McCurdy Trucks has been a mainstay of the industry since 1961, when it was founded in New Plymouth by Jim and Barbara McCurdy.

Today, the company is in its fourth generation and employs more than 60 staff. It services vehicles from trucks to utes and SUVs, but its focus remains on truck servicing. With all this experience under the hood, the company knows all too well that the equipment it needs to use must be the best available.

“We had some older stuff in one of our workshops. Originally, we had three workshops. We built a brand-new facility, and MAHA seemed to be the ones to go with,” says Boyd Benton, service manager.

He came to that conclusion after talking to similar workshops in New Zealand. They recommended MAHA equipment, and so Boyd made contact with MAHA New Zealand in Pukekohe. That was six years ago. McCurdy Trucks also had suspension-testing shaker plates installed at the same time. “The backup from MAHA is excellent. They come here every year to do the certification.”

McCurdy Truck’s older workshop had brake-roller testers and they “worked okay”, according to Boyd, but they had problems now and again, which he says has not happened with the MAHA equipment.

The workshop doesn’t test for New Zealand’s Certificate of Fitness, but it does do a pre-CoF check in the workshop, taking the trucks over the brake rollers before sending them for the CoF.

“That way, we can take the truck straight down to the testing station and know quite comfortably that it’s going to pass first time. If there’s an issue, we can sort it out before actually going for the CoF. This saves money, time and people,” Boyd says.

“We use the tablet with the MAHA equipment. You jump in the cab with the tablet, and it’s just nice and easy to use and no issues. When switching over from trucks to utes, that’s no issue either. We do a printout on every brake test as well – none of the techs have any issues using the system.”

McCurdy Trucks is also the official Isuzu ute dealer for the area, which the company took on late last year, so the roller tester and the shaker plates are used to service those vehicles as well. In terms of trucks, McCurdy averages about 10 trucks over the roller testers per day, or 50 a week, which is a lot.

“We don’t use the shaker plates all the time; just when diagnosing a fault. They definitely make a difference,” says Boyd. “Most of the time we use the brake rollers, but if the tech finds that there is a bit of kingpin movement or something like that, then we’ll use the shaker plates to confirm the diagnostics. We use the shaker plates mainly for assessing kingpin play, shackle pin play – those types of issues.”

Boyd says he will continue to use MAHA equipment in the workshop as he’s convinced that the build quality is excellent, as is the customer service from MAHA.

The MAHA MBT7250 20T roller-brake tester features, such as the large raising bed load simulation frame, are a great benefit to McCurdy Trucks, as it services trucks up to 28 or 30 tonnes, as well as large cranes.

The MAHA MBT7250’s comprehensive package of functions for load simulation with class-leading 250mm lifting height combined with up to 10T load application is among other features that have had a lasting impression on Boyd.

“We’ve actually got two pits here (in the workshop) and the second pit is set up to have brake rollers set into it,” Boyd says.

MAHA Testing Equipment complies with the CoF checklist specifications from the NZ Transport Agency. MAHA Testing equipment is, in fact, used by the NZTA for its roadside testing stations.

MAHA has over 160 heavy roller-brake testers installed nationwide, with some machines more than 25 years old and still performing beautifully.

For more information, please contact MAHA on 0800 624 269 or email office@maha.co.nz