Penske recently opened their new Tauranga Branch (Motor Equipment News June 2023.) We decided it was worth a visit and came away very impressed.
The new facility is massive, with plenty of room to grow, which given the rapid growth in the region is probably a good thing!
The purpose-built building on 14,381 m2 of land comprises 2,548 m2 of workshop space, a 448 m2 parts warehouse, and 745 m2 of retail and office space, including a drivers’ lounge. There are over 40 staff on site.
It is in the new gateway area of Tauriko (the old branch was at the Mount) and is one of three Penske branches, with the others in Auckland and Christchurch, augmented by 17 nationwide parts and service dealers.
The focus in Tauranga is on highway trucks and buses (MAN and Western Star) plus the MAN and Detroit diesel engine range. The branch covers new vehicle sales along with parts and service and an in house engineering team for modifications and body builds.
There are 25 full length bays across two workshops. One bay is dedicated for COF work with a full-length pit and brake tester while eight in the second workshop area are for the engineering team. Here they build a range of bodies such as curtainsiders, flat decks container skeletals and tippers and can do modifications such as setting up for dangerous goods carrying, chassis shortening and much more.
The rest are service workshop bays, two have full length platform lifts that can lift a truck and attached trailer (they are in two sections and are recessed into the floor providing a clean floor area when not in use). Each workshop also has a 7.5 tonne overhead gantry crane for heavy lifting.
With a new workshop comes new equipment, Sulco were a key supplier for the majority of the workshop equipment, in particular supplying the Stertil Koni Skylifts and Stertil Koni Column Lifts.
The workshop operates two shifts (this was started during Covid was but found to provide great customer service) so is open from 7am to 9pm weekdays and Saturdays by appointment. They also have a field service capability.
They stock a large range of parts for both their own workshop and for sale to operators and local workshops. Parts come in directly by container but they can also source from the Auckland and Christchurch branches as needed.
