limeyphil:
i havn’t done any aid to kosovo. i’ve done it to plenty of other places. so if you need a volunteer, then let me know.
I would also be interested in volunteering my services , where can I register for such a thing ?
Paul:
Now that ive got your attention I will explain.
I am looking at possibly buying a couple of ex stobarts Drawbar combinations for a charity that I drive for taking humanitarian aid to Kosovo.
I have seen some of the ex stobart drawbars on the road but cant find a dealer on tinternet that sells them so I was wondering/hoping that some of you guys out there may know of the dealers and can pass there details onto me. I have emailed Stobarts direct asking if they can pass on any info but not confident they will reply.
The trucks I am looking at dont have to be ex stobarts its just they seem to be max weight and volume trucks that I have seen on the road. If anyone knows any other dealers selling complete drawbar combinations please pass on there details to me. Ideally the Dutch flower combi’s would be great but although most of our work is in Euro land we still would prefer RHD trucks.Cheers
Paul
Too Heavy with 6 axles and too high. In Europe Mainland often just maximum of 4 Meter hight.You pay for every Damage you do,and Injurence may refuse to pay as you broke the Law by entering that Country with a lorry which is too high.
Paul:
Yes it is hope and aid.
Great to see H&A are still going, I did a Romanian trip for you some years ago really enjoyed it. You do some great works.
kindle530:
del trotter:
This may suit you;a 230bhp motor at 40 ton?
it’s not 40 tonnes
it’s :-
13500/28000 tonne
hth
Cheers guys for the links to the drawbar adds.
We do need 40ton trucks so that we can max out on each trip we make so unfortunatley the Merc is no good to us and I would imagine the Daf is out of our price range. We have just had to retire our previous trucks ( Two M reg 380 Iveco tractor units) so are looking at buying either 2 tractors or going over to drawbars so we can make full use of them when we are in Kosovo to help deliver the aid, something we cant do with artics.
Ive still got to run it by the other regular drivers and the Trustee’s as to what we finally decide on and of course the budget we have to spend, but being a charity that is soley run by volunteers we are no where in the league of Oxfam or the Red Cross in the way of money we have to spend. Ideally we could do with a company donating a couple of trucks permantley to us like what happened with our last two trucks and trailers but in the current financial climate I can not see that happening.
Paul
it seems that the old ones were lower than the new ones.
Denis F:
kindle530:
del trotter:
This may suit you;a 230bhp motor at 40 ton?
it’s not 40 tonnes
it’s :-
13500/28000 tonne
hth
i know its not 40 ton dennis! but 40ton is what the o.p. wanted, so why would someone put a link up to a 230bhp motor up on that basis? 
Surely in the interests of a charity, it would be more sensible to subcontract the loads rather than spend the money on lorries, especially as you only do two three trips per year.
Is there much profit in aid work. Charity begins at home after all
I cannot use smileys or grimaces until I sort my adblocker out
Wheel Nut:
Surely in the interests of a charity, it would be more sensible to subcontract the loads rather than spend the money on lorries, especially as you only do two three trips per year.Is there much profit in aid work. Charity begins at home after all
I cannot use smileys or grimaces until I sort my adblocker out
Got to agree with Wheel Nut here having the costs of 2 trucks for only 8 weeks a year, I know they are old and cheap but that also causes it’s own problems as you found out last year.
Have you worked out the cost of running and owning the trucks compared with either, subcontracting the work out or hiring in vehicles for the period you need them.
Wheel Nut:
Surely in the interests of a charity, it would be more sensible to subcontract the loads rather than spend the money on lorries, especially as you only do two three trips per year.Is there much profit in aid work. Charity begins at home after all
I cannot use smileys or grimaces until I sort my adblocker out
Malc
Unfortunatley for our Easter trip which leaves in two weeks we have had to send a bulk load out on a subbie because our own trucks are now off the road. I think the cost and this is with a balkans truck is about 3500 euros.
Although we only do two to three trips a year we get bulk donations all year round so we need our own trucks to collect the loads get them back and then sort out for the next trips.
As for profit in aid work…most definatley NOT …everyone involved is a volunteer… we all give our own time and pay our own expenses. Its not everyones cup of tea as they say but most that have been get some satisfaction out of doing it. Ive done 6-7 trips out there now and over the years have made some good friends both within the charity and in Kosovo.
I know what you mean about charity begining at home and yes I do support charities here in the UK but I can offer my skills as an HGV driver to these guys that need it more than I can driving a truck for say NSPCC or Cancer Research. For me I get the satisfaction of helping others and I still get to drive across Europe a couple of times a year.
Paul
muckles:
Wheel Nut:
Surely in the interests of a charity, it would be more sensible to subcontract the loads rather than spend the money on lorries, especially as you only do two three trips per year.Is there much profit in aid work. Charity begins at home after all
I cannot use smileys or grimaces until I sort my adblocker out
Got to agree with Wheel Nut here having the costs of 2 trucks for only 8 weeks a year, I know they are old and cheap but that also causes it’s own problems as you found out last year.
Have you worked out the cost of running and owning the trucks compared with either, subcontracting the work out or hiring in vehicles for the period you need them.
Luckily for us we have a great support network that look after the maintenence of the trucks for us FOC both parts and labour.
