Guard of the galaxy

When it comes to operating a heavy vehicle rental company within the transport industry, the quality of the equipment available for hire is paramount. For TR Group, an organisation which maintains one of the largest lease and rental fleets of trailers and prime movers in the country, this is as important as ever.

TR Group was originally founded in New Zealand in 1992, and since entering the local market in 2019 it has significantly expanded its portfolio across both NZ and Australia. Its vehicles now range from skels to A-doubles, Performance-Based Standards (PBS) combinations, road train side tippers, prime movers, rigids and more.

The durability of this expansive fleet is critical, especially for the trailers and prime movers which travel throughout Australia in what are known as some of the world’s harshest operating conditions. But TR Group has been able to gain an upper hand in this field by bringing its application of Rhino Guards plastic mudguards from NZ to Australia.

“Rhino Guards is starting to become one of our key suppliers across all of our assets in the business,” says TR Group National Fleet and Maintenance Manager, Rian Alexander. “Our relationship is very new in Australia, but they have been supporting us for quite some time in NZ.”

Rhino’s guards have proven to be very ecological for TR Group while being really robust at the same time. The company has been able to reuse 95 per cent of its Rhino guards in its NZ fleet by recycling older mudguards into brand-new ones.

“The environmentally friendly aspect of the guards is one of the key things that has helped Rhino and TR Group work close together,” Rian says. “The whole lifecycle of the product is in our fleet and we know our guards can be recycled.”

The durability of Rhino’s plastic guard range has since proven to be unmatched in TR Group’s Australian fleet.

“They come back from the harsh Australian outback and, after a wash, look as if they’ve just been fitted,” Rian says. “Rhino guards stand up well in the environment and we wouldn’t be using them if they didn’t.”

According to Rian, the difference seen with Rhino’s product is significant. Most notably, the two main areas of improvement over existing guards on his units are longevity and durability which, in a lease and rental fleet, is essential.

“Rhino’s guards don’t fade at all and they can cope with a little bit of abuse as well,” he says. “If a trailer isn’t disconnected properly the guards can handle the impact because they bounce back pretty well. That’s been key for us as we’re trying to avoid extra costs with replacements by using a guard that is more user-friendly.”

Rhino itself has conducted testing on its own mudguards to find out how strong they really are. In 2020 it used a standard method for testing the strength of the plastic which involved dropping a metal dart from various heights to see how much force the plastic could tolerate.

Undertaking this test with hundreds of samples to ensure reliable results, Rhino found that none of its mudguards cracked (compared to 81 per cent of the other injection moulded mudguards which were also tested). From there, Rhino completed further testing by using a forklift to lower one tonne of weight onto both a Rhino guard and another injection moulded guard at the same time. Once again, the Rhino plastic guards were superior in durability with zero cracks.

In addition, Rhino’s plastic guards have been proven to be 218-per-cent stronger than injection moulded mudguards at ambient temperatures (20°C) and up to 360-per-cent stronger at freezing temperatures (0°C). And the durability of the OEM’s steel guard range is no different – featuring 1.2mm-thick stainless steel 304 Bright Annealed (BA), the material is more robust than thinner products offered and not as heavy as thicker options. This strikes the optimal balance between strength and weight while maintaining a quality finish too.

At TR Group, the benefits of using Rhino’s plastic guards extend to the business itself. Specifying the product has reduced on-charging to customers and the admin work involved which, in turn, saves time and improves efficiencies for the company.

The product has also proven to be very cost-effective. Rian explains that although the Rhino guards come at a premium price, the durability outweighs the cost.

“The guards are priced according to their capability,” he says. “They’re not the cheapest guards out there, but the durability and lack of replacement weighs up the additional costs you’ve got to start with.”

TR Group is now working towards applying Rhino’s plastic guards across the entirety of its existing fleet which consists of over 2,500 trailers and 500 prime movers. Going forward, all new vehicles that require a guard will also be specified with them as well.

“We’re moving all of our current trailers towards Rhino guards,” Rian says. “We’re using them wherever we can and we’ve been serious about it since the beginning of this year.

“We’ve encouraged our largest service suppliers to stock and hold Rhino guards for us now and we will get to the point where they will be spec’d on all of our builds. So, while it’s pretty hard to get excited about a guard, we’ve managed to.”