Dundee City Council has taken advantage of a new ‘trade in’ offer by Stertil Koni to update its range of vehicle lifting equipment.

In 2001, Dundee City Council installed a selection of Stertil Koni vehicle lifts into its new workshop. Six years later, impressed with the lifts’ excellent performance and reliability, the Council purchased additional models. Now, ten years after the initial acquisitions, Stertil Koni has supplied four sets of six wireless mobile column lifts under the company’s new ‘trade in’ deal.

The Council’s Waste Management Department operates a large fleet of vehicles carrying out waste collections across the city. Routine maintenance and repair is carried out regularly on the Council’s 150-strong fleet. Over the years, the range of Stertil Koni vehicle lifts used within the Council’s purpose-built workshop has included a four-post vehicle lift, a parallelogram lift, an in-ground lift plus cabled mobile column lifts. Now, the Council has traded in its wired mobile lifts and replaced them with four sets of ST1082FWF, 8.2 tonne capacity wireless mobile column  lifts. The six lifts in each set provide a total lifting capacity of almost 50 tonnes – more than enough to tackle the most demanding applications.

The new ST1082FWF mobile column lift uniquely incorporates a wireless control system that provides maximum access to the underside of a raised vehicle. Each of the mobile columns is equipped with two long-life deep cycle batteries which, when fully charged, will power the fully-laden column for more than 30 lifting cycles - easily a full week’s use. The batteries can then be charged via a 230v single phase supply. With no cables on the workshop floor, the risk of tripping is removed, providing valuable health and safety benefits.

Positioning of the wireless mobile columns is flexible: they can be used in any configuration around a vehicle. Also, with no power or communication cables to connect, set-up time is drastically reduced thereby making the system fully operational much more quickly.

Each mobile column lift has its own control box and provides a lifting capacity of 8,200kg. This means that the system’s total lifting capacity may be increased simply by adding more columns. The ST1082FWF ensures safe lifting up to a height of 1.85 metres, which can be reached in just 89 seconds, and the lowering speed is pre-selectable. The columns incorporate Stertil’s maintenance-free, synthetic runner wheel system, which is self-lubricating, and the system is covered by a lifetime guarantee.

Commenting on the Council’s latest lifts from Stertil Koni, Stewart Dodd, Maintenance and Workshop Team Leader, says, “We have had excellent service from all the Stertil lifts since 2001 so we had no hesitation in going back to them when we wanted to purchase the latest sets of wireless mobile column lifts. In fact, the purchase was made through a procurement tender in which Stertil Koni came out on top.”