Howdens Joinery, the kitchens supplier, is replacing its existing inter-depot fleet with 100 DAF tractor units on contract hire from Ryder.
The trucks will operate across Howdens Yorkshire and Northampton distribution hubs and its four regional transport hubs, delivering to nearly 600 trade depots.
The deal includes 75 CF460 six-by-twos and 25 CF440 four-by-twos. They all have space cabs and feature high tech specifications including lane departure systems; adaptive cruise control; forward facing cameras and the latest version of Microlise telematics.
“As a customer focused business we take our environmental and safety responsibilities very seriously,” said Charlie Nissen, Howdens national transport manager, “so specifying Euro 6 and numerous safety features was a logical business decision.
“We had previously carried out our own evaluation of various makes and models and concluded that the total life cost of operating the DAF CF was not only the lowest, but that it also offered the best value proposition for our business. In addition the CF’s mpg figure was an improvement on the existing fleet and it scored highly in our own driver satisfaction survey.
