noticed of late how many firms[wilkos/nft but to name two] who are running loads of different makes of trucks,nft were always volvo fms[now have scania,mercs,volvos],wikos always seemed scanias[now volvo fms,mercs,renaults etc,scanias],are they demo trucks provided free to evaluate,or have they bought them to test,evaluate.
from what i understand you get them for 2 weeks. the bigger the firm the easier they are to get. now the new merc there will be a long waiting list for it but at the end its free for 2 weeks.
when ive had them in the past you have to fill out an evaluation report on it at the end.
ady1:
noticed of late how many firms[wilkos/nft but to name two] who are running loads of different makes of trucks,nft were always volvo fms[now have scania,mercs,volvos],wikos always seemed scanias[now volvo fms,mercs,renaults etc,scanias],are they demo trucks provided free to evaluate,or have they bought them to test,evaluate.
They were always Scumia 3 over 3 up here
Seems to be the same for Waitrose too, theyre mostly Dafs but you see the odd Scania/Merc floating about
Couple of years ago we had an Iveco Stralis, Scania R400 and a MAN TGX on a months trial each, one after the other, prior to buying new units. Same guy drove each one and reported to the boss at end of each trial what he thought, fuel consumption etc. Boss settled for new MANs in the end.
maybe there not on trial then,as wilkos/nft have had them a fair few months now,maybe theyve bought a few different makes and are going to evaluate them over a year or two
Grayham:
Seems to be the same for Waitrose too, theyre mostly Dafs but you see the odd Scania/Merc floating aboutCouple of years ago we had an Iveco Stralis, Scania R400 and a MAN TGX on a months trial each, one after the other, prior to buying new units. Same guy drove each one and reported to the boss at end of each trial what he thought, fuel consumption etc. Boss settled for new MANs in the end.
as a lot of firms have, from what ive read due to buy back deal.
I should think if you are a company who is likely to buy or lease a few hundred trucks, then dealers or manufacturers will be willing to loan you a truck for a decent evaluation period.
Wilko’s have a subbie who runs different makes. He has them all painted in wilkos colours, Dave Spencer I think it is, think he’s got 5 trucks in there.
muckles:
I should think if you are a company who is likely to buy or lease a few hundred trucks, then dealers or manufacturers will be willing to loan you a truck for a decent evaluation period.
Its not quite that straight forward but essentially yes, the dealer will look at the potential return, If he think you may buy 100 (arbitary number) trucks after a 12 month trial you would probably get it for free, and even an offer to allow you to buy it at a discounted rate at the end of the trial.
If he thinks you may buy one as an Owner driver you may get a couple weeks free, or if you wanted a longer trial then at an amount far less than leasing or buying.
Like anything else it is worth playing one dealer against another - " so and so said they would give me a top of the range (random manufacturer) for so many weeks" and see what the next dealer says, then go back to the first and see if they will improve their offer.
But the dealers are also not completely stupid, Using demos’s to cover peaks and troughs in your business instead of rentng will very quickly mean that you wont get any offers at all. and dont dent/break them, becuase if they find you liable you will have to cover the costs of repair at their usual dealer rates 
We’ve had many demonstrators since Foden finished and now run a mixed Foden, MAN, Daf and Volvo fleet.
Funny how the motors we didn’t try on demo FE7s were bought without trying, a lot cheaper than the others, have turned out to be bags of ■■■■ and are clapped out despite being only 08 regs.
On the other hand, 02 reg Fodens are still going strong.
They’ve had some real crap demonstrators since I’ve been driving for them; Sed Atki, Merc Atego, Hino, and Scania.
It also works the other way round- put an order in for quite a few trucks and they often loan you a demo for an extended period - almost a sweetener to the deal, buy 20 get one free for 6 months
I remember when renault brought out the master panel van, they gave my dad one for a month. He was running about 8 transits at the time.
He ended up switching to renault and used then right up until he retired.