There aren’t many four-wheel-drive users who can claim driving 50,000 miles a year, often towing a trailer to the maximum weight limit, driving difficult terrains and still finding total reliability through the life of the vehicle. For Chris White, Southern Sales Manager with Teagle Machinery Ltd., it’s all about par for the course.
He’s now on his third ISUZU truck in seven years and in all that time and all those miles, “I haven’t had a single breakdown, not once,” said Chris.
Teagle is a Cornish based and very reputable manufacturer of farm equipment that has been around for years. They have four senior Sales Managers covering the UK, usually towing large farm implements and demonstrating them to farmers all over the country, so you can imagine they certainly clock up more than a few miles of very hard work. Chris’ area covers from Kent to Leicestershire, across to Worcestershire and down to Wiltshire. He bought his ISUZU Blade, with Automatic transmission in May 2014 and uses it for absolutely everything.
“I almost live in my ISUZU, said Chris, “not only visiting farmers and towing up to three and a half tonnes of farm equipment along the motorway and across fields, but also it’s used for my social, domestic and pleasure purposes. In fact it is so smooth, it drives almost like a saloon car. We keep our ISUZU pick-up for three years and mine will have clocked up one hundred and sixty thousand miles before it’s part exchanged and it always holds a great residual value. They also come with a very high specification so you don’t need to spend a lot on extras.”
The ISUZU Blade has a 2.5 litre, twin-turbo Diesel engine, a Double- cab and a separate, somewhat larger than normal pick-up body. Typically, Chris is finding the return on fuel to be around 34 miles per gallon, so pretty frugal and low-cost to run.
“Towing is an absolute pleasure with this pick-up truck,” added Chris. “If you get somewhere like the M25 with a lot of slow moving queues, the automatic transmission is a boon. It’s so smooth and much easier to drive than most vehicles and almost feel like you are not in a truck. It’s quiet, comfortable, frugal, reliable - what else could I ask for? The cab is very spacious, and what I like most is the fact that the body is separate from the cab. I have three Labs and with them in the back, I don’t get them licking my ears while I’m driving and even better, they don’t smell or get dirty paws in the cab.”
Chris bought his ISUZU Blade from Tallis Amos Group in Bibury, Gloucestershire and has it regularly maintained according to manufacturer recommendations. At the time of writing, Chris’ ISUZU Blade has 37,940 miles on the clock and is still on the original front tyres, with the rears having been replaced at 30,000.
“TAG have a superb team of service techs and I have to say that nothing’s too much trouble and as far as I am concerned, they are second-to-none when it comes to after-sales-service.” commented Chris. “In my business, first class after-sales-service makes the difference between excellent and average, and I can honestly say that with TAG, the entire company is brilliant.”
