Genie running costs / service etc

[Tom]

Hi,

We currently hire in an electric scissor lift (generally a Genie 3246) as and when we need one, but I am increasingly finding we have one here on a semi permanent basis.  I'm therefore looking at options to buy one instead. 
Obviously, the benefit of hiring is I don't have to worry about maintenance, LOLER inspections and the like so I’m trying to get an idea of how much of a head ach and that will be and what it will cost.

Does anyone own have a similar machine and can share their experiences. 

How much regular maintenance do they need beyond day to day checks?

Better still, can you recommend a (London) maintenance / inspection company?

And any recommendations on used sales or leasing?

What have I not concidered...?

[J Pearce]

Don't forget the admin costs of compliance - daily usage checks, monthly inspections, recording and storing of these.

They're fairly low maintenance til something goes wrong. Some things you can fix yourself, others will need a service engineer.

[dje]

Looking back at your old expenses of hiring... what's costing more? The machine or the delivery & collection?

It's common that the hire fee is actually relatively low and the bigger expense is getting it to and from your site. If you do a long term hire, then firstly, your hire fee will be reduced; and secondly, you'll remove all the delivery and collection charges. 

The benefits of a long term hire are you still get all the perks of a hire machine where it comes to maintenance, inspection, repair etc. If you've not done so already, I'd encourage talking to your hire company about long term hire pricing... and compare that to buying, once you've considered all the possible additions that are exclusive to owning.

[Jivemaster]

Consider the skill set required to do maintenance beyond lubricate and wipe.. Usually a hire company will have a skilled person with the right tools.  Likely you will not. 

[ImagineerTom]

If you're only operating one or two of any type of plant machinery it always works out cheaper to sub in than to own it yourself; all the compliance paperwork, testing & ongoing maintenance is all only viable if you can operate at scale. Speak to your hire co (and whilst you're at it a couple of others) as the fees for long term rental are often significantly lower than occasional hires as most hire co's are working to a financed asset model; they'd happily take 52 weeks hire at 5% profit over an unknown number of weeks hire which is why they have to rent out at 50% profit to allow for the downtime.

[dje]

8 hours ago, ImagineerTom said:

 most hire co's are working to a financed asset model; they'd happily take 52 weeks hire at 5% profit over an unknown number of weeks hire which is why they have to rent out at 50% profit to allow for the downtime.

Exactly this... combined with the fact that the plant hire industry is pretty cut-throat, means if you offer to take a machine off somebody's hands for a long time and pay more money than they're paying for it over the same period, many will go for it. If they don't, there's a solid chance somebody else will.

Always worth chatting about expectations too. If it goes wrong, do you need a replacement in an hour, a day, or a week? If you can be a 'low maintenance' customer by easing your expectations, additional discounts can be possible. 

Also worth making sure they know that this machine is going to live inside a nice clean tidy arts centre for the entire time it's on hire and probably come back cleaner than it went out. Partly so they can try and give you something relatively clean, but again they may also offer a better price for knowing that the machine is going into a clean environment where it'll be looked after, not driven around a dirty building site all day every day getting covered in plaster.

[Jivemaster]

If you buy the wrong one you are stuck with it, If you hire one it can go back to the company.  

[Bryson]

2 hours ago, dje said:

Also worth making sure they know that this machine is going to live inside a nice clean tidy arts centre for the entire time it's on hire and probably come back cleaner than it went out. Partly so they can try and give you something relatively clean, but again they may also offer a better price for knowing that the machine is going into a clean environment where it'll be looked after, not driven around a dirty building site all day every day getting covered in plaster.

The guy who used to service the scissor lift at my old theatre was telling me that one of their other clients is the Mars chocolate factory, and that the machine is, quote: "Literally covered in fudge."   🤮