McGill’s abandoned ADL over ‘flawed’ buses – Daily Business

A Scottish bus company has revealed that it switched its orders from Falkirk manufacturer Alexander Dennis to foreign suppliers because of poor build quality and after-sales service.

Daily Business has now learned that central belt bus operator McGill’s, owned by the billionaire Easdale brothers, had a series of problems with vehicles from the Falkirk factory which forced it to buy from China and elsewhere.

Alexander Dennis is threatening to close its Scottish plant with the loss of 400 jobs and move production to a sister factory in Scarborough.

Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MSPs have accused Scottish government ministers of abandoning the Scottish firm in favour of placing business overseas.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also drew support from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham who said the city had ordered more buses from Alexander Dennis through a government scheme than the Scottish government.

But a spokesman for McGill’s said it had suffered setbacks with buses built by Alexander Dennis and had to look to other suppliers.

“Pre pandemic when all purchases were diesel buses, ADL made up over 50% of our fleet,” said a spokesman.

“With the onset of the electric vehicle (EV) era we purchased two EV buses, one from ADL and one from another supplier for a head-to-head evaluation.

“We found that ADL had partnered themselves to a flawed chassis product, had a power-hungry heating and ventilation solution and poor build quality.

“These key weaknesses allied to poor ownership of problems and slow aftersales performance saw us decide to buy from the other supplier which performed well on all counts. Importantly, there was no material difference in price.”

The spokesman added: “In 2021 we again placed a £7m order with ADL to re-evaluate the EV product and found the issues to be more extreme.

“Another element worthy of comment is that a percentage of our procurement was for vehicle types that ADL do not produce.

“Another example where ADL lost out was when we approached ADL for what would be a £20m inter-city coach order but were advised that they couldn’t obtain the chassis to build their bodies onto. We ended up buying from a non-UK builder.

“We know that ADL now have a new EV product and for future purchases we are happy to consider this product.”

The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise have been engaged in talks with Alexander Dennis’s owner over its plans.

Alexander Dennis has been approached for comment.