There are dog lovers and there are cat lovers. Steve Boniface, CEO of Pine Bush Equipment, is partial to gorillas … Gorilla Hammers, that is.
Over the last two years Pine Bush has purchased approximately 18 hydraulic hammers, which have been put into its rental fleet and, in some cases, retailed to Pine Bush customers.
The relationship started when a New Jersey contractor who was renting a Komatsu excavator from Pine Bush Equipment for some work that he was doing in the New York area approached Pine Bush. The job required breaking some rock and he was having some difficulty getting that job done. He had gone through 8,000, 10,000 and 12,000- lb. (3,628.7, 4,535.9 and 5,443.1 kg) hammers and they just weren’t breaking up the rock. The contractor approached Pine Bush Equipment about putting a Gorilla hammer on the excavator.
Boniface contacted Gorilla Hammers president Bob Tedesco and discovered that not only were the gorilla hammers affordable, but the company was able to deliver the hammer and have it mounted and operating the next day for Pine Bush’s customer.
The end result? Pine Bush’s rental customer was back to work and actually breaking the rock with a Gorilla GHB180 and Pine Bush Equipment. They were so impressed that they immediately began purchasing gorilla hammers from Tedesco and Gorilla.
“We started by putting the Gorilla hammers in our rental fleet,” said Boniface. “We found them to be affordable, durable and reliable and best of all Gorilla continued to impress us with their product support. We had a Komatsu PC400 on rent with a 12,000- lb. (5,443.1 kg) hammer and it broke. Bob Tedesco recommended that the excavator be re-equipped with a 14,000-lb. (6,350.3 kg) hammer and he offered to give it to us on consignment, which was really a pleasant surprise to us because we were actually ready to buy the hammer. But, again, it was the service that amazed us. By 11:00 a.m. the next morning the new hammer was delivered to our customer and mounted to our machine. I am convinced that no other hammer company could have accomplished that.
“We are all about purchasing quality products and paying a fair price for them, which is exactly what Gorilla does, but it’s their service that separates them from their competitors. We have sold hydraulic hammers for years, have represented at least five different hammer manufacturers, and we have never experienced that type of product support before.
“In another instance, we had an issue with a mounting bracket. It was the wrong bracket for the hammer we were trying to install. Gorilla dispatched the same day one of their employees to our shop who arrived, identified the problem, and proceeded to make the correct mounting bracket from materials in our shop.”
“One of our biggest challenges as a manufacturer is finding dealers who can properly support our product,” Tedesco said. “A bad dealer can make our product look bad. In order for the dealer to properly represent us, we need to give that dealer proper support. Not only do we support our hammers, but we will help the dealer support our competitor’s hammers. We want our dealers to be known as hammer experts. We supply parts and technical advice for nearly all makes and models of hammers. We have several test stands that are utilized in our hammer reconditioning program. When rebuilding a hammer using the stands or “attachment simulators” we are able to actually test the hammer before we send it out the door, and as far as parts, we have $3 million worth of tool bits and parts on our shelves.”
About Pine Bush
Pine Bush Equipment is a Komatsu dealership in the northeastern United States, which has locations in Pine Bush, N.Y.; Holmes, N.Y.; and Newington, Conn. It also represents other products such as Kubota, Bomag, Gehl, Hydrema and others.
For more information, visit www.pbeinc.com.
About Gorilla Hammers
Gorilla, a division of Tech Hydraulics, is a U.S.-based supplier of boom mounted demolition attachments including hydraulic hammers (rock breakers) and tool bits. Gorilla is serving primarily The U.S. market of hydraulic hammers, but it also has many customers abroad.
For more information, call 888/81-GORILLA or visit www.gorillahammers.com.
Today's top stories
