WR Refrigeration stays cool with Mercedes-Benz Vito
One of the UK’s leading refrigeration contractors was so pleased with its first batch of Mercedes-Benz Vito quick-response service vans, that it has just replaced them with nearly 100 more.
WR Refrigeration, which has UK headquarters in Leicester, has taken delivery from city dealer Mertrux of 97 Vito 111CDIs – two are Long-bodied variants, the remainder Compacts.
Colchester-based specialist Fleetshield Services fitted the new 2.7-tonne Vitos with customised racking for tools and spare parts, and carriers for bottles of refrigerant gas.
Another pair of Mercedes-Benz vans, both 3.5-tonne Sprinter 313CDIs, are about to enter service.
They are the first vehicles to be supplied to the Finnish-owned company by Mertrux and, in another new development, are the subject of a four-year lease arrangement with in-house commercial vehicle finance arm Mercedes-Benz CharterWay.
Meanwhile, responsibility for overseeing the maintenance of the new vans has been assigned to Daimler Fleet Management, the fleet services provider of Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG.
WR Refrigeration, which has a network of 16 branches across the UK, provides refrigeration services principally to national food retailers, including the ‘big four’ supermarkets. The company installs fridge cabinets for some of its customers but its engineers spend most of their time providing contract maintenance and repairs.
“We commit to a four-hour response time in the event of an emergency call-out so we need to know we can depend on our service vans,” says Financial Director Paul Brown. “The Vito is very reliable and we’re proud that it’s also a premium brand vehicle, which helps us to demonstrate our own commitment to quality.”
He recalls: “We switched to the Vito from our previous supplier in 2006. Those first vans performed very well and while this model already accounts for the greater part of our 450-strong service fleet, our aim now is to become an all-Mercedes-Benz operation at the earliest opportunity.”
Key to the appeal of the Vito is its market-leading array of active and passive safety systems, which include the latest Adaptive version of the ESP anti-skid system.
“Our engineers are our most important asset so we’re always conscious of our Duty of Care obligations,” continues Mr Brown. “They enjoy driving comfortable, well-equipped vehicles with three-pointed stars on the front, especially the new 111CDIs which, with their 116hp engines, are more powerful than the 95hp 109CDIs they’ve replaced.”
And he adds: “This is our first experience of Mertrux as a supplier and I have been delighted and very impressed with the dealer’s professional approach. The same is true of Mercedes-Benz CharterWay and Daimler Fleet Management – it’s a multi-tiered relationship, we’ve had some good meetings and I’m very optimistic for the future.”
