I felled some regrowth thorns for a customer, and burning them onsite wasn't possible. They were in a paddock belonging to someone else, I'd felled them from the dyke bank.
Having decided that removing them with a trailer was going to take a long time, and be very unpleasant, so client and I decided to hire a chipper. At my suggestion, one was hired from a local company who he had an account with, due to them having taken over the clients from a company who were no longer trading.
We got a Timberwolf 190 with a diesel engine, and it performed far better than the Greenmech Quadchip 160 we had used on a job for another client.
So far, so good. Only problem was, when feeding it, a branch whipped round, and knocked the emergency stop button off the intake hopper. When I returned it, I told them immediately, and was told " oh that's no problem at all".
Customer rang me today, and isn't happy. He's had a repair bill. £3.50 for the oil the engine used, ( in less than four hours ) £3 for a cartridge of grease to regrease the machine. Now the dubious bits- £100 for the stop switch, and £90 labour. Customer now faces a £200 bill on top of the hire charge, and is not a happy bunny. I am not flavour of the month either, as you might guess.
Have we been turned over, or is it par for the course? No contract was shown before hiring. The company is a big agricultural dealer, but the hire side is growing so fast that it appears to be run by a sort of " arms length " company.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.