Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” February / March 2025
Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” February / March 2025
Service Truck Magazine “Spec My Truck” February / March 2025
Dave Robertson’s gleaming red service truck is a symbol of the quality of work that he and his three employees at DMR Equipment Repair offer to a growing list of loyal customers from their base in Rockaway, New Jersey.
“We’ve been to Florida, Tennessee, and Ohio,” said the 28-year-old entrepreneur. “We go where our customers need us. If one of our customers is working out of state and wants us to work on their equipment, we go. We’ll go anywhere and fix anything for our customers.
”Robertson explained to Service Truck Magazine that he learned his trade mainly by ‘doing.’
“After high school, I took a short tech course and then moved to Virginia to work for Alban Caterpillar,” he said to the magazine. “I liked the work, but after two years I got tired of the dealership environment and moved back to Jersey. I started off working for a bunch of local contractors out of the back of my pickup.
“Things took off, and after a few months I bought a $3,000 service truck to help me keep up with the workload.”
A total of 19 service trucks have worn his DMR company logo as he stair-steps toward his ‘ideal’ service truck.
“I’m not afraid to sell one of my trucks,” he commented. “My goal is to constantly improve my fleet.”
His latest service truck is a 2008 Peterbilt 335 with a four-wheel-drive front axle, a custom-designed Carco service body, and a 10,000-pound Auto Crane crane. The truck originated in California and eventually migrated to New Jersey, where Rob- ertson became its third owner. He and his employees rebuilt and refurbished it from the ground up.
Eddie Klecha at Pana Auto applied DMR’s company colors of Peterbilt Legendary Gray and Legendary Red paints.
Robertson said he then had Tyler Aug at North Jersey Detailing and Polishing super-polish the truck’s chrome and stain- less steel components to prepare the truck for occasional visits to showcase it at truck shows, most notably Gear Jammer Magazine’s annual Work Truck Show in Epping,
New Hampshire.Beneath the shine, the truck is set up to meet the diverse needs of Robertson’s customers. The Carco body’s gas compartment is a narrow front compartment on the driver’s side, with hoses plumbed to a 100- foot capacity Coxreels hose reel in the rear compartment on that side and deployed through ports in the left rear wall of the service body.
A Miller Bobcat generator/welder rides atop the left rear compartment, with its cables routed to another Coxreel reel in that compartment. Other driver-side compartments are equipped with Ag Body- brand drawer sets packed with common hand tools and up to six-inch sockets.
“All our trucks are set up to carry job boxes loaded with job-specific tools,” Robertson stated. “Big tools like track pin presses and line-boring tools, we load when we need them.
”The loaded truck comes in at 36,000 lbs., which has minimized the use of the four-wheel-drive option of its front axle.
“(Four-wheel drive) was on the truck when we bought it,” related Robertson, “but I haven’t used it much. The truck has a locker rear axle. I’ve had mud pushing out through the holes in the wheels, and it walked right out.
”DMR’s current show-quality truck will soon be replaced with a “bigger and badder truck,” Robertson promised. “Plus,we’re adding a new Ford Transit van set up with a hose machine and all the different hoses and hose fittings we could possibly need. There will be a $100,000 inventory of hoses and fittings and a guy running it 24/7 if necessary. We work for several con- tractors that do 24/7 paving or crushing.If they blow a hose on a machine, they’re dead in the water. We’re going to keep them running no matter what.”
While his next truck will be bigger and badder, Robertson said that he plans to shrink the average size of trucks in his fleet.
“It’s hard to find techs that have a CDL, and it’s an ordeal to even get a CDL in Jersey,” he mentioned. “Our plan is to goto one-ton service trucks with 5,000- to 7,000-lb. cranes. If we have a heavy-lifting job, we can run one of our big trucks to the job site.
“Ultimately,” he summed up, “the trucks are tools.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it’s all about the tech who drives a truck. I’ve got some of the best techs in the business and try to give them the best tools I can so they can do their job and exceed our customers’ expectations.”