Leyland joins TVS to sell pre-owned trucks

Ashok Leyland has joined hands with TVS to launch their "quality pre-owned trucks" Altrux in Tamil Nadu after encouraging results in Rajasthan and Kerala, a top company official said.

Last year 77,000 old vehicles were sold, of which Ashok Leyland accounted for approximately one-third, Ashok Leyland Special Director (customer support group) V M Hombali, said.

Ashok Leyland was the first company to launch "pre-owned commercial vehicles", though pre-owned cars were being sold by reputed companies, he said.

N Krishnamurthy, president, dealership business,T V Sundaram Iyengar & Sons, said there would be an exchange plan also though initially only old Ashok Leyland vehicles alone would be exchanged. For every four new vehicles, one Altrux would be sold.

"This year we target to sell 250 ALtrux vehicles. Next year 15 per cent of our sales would be old vehicles," he said.

Though many small pre-owned commercial vehicle sellers were in the market, Ashok Leyland assured quality, reliability (in respect of documents etc), and price would be almost uniform.

While selling Altrux, Ashok Leyland would ensure refurbishment of engine, gear box, etc and there would be transparency in the transaction.

The company would be using an exhaustive 140-point checking and all Altrux vehicles would get six month warranty against the one-and-a-half-year warranty given for new vehicles, Hombali said.

Altrux had set quality for refurbishment of the cabin, body and chassis also. The vehicles would carry documents certifying their authenticity which would facilitate easy financing.

The responsibility to sell the old vehicle would help the fleet owners concentrate on their other business, and the buyers to get immediate finance.

The target was buyers included first time owner, intra- state operators and operators involved in garbage clearing.

The success of Altrux seen in Rajasthan and Kerala where the price of old Ashok Leyland vehicles had increased.