Forland truck offers good value for your money

Every mission school had one to ferry students to sporting activities before the bus fund started. Well, for years Nissan and other brands have topped the commercial truck industry till recently when the innovative Chinese decided to jump onto the fast growing wagon with the introduction of the Cummins, Perkins and Isuzu engine-powered one to five tonne trucks.
Gerald Zhakata and his sales team and service team at Puzey & Payne gave me an opportunity this week to write on their king of the pack their 5-tonne Forland truck. I got to celebrate true Chinese creativity in this truck.
Dressed in some serious sheet metal, the heavy-duty 5-tonne truck looks strong, assertive and impossible to miss. This truck delivers a lot of interior room, with the sleeper bed in the back for those town-to-town or even cross border long distance trips.
Regarding power trains, this Forland has average torque characteristics, serving up 360 Nm @ 1 400- 1 600 rpm. It runs quietly and smoothly in combination with the five-speed manual. With our bad roads, the five-speed manual is sure to appeal to novice drivers. It’s easy to drive, with mechanical toughness that encourages low gear, full throttle use when necessary without fear of any durability issues.
Its power is rated at 81ps @2 600 rpm, for a truck that size, this is quite impressive. The pressure breaks makes it a challenge to drive but then I’m not a seasoned truck driver and for the work this truck is cut out to do, it’s not for sissies but for people who know the roads and the way these huge trucks handle terrain. It has excellent power performance with higher speed that is practical since it does long distance travelling.
The exhaust by-pass valve makes the low-speed torque get greater, high torque reserve and large power improves the climbing performance greatly, and has good adaptability for bad conditions. The high ground clearance makes doing the job easy too because one doesn’t have to worry about getting stuck.
Because it’s a commercial vehicle, you do not need to spend so much on fuel, it’s good with fuel economy because it has a built-in integrated speed and load advancers can optimise the condition of all the injection to be timing, and can use less fuel than common engines. It also comes with lower operating costs, fewer parts and failures have maintenance costs reduced significantly.
Peace of mind is what every buyer will get since service by trained personnel is available through Farmec.
This truck will appeal to transporters. The reason why I say transporters is because of the way it’s been built and the tonnage.
If you have a small business that does frequent deliveries every week, then this is not for you, try the one- or 1,5-tonne one. But if you own a fleet of magonyeti as many call them, then this should be added to your fleet because there will be those other jobs which will come which are not big enough for the 30-tonne truck but make sense in the 5-tonne truck.
Besides, an organised transport business needs to have all work tools in order which means you should have all size trucks be it for hire or for ferrying your goods to the next town that is if you are a distributor.
So for that transport business you are running, this could be a good addition to your fleet starting from an affordable price of plus or minus US$30 000. Finance options are available from various banks and other finance institutions at competitive rates of course with terms and conditions applying.
Buying a truck is a truly personal experience you don’t want to buy the wrong one, so the necessary preparation is required before making that decision. Also brand loyalty is especially strong in this segment of the market. One thing I can tell you is once you start getting to know these Chinese brands, they are reliable and value for money is guaranteed.
Till next week, enjoy Asian creativity. Stay blessed and be safe. Ciao.

l Fact D. Jeke is a motoring enthusiast who has attended auto shows, rallies and has written for various publications in the region for the last decade. She can be contacted via email: [email protected], www.facebook.com/torque with fact Jeke.