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Equipment
VEHICLES
Huski Skid steers a ‘hire’ learning for expanding business A growing equipment hire business specialising in tight-access machinery has recently added Toyota Huski’s smallest skid steer loader to its fleet.
Based in Austral, in greater south-western Sydney, DMD Hire recently purchased a new Toyota Huski 4SDK4 skid steer loader to boost and diversify its existing fleet, after the fledgling equipment hire business started receiving unexpectedly high demand. As DMD Hire co-owner, Dom Sgro, explained, DMD Hire started out as his side-business for Mr Sgro in 2020, yet rapidly took on a life of its own. “The business started off with just me,” said Dom. “I bought a 1.7 tonne excavator to get rid of some tax money and I figured I’d just hire it out. It was doing quite well as a side-business to my main mechanical business, Dom’s Plant Repairs. “Initially, I ran the excavator skid steer loader through my mechanical business. Then I was talking with my brothers-in-law about it and they suggested getting into the tight-access market. There weren’t that many people around doing it, aside from the big hire companies, so I thought ‘it’s not a bad idea’ and we put the excavator into a new business, together.
FEBRUARY 2022
“My brother-in-law, Mitchell, does all the admin and running around, and my other brother-in-law, Dylan, does a lot of mechanical stuff with me. Being Dom, Mitchell and Dylan, we called it DMD Hire and as our customer interest picked up we started adding more machines. We have seven at present. Dom examined the market for tight-access skid steer loaders and quickly narrowed his choice to a Toyota Huski from Toyota Material Handling Australia. When Huski Construction Equipment area sales manager — Construction, Peter Bower, met Dom for the first time that although he hadn’t purchased a Huski skid steer loader before, he already knew a lot about them. “Dom is a young guy with a young family and he was looking to expand his hire business, which was already doing really well,” said Peter. “He was looking for a quality addition to his fleet and decided on spending
a bit more on a Huski rather than a cheaper brand, because he knew that in the long term he would recover his investment costs. “His hire business customers do a lot of work on new housing development sites which have big houses but not much yard, in which case access for landscaping works is very tight. So our smallest skid steer loader, the SDK4, was a no-brainer. But, apart from size dictating the selection, Dom has had experience working on Huskis as part of his job as a plant mechanic. This helped influence his decision in as far as he was aware of Huskis’ simplicity to work on, ruggedness, and reputation for durability.” Dom, a trained plant mechanic, agreed that his job experience helped make buying his Huski an easier choice. “I’ve worked on heavy equipment all around the country and seen a lot of different types and brands of machinery,” he said. “Working on the mechanical side of the business, I have had quite a bit to do with Toyota Huski skid steer loaders. My good mate is a landscaper and he has a 2013 model Huski 4SDK4. He gives it no love whatsoever but it keeps running and running, and running. It hardly ever broke but eventually, because of its extreme workload and age, I ended up rebuilding the engine and have since done servicing and minor repairs on it.
