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When John Peters started his rental business in 2000, he knew that providing his customers with field service was going to make the difference between success and failure. He definitely had the right idea, but he suffered through more than three years of nursing an old service truck before he hit on the key that would make his service program successful.

Peters started Golden Empire Equipment, which specializes in heavy equipment rental and serves all of central California, with a used mechanics truck that wasn’t equipped properly and didn’t meet his or his customers’ needs.

“We finally decided to purchase two new trucks, and that decision changed our whole business,” says Peters, whose company is based in Bakersfield, Calif. “That purchase made a statement that we are in this business and are going to remain in this business.”

In 2004, Peters bought his first two Iowa Mold Tooling Co., Inc. (IMT) Dominator® mechanics trucks from Lodi Equipment in Sacramento, Calif., and he just put in an order for two more trucks. “We looked at those trucks as an investment in our business and in our service capabilities,” he says. “We didn’t look at them as an expense.”

Justifying the Cost

When Peters was running his used mechanics truck, he found that an unacceptable amount of time and money was wrapped up in repairs and downtime, and everyone knows downtime is a contractor’s worst enemy.