Kenworths to be considered as market demands while telematics and tax services are under evaluation
Paccar aims to have its rental and leasing arm, PacLease, launched officially on June 1.
The initiative will start with DAFs, with Kenworths offered “as the customer demand requires”, PacLease director Olen Hunter tells ATN.
Three DAF models will kick the development off: the CF 85 for single trailer local and regional work, two of which will be dangerous goods compliant; the XF 105 for B-double and longhaul applications and the LF 55 6×2 rigid.
The LF 55s will have 14-pallet curtainside bodies with 2,400 kg-capacity tuck under lift gates. The truck’s GMC is rated at 26.5 tons.
PacLease is also evaluating the Kenworth T409 SAR equipped with the Paccar MX-13 engine.
It will enter the rental fleet if there is enough demand.
A division of Paccar Financial and based in Melbourne’s Laverton Full Service dealership, PacLease will offer full service leasing, rental, contract maintenance, preventive maintenance, substitute vehicles if the rental vehicle is unusable and vehicle washing.
A preventive maintenance package can extend to non-Paccar vehicles.
The division views rental as a less-than-year agreement and leasing as for more than a year.
Hunter, who is a US national, says the conversion rate of renters to lessors is 30 per cent in that country.
He reveals that Paccar has looked to bring rental and leasing to Australia as early as 1999 and the idea was revived in 2008 only to fall foul of the global financial crisis.
Planning for the entry this time has been two years in the making.
“Internally, we have been looking to build the business really hard for 18 months,” Hunter says.
Hunter himself has been in rental and leasing for 23 years, 10 of which were with Penske Truck Leasing, a company he has the utmost respect for and which has entered the Australian market already.
Picked as an experienced rental/leasing hand to set the Australian service up, Hunter is also surveying the local telematics market to refine that part of the strategy and says all rental vehicles with have telematics capability.
While this will have gains for PacLease on billing and vehicle performance, it will allow customers to become aware of driver-performance and fuel-economy issues.
Also under evaluation are services available in the US including the PacTax fuel tax service, which calculates and pays for road tax in a system that differs from Australia’s.
The website, paclease.com.au, should be running in the next two weeks and will look much like Kenworth’s new offering at kenworth.com.au.