Daryl Hutton, Managing Director of ANC Forestry has recently gone through the process of fitting out a new suspension system of choice on the trucks in the ANC fleet with new suspension control from Base Air.

While initially he had representatives from the company in the workshop installing it, his own mechanics are now trained on how to do so, with one truck currently going through the process.

“In our twin steer with the five axle dog trailer, it’s a PBS vehicle which is fitted with PRIMAAX air suspension in the rear of the truck, and that was for payload height,” Daryl explains.

“We ran it initially without Base, but we’ve now put Base Air in it. I took it loaded to Mansfield one day, and as I was driving along the long straight I noticed the Base Air works so quickly that you’re not constantly turning the wheel to compensate for the camber changes in the road.

“In a log truck with a high payload, if the road leans slightly to the left, the truck’s going to lean off. It reacts so quick you’re not doing that. You’re holding the wheel dead straight. That was when I became a true believer that Base Air makes a difference.

“The fact that it’s taken the wag out of the dog of a five axle dog trailer, which is quite long, it just sits rigidly behind you now.”

Image: Prime Creative Media

Michael van Tilburg is one of ANC’s drivers, doing around eight to 10 trips up and back to the local quarry at Hazelwood, carting rocks in his Volvo FMX, configured as a truck and dog.

We had the chance to jump in the truck with ‘Mick’ as he completed one of those trips, and the stability of the trailers was immediately noticeable.

“Even when I’m throwing the truck around the roundabouts, the trailer just sits there,” he says.

“I’ve been in the Volvo officially since the second week of January. The Base Air in it is working all the time but you can’t hear it. It’s pumping air here and there. You don’t see it on the air gauge either when it’s draining air.”

Warwick Blines has been driving for ANC for seven years, almost always in one of the Kenworths carting logs.

On this day he was fully loaded with a massive stack of pine, locally near Strathford. He’ll run to the mill and back, and head out as far as Melbourne on occasion.

Image: Prime Creative Media

His truck has now been fitted with the Base Air suspension system, which he sees as a big upgrade.

“Every time I saw Daryl after he put the Base Air on I told him how good it was,” Warwick says.

“Fair dinkum, it felt like a different truck. Just unbelievable. First of all it stays flat. The truck doesn’t move. My sticker says ‘straighten out the road’, it does.

“You don’t get that awful feeling going around corners. Some roads are off camber, and I’m very low tolerance to that. I won’t speed. But if the cab tips over, you get that feeling. “It settled the trailer down. I try loaded on a flat road, just turning the steering wheel the dog would swing out on the other side of the road then swing back then come straight.

“When they put Base Air on, now the trailer swings out and when you turn back it just stops behind the truck. When it’s empty, it feels like a race car because it stays flat.”