As for hiring trucks there are very few if any hire companies that will hire out a truck to Kosovo. You can’t get green card insurance for the country and have to buy 3rd party on the border that frankly isnt worth the paper its wrote on, so for us to hire a couple of trucks (if we could) it would be too much of a risk to take if anything should happen to one or both of them. I do understand its a cost that if we could avoid then great but we have looked at the other options and they dont really fit in with our needs. We wheer lucky with our last two trucks in that we paid a very small dontion for them (£10 each I think) and we got a good few trips out of them both.
Paul
kindle530:
Denis F:
kindle530:
del trotter:
This may suit you;a 230bhp motor at 40 ton?
it’s not 40 tonnes
it’s :-
13500/28000 tonne
hth
i know its not 40 ton dennis! but 40ton is what the o.p. wanted, so why would someone put a link up to a 230bhp motor up on that basis?
You care to point out where in the original post he asked for 40 ton?
Obviously your eyesight must be better than mine,
He asked for links to ads for Drawbar trucks that what I posted, ■■■■■■.
del trotter:
kindle530:
Denis F:
kindle530:
del trotter:
This may suit you;a 230bhp motor at 40 ton?
it’s not 40 tonnes
it’s :-
13500/28000 tonne
hth
i know its not 40 ton dennis! but 40ton is what the o.p. wanted, so why would someone put a link up to a 230bhp motor up on that basis?
You care to point out where in the original post he asked for 40 ton?
Obviously your eyesight must be better than mine,
He asked for links to ads for Drawbar trucks that what I posted, ■■■■■■.
Paul:
I am just looking at the height of the body compared to the height of the cab in comparison to high cabbed Scania units with a 4 mt trailer behind them…there doesnt seem to be much difference…but as I say we can get them chopped down to 4mts if needed. The fact that they are 3 axle truck and trailers means that we can run at 44 ton UK and 40 ton in euroland and not have to worry about axle weights. Every time we go into Hungary (or should I say every time we EXIT Hungary into Serbia ) they are very keen on axle weights rather than overall weight so the stobart combinations would suit us if we can get them at the right price.Paul
Why would you not use containers …? If you need to load them back that’s possible too, you just need your volunteers in place at that end.
It would seem more viable than buying trucks or even hiring trucks in, no worrys with Kosovan insurance either.
Personally I think you’d be better off just buying tractors, you’ve already got trailers I take it and you’ll get far more choice and will ultimately cost less. Obviously you won’t be able to carry as much but only by a few pallets and a carefully arranged load could even out the balance.
snowchain:
Why would you not use containers …? If you need to load them back that’s possible too, you just need your volunteers in place at that end.
It would seem more viable than buying trucks or even hiring trucks in, no worrys with Kosovan insurance either.
Cant use containers because of the shipping time it takes and the uncertainty that it will arrive when the rest of the convoy of 7.5 ton trucks arrive to distribute the aid, plus some of our loading is last minute so wouldnt have the time to get there when needed. We did use a container on a skele trailer a couple of years ago when we took a third artic and although we had no problems running at 4.2mts the Serbian customs would not allow it to make the return journey via our usual border control and the driver had to divert back through Macedonia and then into Serbia.
We cant backload as we dont have any O licence what so ever.
Saaamon:
Personally I think you’d be better off just buying tractors, you’ve already got trailers I take it and you’ll get far more choice and will ultimately cost less. Obviously you won’t be able to carry as much but only by a few pallets and a carefully arranged load could even out the balance.
We have and still are looking at tractor units aswell. The thought behind looking at drawbars are for a couple of reasons. When we get to Kosovo/Romania or wherever we go with the aid we dont just leave it in a warehouse, we have others that follow behind a couple of days in loaded 7.5 ton trucks we then park the artics up and use the 7.5 tonners to distribute the aid directly to the recieving families. Because of the current climate we are getting fewer volunteers that can raise the funds to get a 7.5 ton truck out there. Plus with the impending DCPC we are going to get less people who will sit for 35 hours doing the DCPC that they will use once in there life time and pay for it themselves. so again fewer 7.5 tonners. Its impossible in the artics to distribute the aid but with the truck part of a drawbar we can use them for distribution. We have looked at even hiring 7.5 tonners out there shipping the aid on a subbie and everyone flying out but we cant hire the trucks in country to deliver the aid.
Paul
Paul:
Saaamon:
Personally I think you’d be better off just buying tractors, you’ve already got trailers I take it and you’ll get far more choice and will ultimately cost less. Obviously you won’t be able to carry as much but only by a few pallets and a carefully arranged load could even out the balance.We have and still are looking at tractor units aswell. The thought behind looking at drawbars are for a couple of reasons. When we get to Kosovo/Romania or wherever we go with the aid we dont just leave it in a warehouse, we have others that follow behind a couple of days in loaded 7.5 ton trucks we then park the artics up and use the 7.5 tonners to distribute the aid directly to the recieving families. Because of the current climate we are getting fewer volunteers that can raise the funds to get a 7.5 ton truck out there. Plus with the impending DCPC we are going to get less people who will sit for 35 hours doing the DCPC that they will use once in there life time and pay for it themselves. so again fewer 7.5 tonners. Its impossible in the artics to distribute the aid but with the truck part of a drawbar we can use them for distribution. We have looked at even hiring 7.5 tonners out there shipping the aid on a subbie and everyone flying out but we cant hire the trucks in country to deliver the aid.
Paul
Could you not get local transport to deliver the goods when out there. Might serve 2 purposes
- Saving you money
- Putting money into the local economy.