Received a phone call today from chap @ Linde telesales offering "Free 7 day no obligation trial" on any new model linde ,anybody else receieved a call yet?

Well said mucka
The sharks will get them.
And the md will be sleeping with the fishs

You'd have thought that the big fish would have realised years ago that loss-leader contracts don't buy loyalty!. Times are on the change me thinks,where the big national supply companies are gonna have to pay the cost for their kit at last!..
On the plus side...a selfish plus side I admit!...while the big fish suffer the small fry thrive!

that is not what a main board director of linde told me on my last visit to thier head office, according to him they do indeed build with out end user orders and have done so for the past years- main line stuff granted but apparently they do still build when the market is down- if they cannot sell them quickly enough they try to fleet them around the various regions and sell the used truck that they have replaced it with but as that market is down that option is getting less and less

Just a technical point. Linde dont build trucks for stock and have not done so for at least 5 years. Every truck going down the track has a customers name on it. What might be hurting them though is the volume of cancelled orders.

yes they are picking up big contracts , but the word is there is not much prifit in the deals and they are desperatly- just like most manufatures- trying to get the mountain of brand new already built machines out into the market place in order to keep the factories busy with orders rather than to build stock trucks

sign of the times my friend. we're all taking an *** kicking.