Solutions focused

Australian Bus & Truck Care (ABTC) is a top-tier heavy vehicle processing and customisation business based in Dandenong South, Victoria. Established in 2000, the business specialises preparing and modifying trucks and buses for many of Australia’s largest fleet operators.

ABTC has a customer-first philosophy where it strives to help its clients improve their truck builds, and in the process, it also looks to assist them in solving any problems they may encounter within their truck fleets. That being said, ABTC has made a significant impact by addressing a common issue its customer were experiencing – frequent mudguard breakages which were leading to downtimes and high replacement costs.

According to ABTC Business Development and Continuous Improvement Lead, Christian Zimmer, the application of Rhino Guards’ plastic guard range provided a reliable and cost-effective solution.

“We first met the Rhino team at the 2023 Brisbane Truck Show when they offered us a premium flexible mudguard that was close to unbreakable,” he says. “We evaluated their mudguards at the event with one of our large fleet customers by performing a practical demonstration of their durability.

“We stood on the guards and totally deformed them, and they just popped back into shape. The customer was really impressed because he didn’t believe the ‘unbreakable’ aspect of the guards. He had heard about it before, but after seeing it himself, he was sold on them.”

According to Christian, the customer had the Rhino guards retrofitted to all of it existing vehicles through ABTC. From there, they were also specified on all of the fleet’s future builds with Daimler Truck.

Since that initial meeting at the Brisbane Truck Show, ABTC has been utilising Rhino’s plastic mudguards on a large scale. It now fits them to the majority of its customers’ vehicles by default.

“We’re now fitting Rhino guards on a number of fleets because our customers have shown a lot of interest in them,” Christian says. “We’re fitting them across a huge fleet for an individual customer at the moment, and that makes up about 25 per cent of our work.”

Rhino’s guards have proven to be very cost-effective for ABTC’s customers by eliminating downtime and replacement costs. This, as expected, has resulted in high satisfaction across the board on the end user’s part.

“The initial feedback was great and we haven’t been getting any complaints since,” Christian says. “Our customers are continuously coming back to get Rhino’s plastic mudguards fitted, and that tells us that they’re happy with what they’re getting.”

While Rhino’s mudguards are a premium product, the upfront cost is more than made up for by the long-term benefits and operational savings gained. These advantages, including spending less money on repairs, replacements and maintenance, are ones which ABTC can attest to.

“The owners and operators that we deal with can see the value of Rhino guards,” Christian says. “While some people say they are more expensive than the standard makes, the better quality and durability of the product is not often taken into consideration.”

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 standardised metal dart from various heights to see how much force the plastic could tolerate. Rhino undertook this test with hundreds of samples to ensure reliable results and it 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 in the real world using a forklift to lower a pallet carrying one tonne of weight onto both a Rhino guard and another injection moulded guard at the same time. This evaluation simulated scenarios such as pallets dropping or logs coming loose from trailers, and it found the Rhino plastic guards to be superior in durability again with zero cracks.

According to Christian, the advantages of utilising Rhino’s guards have also passed onto ABTC. The business, he says, ultimately gains by making its customers happy and forming long-term collaborations as a result.

“It benefits us because we can solve our customers’ problems, support them, make their business more efficient and reduce their downtime,” he says. “By having that good relationship with the customer and solving their problems, it means they won’t want to get their trucks built up from someone else.”

Above all else, ABTC’s choosing of Rhino Guards resulted in the solution needed for all parties involved.

“Our customers haven’t had to replace any of the Rhino mudguards in their fleet, and that’s why they’re sticking with them,” Christian says. “The fleets that have adopted Rhino guards are happy with the product, and they swear by it.”