It Ain't Snake Oil

Guy Ramsey

June 1, 2005 — Can you put a price tag on the appearance of your equipment? We all know the value of aesthetics, but what is this intangible worth? That house you're about to sell looks a whole lot better with a new coat of paint, but can you really quantify it?

 

If you're in the rental business, then you appreciate how important it is to have your equipment looking in tip-top shape when you deliver it to a jobsite. If it looks well maintained, then it's considered a good piece of equipment. But if it looks old and ridden hard, it must be a crappy machine — even with a shining maintenance record. That's just human nature.

 

It also stands to reason that if your company's name is all over a piece of equipment, you would want it to look its very best. Pride in ownership is important to everyone on a jobsite, not just the operators. And if you're selling a piece of equipment, either through retail channels or in auction, isn't it true that the better the machine looks, the more attractive it appears to prospective buyers, and the more likely it will command a higher price? Studies have shown this to be the case again and again.

 

When considering the importance of your equipments' appearance, many variables come into play — proper facilities, environmental issues, time, and manpower all affect your ability to keep your fleet running smoothly and looking its best. Of course, all of these factors tie back to one thing: money.

 

Let's say money isn't an issue. You have the proper painting facility, the manpower, and money to do the job right. In today's economy, you don't have the luxury of parking a piece of equipment for very long. Machines hardly have the time to see a wash rack let alone a paint booth. So even if the costs associated with keeping up the appearance of your equipment were not a problem before, just keeping that piece in your yard long enough to do something about it maybe your biggest challenge these days.

 

I recently tested a product that may hold the answer to all of these issues. When I first saw an advertisement for Dakota Shine, a compound that restores paint to like new condition for a fraction of the cost of repainting, I must admit I was more than a little skeptical. The before and after pictures looked too good to be true. And you know the old saying, “If it looks or sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Nevertheless, I decided to find out for myself and give the folks at Dakota Shine (www.dakotashine.com) a call. I offered to give their product a try. If it was as good as they say it is, I wanted to know. If it was as good as it looked, everyone that owns or manages a piece of equipment would want to know.

 

In my discussions with the manufacturer, I learned that this product was developed by an organization looking for alternative uses for corn and soybeans — big crops in South Dakota. I was told that not only was this product able to make old equipment look like new, but it also did so for pennies on the dollar when compared to repainting. Plus, its lifetime also equaled that of new paint. I would also learn that the product was a derivative of corn and soy that had been certified by the EPA as biodegradable. Now I was really starting to think this had to be a hoax. Cost-effective and environmentally friendly — can the two really coexist?

 

So I asked them to send me a starter kit to try for myself — a couple of gallons of biodegradable solution and a handful of scotch-brite pads. You can read about my test results and see what I saw firsthand in the July/August issue of Lift and Access magazine. Until then, I'll share a little secret: It works.