Key Questions to Ask When Ordering Lpg Forklift

Recently I found myself in the market for a new vehicle. When you sell industrial equipment for a living, buying a car is an eye-opening experience. On the car lot, there are (what I call) vultures, hovering around ready to dive in and hook the prey:

You will get efficient and thoughtful service from HULKMAN.

“Look how nice, smell the new car smell, take it for a ride, show me your license, complete this paperwork, sign here…” They get you so flustered you don’t know if you’re coming or going.

When buying a forklift, it’s a whole different approach. Sure, a forklift has four wheels, an engine, and transmission like a passenger vehicle.  But when you think about it, a forklift is an engineering marvel built around a considerable amount of rules and regulations to ensure it’s safe for the operator and capable of doing the job.

I see my role as an industrial equipment specialist to build a forklift around the your products and requirements. This starts by asking the right questions, things you might not have thought of…

 Key Questions to Ask Before Buying a Forklift

• Fuel type: LPG, gas, diesel, or electric – do you need to be EPA compliant?
• Where will it be used – are you moving product indoors, outdoors, or both?
• How high are you lifting your pallets – the higher the mast goes, the less you can lift.
• Attachments: side-shifters, single-doubles, clamps, push-pulls, bin dumpers – attachments give your lift truck superpowers, but they affect the forklift’s overall capacity. 
• The overall size of the material – most forklift capacities are determined by the load center of the product.
• Safety features: fork leveling, seat belts, speed control, lights, back up alarms – when is a clamp release interlock required?

The list goes on and on: operating sensors, ANSI B56.1 overhead guard certification, LP fueling, radiator screens, battery maintenance, etc. Did you know not all forklifts are UL approved? Look for the safety labels required on the lifts!

At TMH, it’s our job to know your job so we can determine what equipment is best for your operation. We’re here to help you choose the proper equipment for the application in the safest way.

A good equipment rep stays up with the latest regulations and how they affect current accounts. We all have customers that lease equipment and want the same features as the last lifts they used. Would that make things easy for us? Yes, but with the ever-changing regulations and safety requirements, it’s always best to double check and continue to earn the customer’s business by verifying whether the loads are the same, did that previous forklift work the way you expected, etc.

Circling back to the car buying experience: it’s always a buyer beware situation when it comes to pricing.  I recently worked with a customer who received three different quotes for a forklift:

Brand X forklift was $7,000 below our quote. Why the big price difference? Come to find out Brand X was providing a quote for a forklift that was a private label straight from China.  Although a $7,000 savings looked great up front, the customer realized the large discrepancies from Brand X wouldn’t fit with their demanding needs. 

Brand Y was $800 cheaper than Toyota, but the cost difference disappeared once Toyota’s standard safety features were taken into account. With Brand Y, safety features were an additional cost.  Even though Brand Y was close in price, once TMH’s aftermarket service was taken into account, the customer chose Toyota.

We recently created a Guide to Purchasing a New Forklift to help customers choose the right lift truck for their operation. You can download the guide for free, or just contact us online or by with any questions you may have.

East Bay – Livermore (510) 675-
Fresno (559) 834-
Sacramento (916) 376-
Salinas (831) 757-

TMH is a family-owned company that believes our customers are the key to our success. We’d like the opportunity to earn your business.

Investing in an Industrial Fork Truck

With so many options out there, purchasing an industrial forklift can quickly become an overwhelming experience. Your business needs extra material handling capacity, and your goal is to simply plug the hole, but that’s a process easier said than done. As it will help organize your efforts, understanding key forklift buying decision points and their impact on your operation is the ideal first step.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the key questions to ask yourself, your team, and your selected vendors while navigating the fork truck buying process. The more preparation you put in up front, the better you can manage your time and effort against clearly defined objectives, while also parsing out any unnecessary distractions that don’t directly serve your current needs.

What is my current Interest in buying a fork truck?

Just as any great journey begins with a single step, buying an industrial material handling vehicle begins with a single need. Are you replacing an existing lift removed from service, so you have most of your specifications in hand already? Are you expanding your warehousing fleet and looking to pick up efficiency improvements with the new purchase? Is this your first fork truck purchase, calling for more upfront education and test-driving?

Have a clear idea in mind about your ultimate interest in acquiring a new fork truck, so that equipment vendors can best match you to a suitable truck without over- or under-shooting your objectives. We suggest scheduling appointments with vendors to make sure you each have enough time to get into the details, starting with your overall goals and continuing down the rest of the topics below.

