my feet. Fully broken in, they now fit like slippers.

Now, excavators (and for excavators, read wheel loaders, dozers, graders and off-highway trucks).

Notwithstanding the threat of tariffs that might make Chinese-made machines more expensive in the very near future, there remains a temptation to take the cheap option, to look purely at the up-front cost, to save money now and hope that it all turns out well in the long run.

But for years, premium brands like Caterpillar, Komatsu, Liebherr and Volvo have extolled the virtues of looking beyond initial cost and to take into account the true lifetime cost of ownership; factoring in maintenance, repairs, fuel costs, likely operating hours and - ultimately - resale value. It is no coincidence that the brands that advocate for total ownership costs are the very same companies that offer the best repair and remanufacturing services.

This debate between cheap and cheerful or expensive and long-lasting is nothing new; and the mathematics supporting that argument are proven. If a machine costs twice as much but lasts three times as long, you save 33 percent.

However, there is now a factor that potentially shifts the balance even further in favour of more expensive but longer-lasting brands. And that factor is sustainability. Because now (and increasingly in the future), the environmental cost will be every bit as important as the financial one.

And to support that contention, I shall call upon the expert opinion of Mr Bean or, more specifically, the actor that plays him: Rowan Atkinson.

Atkinson, a renowned petrol-head, was an early-adopter of electric vehicles. But, in an article for The Guardian, he stated that he felt duped and that he could have done a greater good for the environment by simply hanging onto his trusty petrol car for just a wee bit longer.

“Currently, on average we keep our new cars for only three years before selling them on, driven mainly by the ubiquitous three-year leasing model. This seems an outrageously profligate use of the world’s natural resources when you consider what great condition a three-year-old car is in.

When I was a child, any car that was five years old was a bucket of rust and halfway through the gate of the scrapyard. Not any longer. You can now make a car for ￡15,000 that, with tender loving care, will last for 30 years.

It’s sobering to think that if the first owners of new cars just kept them for five years, on average, instead of the current three, then car production and the CO2 emissions associated with it, would be vastly reduced. Yet we’d be enjoying the same mobility, just driving slightly older cars.”

And before you dismiss Atkinson’s words as the ramblings of a comedian best-known as Edmund Blackadder, it is worth remembering that he bagged his first degree in electrical and electronic engineering; he then earned a master’s degree in control systems.

In the field of construction equipment, a greater emphasis on true lifetime ownership costs and the retention of older equipment will require not just one mindset shift but three.

In the first instance, those buying equipment will need to look beyond the initial price tag; to break out the pocket calculator; and to analyse and understand the true cost of owning and operating a piece of equipment.

Secondly - and this one might prove more challenging - we must dismiss the notion that new machines equate to success. We will need to forego those photos of company owners shaking hands with dealer salesmen on the delivery of one or more new excavators. And we will need to dispel the notion that modern equipment - laden with sensors and supported by state-of-the-art telematics - suddenly becomes less reliable the day the machine celebrates its fourth birthday.

And then, of course, there is the most problematic mindset shift of them all. Governments around the world, including here in the UK, have set out ambitious plans to be carbon neutral by 2050. To achieve those lofty aims, they will eventually ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars and diesel equipment while encouraging us all to embrace an electric or hydrogen-fuelled future. They will do so, presumably, knowing that the carbon saved here will simply mean the consumption of carbon elsewhere in the planet. And in their haste, they will send older yet ultimately cleaner equipment to the scrap yard.

This article was written by Mark Anthony, founder and editor of DemolitionNews.com.

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