Green Oval means business with double heat inductors from AES

Green Oval Garage has speeded up its operation with the addition of two Josam JH400 induction heaters from AES.

The company is an independent Jaguar Land Rover specialist, established in 2005, with sites in Leeds and Wetherby, West Yorkshire. It caters for vehicles from the 1940s to brand new models but focusses primarily on 10-to-15-year-old cars from the aforementioned marques.

Managing director Brian Hoult explains that the business is “not afraid to buy the right equipment if we know it’ll do the job,” and says the JH400 units have saved an enormous amount of time by making usually time-consuming corrosion jobs significantly faster.

“When you actually work out what it can save you in a day, a week, a month, a year – it’s paid for itself. I saw the results the day it was dropped off. It’s one of those pieces of equipment you just get out all the time. We’re using them every single day, at both sites.”

Green Oval Garage staff are primarily relying on the induction heaters to loosen seized bolts and other stuck components. The Josam JH400 can be used in the same way as a gas torch to loosen or shape metal, but it is much safer and more precise, because there is no naked flame and it channels heat to extremely specific locations.

“The way things like subframe bolts are manufactured these days means they’re rarely greased, and dirt, rust, oxidisation develop over the years,” adds Brian. “When you’ve got to install something like a new clutch, you have to take everything off, but the bolts sometimes won’t move or they’re going to snap when you try to take them off. Get the JH400 on it, give it a few blasts of heat, and that’s it – it comes out.”

“Also, in some cases, you haven’t got the access you need for an open flame. A lot of Land Rovers and some Jaguars have air suspension, which is just a plastic pipe with air pressure running through it. You can’t get that warm, it’d just melt, but when you’re localising the heat on the metal part you want, it’s fine.”

Brian says the JH400s have become a “first port of call” in place of “the last resort” that was oxyacetylene heating and, in addition to revolutionising the day-to-day jobs, they have even helped the company to attract new technicians – one of the biggest current challenges for workshops.

“I’ve just taken on a new member of staff from a franchised dealer, and he was used to the privileges you’d associate with an upmarket showroom. When he walked into our workshop, he said, ‘you’ve got one of them?’ and I said ‘yes, we’ve got one at both sites’. I think that had a big influence on him, because he could see we weren’t messing about, and that we’re buying the right kinds of equipment.”