BOW Plant Sales and sister company Arrow Plant and Tool Hire have enjoyed a record number of sales this year to date of Hill Engineering’s Tefra Tilt coupler.
The companies, based in the Arrow Valley in Herefordshire, have sold seven Tefra Tilts so far – including three for Takeuchi’s TB290 compact nine-tonne excavator – and are currently waiting for an eighth to arrive.
Ollie Hughes, who 10 years ago joined the company his father Martin founded with Peter Jones 35 years ago, said, “Tilt hitches have become increasingly popular this year and we have sold seven up until now, and have regular enquiries. I think there is an ever-increasing demand for machines to be more versatile and these Tefra Tilt hitches certainly fit the bill, especially with operators running tree shears – they really seem to like them. I suppose they are a ‘halfway house’ to a full tiltrotator but are a fraction of the price.”
Hill’s Tefra Tilt combines the award-winning Tefra coupler with the HKS Extra Tilt Power Actuator for excavators up to 20 tonnes. A ‘simple and robust’ design comprises just three moving parts while the actuator is self-lubricating.
Its range of motion (up to 180°) makes it more productive, while Hill Engineering explained that changing a bucket takes about 10 seconds and is all done by the operator from the cab.
Unless otherwise requested by customers due to specialist configurations, Bow Plant Sales and Arrow Plant and Tool Hire have only ever fitted Hill’s Tefra quick hitches.
Ollie added, “There were a couple of Takeuchi machines that Hill didn’t offer hitches for but I think now they have it all pretty well covered. As to why, I would guess this was something to do with Takeuchi running them as their OEM hitches. We haven’t looked anywhere else since.
“In fact, we have just had a Takeuchi TB180 nine-tonne machine come back as a part exchange, with over 9,000 hours on the clock, and the hitch still works like the day it was fitted.”
All machines above two tonnes in Arrow’s hire fleet are fitted with Hill’s Tefra hitches. The company uses a few itself and the rest are all for sale, whether they are fitted to a new Takeuchi excavator or for upgrading a customer’s used machine.