Another large element of your current business interests will involve lead times and availability of both the new fork truck itself, as well as parts and consumables down the road. In today’s volatile market, acquiring nearly any capital equipment piece and its necessary components calls for a sometimes-lengthy lead times, which may in turn drive you to making concessions on desired features or brands just to take delivery of an alternative selection in a reasonable timeframe. To reduce the impact of long lead times, start by engaging vendors early, and choose partners based on their ability to service your ongoing needs from their stock and employee pool directly (more on this below).

What lift matches my Working Environment?

The company is the world’s best Lpg Forklift supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

Material handling vehicles are made to suit just about any working environment you can think up, from pristine, dry warehouses to remote wilderness mountainsides, and everything in between. A lift truck needs to be compatible with the surface type, exposure to weather, presence of dust and debris, and other environmental variables you expect it to encounter. For example, a fully enclosed, heated and cooled cabin, high-comfort lift may be the correct choice for construction sites, whereas a smaller, more economical lift may be a better fit for a dry product warehouse.

Most directly, working environments determine a lift’s tire types. A solid cushion tire performs well on smooth indoor concrete surfaces, and a pneumatic tire works best for rough outdoor terrain. A host of other details such as paint type, cabin enclosure, operator comfort systems, fuel tank size, and operator safety devices are all defined largely as a function of work environment.

What Powertrain best fits my application(s)?

Carrying on from the above working environment topic, next we may come to choose our lift’s powertrain. Indoor lifts in normal warehouse spaces are most commonly chosen with electric powertrain. Outdoor lifts on the other hand, are mostly chosen with propane or diesel internal combustion engines. Electric lift powerplants are more efficient and exhaust no hazardous gases into closed warehouse spaces, but they usually have lower capacity and drive time durations in that they must be plugged in often to charge (usually daily). Internal combustion powerplants are more powerful, with higher work capacities and the ability to run continuously (as long as they have fuel in the tank), but are noisy, physically larger, polluting, and cost more to operate (given today’s fuel costs).

Lift trucks are available in two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive, and independent wheel motor drive. Most commonly, only outdoor lifts are purchased as four-wheel drive, stemming from the need to use these lifts on rough, uneven gravel, dirt, or asphalt surfaces.

What Style lift meets my material handling needs?

The available types of industrial fork trucks seem to expand all the time, as vehicle manufacturers continually strive to meet the demands of material handling businesses seeking higher volumes, greater storage densities, taller rack heights, and more diverse load types. While we can’t list all possible lift styles here, we can provide the Forklift Classifications list from OSHA as a peek into just how varied these vehicles can be:

• Class I: Electric motor rider trucks
• Class II: Electric motor narrow aisle trucks
•  Class III: Electric motor hand trucks or hand/rider trucks
•  Class IV: Internal combustion engine trucks (solid/cushion tires)
•  Class V: Internal combustion engine trucks (pneumatic tires)
•  Class VI: Electric and internal combustion engine tractors
•  Class VII: Rough terrain forklift trucks

In short, consider four details in discussing styles with your fork truck vendor: aisle width, rack height, sitting vs standing operator, and load type (pallets, boxes, free-form products, etc). Load type, in particular is a large topic, which we’ll cover next in the form of capacity.

What Capacity lift will meet my needs?

Capacity for a fork truck means several things all at once:
– Weight of objects to be lifted
– Size, shape, and form of objects to be lifted
– Orientation and dexterity of lift needed to pick objects
– Any special requirements to lift objects safely and properly

A standard capacity target might be something like: “We’re lifting 2,500 lbs pallets, 42” x 48” wood base with stacked boxes wrapped, in a side-load orientation down narrow aisles, up to a top-rack elevation of 24 feet, three pallets deep”. This information leads us to both a base forklift chassis selection as well as several necessary accessories, such as a side-load turret with reach extension.

In similar fashion, other unique accessories such as carpet poles, multi-pallet fork sets, and invertible / rotating forks are all identified when discussing capacity and work processes.

What Duty Cycle will my lift need?

