I don't know why customers would re order Wilmat products as their after sales is crap.

Raymond 102xm walkies can come with either maintenance free or lead acid battery packs.

Wilmat Ltd in the UK make the best quality and the longest lasting trucks. They also tailor make to suit applications. Check their site www.wilmat-handling.co.uk. They have been manufacturing trucks since 1965. They supply trucks to resellers in the resellers name. 80% of their customers re-order.

Have you seen the latest Bendi product - their Mini Bendi. It is a walkie stacker that can operate in 1.6m aisles. Check it out at www dot bendi dot co dot uk

Well....the last couple of years that I worked as field service for my previous employer we started seeing more and more Raymonds showing up in "back-of-store" applications especially RAS stackers in SE Texas. Porter, Conroe, Woodlands, etc., have been moving over to Raymonds over the past few years. Can't say I was overwhelmingly happy when going there for PMs or breakdowns as store contact and paperwork issues were a pain the butt.

Ok edward t, you will be forgiven AFTER you receive 40 lashes with a wet noodle.

I had written that a few years ago, and have since corrected my mis-statement as to the "avoided crown" part. mea culpa.
it was just that in a number of the "retail giant's" distribution centers I had been into had a lot of crown reach but were still running very many (older style) Barrett jacks. and I had no information as to why, nor would I think anyone outside the equipment purchasing department would actually have any knowledge as to the reasons for what they purchase.

Walle world here uses crown pallet jacks and walkies. If ti is a sit-down it is a crown. Outside however they run Dawoo

edward t:
As was told to me by a long term Crown associate in my travels, the long term loyalty to Crown equipment for electric warehouse equipment started with the a relationship between the founder, Mr. Sam Walton & Crown (aka the Dickie family), when Mr. Walton needed "American Made" equipment but didn't have a lot of funds available & was interested trading equipment (at or near list prices w/certain conditions) for stock in his new start up company & a long term agreement. Other American made lift truck brands were approached but declined.
Since the passing of Mr. Walton, who I had the privilege to meet at a Wal-Mart store in Katy, Texas* (he was on his way to M.D. Anderson for treatment), things have changed - like "American Made" products, good customer service, an almost obscene return policy (including worn out items or shoes that were out grown - no questions asked), ALWAYS low prices (that may coming back as certain competitors have taken a bite or too out of the King), long term loyalty to vendors. No doubt the economics of doing business caused some changes.

*My wife worked at that store and I stopped by to get my "honey-do" list & he was there and we spoke briefly.

long live!!!!! BT!!!!! TOYOTA MATERIAL HANDLING INTERNATIONAL

The new range of walkies from Nacco, thats Yale and Hyster are hard trucks to beet. They feature everything you could possibly want now. I dont think you will find any Raymond within them now.

The YAle and Hyster are the same truck, but generally speaking Yale dealers are better on the service side, which is worth its weight in gold. Who wants a rolls Royce if you cant get it fixed

:-)

Before BT-Raymond was purchased by Toyota you could grab a new Mitsubushi Rabbit, scratch off the paint and find a 5 year old Raymond model 112 lurking underneath. Toyota and Yale pallet jacks used Raymond technology as well. I have a Clark OP made by Prime mover that all the electronics are from a Raymond model 261! This has to say something for the Raymond product. When the 112 rabbit was out it had it's issues as opposed to the Crown 3000 series which was like a tank and close to indestructable but the operators I dealt with still prefered to use the 112s. Raymond has fixed ALOT of the issues that the 112s had in their new AC drive 8400.

FORKLIFTCHICK Thats what Im talking about

Crown hands down.

I have to agree with the EP statement. Their forklift jacks, and jack stands actually hold up very well. When you get to the equipment....... the worst dealings I have ever had after being in this business for 20 years. Even after getting parts after an extended wait, the parts failed within a week causing a car to be totaled causing a huge liability to our organization. We decided after this to never work on this brand of equipment again.

Is the largest retailer really avoiding Crown pallet jacks? If you don't know, please don't post comments like this. I don't know myself, but I thought they used some Crown pallet jacks. Another likely reason is what you see a lot of retailers doing... buy Crown's in their high-usage DC's, then buy the cheaper trucks for "back-of-store" applications that only get used for 1-2 hours each day.

Regardless of which trucks you choose, you need to understand what expectations you have for duty-cycle and reliability, then determine if you're looking more for performance or initial cost.

I think the largest retailer in the USA seems to like Barrett pallet jacks, even though they buy a lot of Crown reach product, they seem to think it is worth it to have an added vendor relationship.
that says something to me...

Crown is by far the best US brand, they have more steel, components that can handle larger amp draws and from my experience they have out lasted anything that I have ran.

Linde the best? Maybe in Europe but in the US I will stay with the US brands with the US dealer support which Linde is still lackimg in the US.

In my opinion, the best brand in interior trucks is BT with high quality and technology.

Regards