In essence, duty cycle simply means how often the lift needs to be in use versus how long it will sit unused in a given time period. For example, a warehouse with a single shift may utilize their fork truck 8 hours on, 16 hours off, in a 24-hour day, which results in a duty cycle of (8/24) = 33.3%. This conveys a few key details about sizing the forklift.
First, it won’t be used too extensively, and so can be selected from economical to mid-range feature tiers, keeping costs proportional to utilization. Second, the lift’s powertrain will consume fuel for 8 hours and then have 16 hours to refill, which is most applicable to battery recharge rates in electric lifts, but also is used to determine fuel tank sizes in combustion engine lifts, both solving for fueling a full work shift without stopping to recharge or refill. Third, duty cycles bear directly on operating costs – more on that in the next section.

What is my Budget – both CapEx and OpEx?
The question of ‘what is my budget’ is much more nuanced than it might first appear. Yes, ultimately, we have a purchase budget to spend that we cannot exceed, but do we have any idea on long-term and cost-benefit elements that also have cost implications? Consider establishing your budget with three items in mind:

•  Initial Purchase Cost – you’ll want to know your company’s available capital purchase allowance and compare that against multiple fork truck manufacturers and vendors to gain a sense of the current going rate of trucks that meet your needs. Consider tax incentives, financing options, down payment requirements, state/government incentives (available in many forms such as energy conservation, industrial business growth, depreciating outdating / polluting assets, etc), and vendor discounts.
• Ongoing Maintenance Costs – whether performed by internal or external teams, maintenance costs often exceed the initial cost of the vehicle given enough time, so these warrant close examination. Internal maintenance is usually more proactive and lower cost, especially when spare parts and consumables are kept in-stock. External maintenance can be more expensive per service call, but can bring greater value using the advanced tooling, knowledge, and experience available with professional service teams. In some cases, vendors can couple maintenance costs into service contracts bundled with the purchase price, alleviating complication especially for smaller businesses.
• Emergency and Replacement Costs – buying a very low-priced fork truck from a foreign distributor may save money initially, but if that unit has no local support and no domestic part vendors, the cost of downtime (especially emergency outages) can suddenly dwarf the initial savings. Purchasing a fork truck should include considering emergency cost as well as future end-of-life replacement costs, both as a function of local vendor support and the OEM’s direct options. Some OEMs will buy-back lifts for remanufacturing and resale at a reduced price, and some vendors will take old lifts as trade-ins towards new lifts.

Other Suggestions
A few quick additional questions worth considering during your new truck purchasing process:

What External Partners may I need in owning this vehicle?
External partners may include safety trainers, maintenance mechanics, financing banks, material handling solution providers, warehouse engineers, and more. Ideally, you’ll want to partner with a truck vendor who can embody as many of the service offerings as you deem pertinent to your business, giving you a healthy support network ready to come to your aid should you need.

Should I buy New or Used?
This question could warrant its own complete article! The question of new vs used is always a fair topic and comes down to the exact cost-benefit exchange specific to each purchase. Consider a used truck’s run hours, maintenance history, upkeep, general condition, operating environment, cost, purchase guarantee, and owner’s reason for selling in great detail. New may be relatively more expensive than used but may offer much greater confidence and support than a used truck transaction. That said, in today’s market, new units may have limited availability, driving buyers towards used lifts available immediately. When going used, look for ‘factory refurbished’ or ‘certified’ used lifts when possible, as well as available limited warranties.

Do I need any Secondary Benefits or Features?
Do you need to haul the lift from location to location, requiring tie-down hooks on the lift? Do you need the ability to integrate telematics or other onboard technology? Do you need to swap accessories and attachments? Consider all future or secondary uses required out of the lift to make sure you’re not missing any critical functionality in a new fork truck.

Am I able to meet my local Licensing and Safety Requirements?
Depending on the locale, different lift classifications have different licensing and safety requirements that businesses must comply with. In most cases, forklift operators certified in one lift classification are not allowed to jump onto other classifications without completing certification on that lift class as well, even when the second lift appears ‘smaller’ or ‘less complicated’. Look into specific OSHA or other agency requirements applicable in your area for both licensing / certification as well as those governing written safety program. You might choose to avoid introducing a new class of lift into an existing operation where existing lift types are already permitted.

What impacts or requirements will I have to Insure this vehicle?

As an extension of the ‘budget’ topic, forklifts often require insurance coverage which will bring along their own costs needing examination. Just like automobiles, lifts with newer safety features may often cost less to insure than older lifts, and costs may be further offset by additional training, management assets such as telematics systems, and overall low business incident ratings. Forklifts are not necessarily covered under a business automobile insurance plan, and also may be factored differently between owning and renting the lift. Be sure to check your coverage to make sure you’re properly insured.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Electric Material Handling Machine.