What contractors told us after trialling PPA picks
When we started PPA, we didn’t want to ask anyone to take our word for it. So before we sold picks in volume, we sent them out to contractors to run on their own machines, on their own jobs.
No controlled test site. No hand-picked conditions. Just real stabilisation and profiling work, with operators who know exactly how their picks normally wear.
Here’s what came back.
What contractors reported
The most common feedback was simple: the picks wore on par with the OEM picks they were used to running.
Some contractors went further and told us PPA picks outlasted their usual OEM picks. We’ll let that stand as their feedback rather than our claim. Ground conditions, machine setup and operator habits all play a part, and every job is different.
What we can say is that no one who trialled our picks came back with a quality problem.
Why that matters more than the price
Most people look at an aftermarket pick and see one thing: a lower unit price. That’s part of the story, but it’s not the main part.
The number that actually matters is cost per metre. That’s what you spend on picks to mill or stabilise each metre of road.
It comes down to two things:
- What each pick costs
- How long each pick lasts
A cheap pick that wears out fast can cost you more per metre than an expensive one. You buy more of them, you stop more often to change them, and your crew spends more time at the drum instead of on the job.
A simple example
These numbers are for illustration only.
Say an OEM pick costs $20 and lasts a set amount of work. If a PPA pick costs less and lasts the same, you’ve saved the difference on every pick on the drum, every change.
If the PPA pick lasts longer as well, the saving grows twice over. You’re paying less per pick and buying fewer picks over the life of the job. You’re also stopping less often for changes, which means less downtime and fewer labour hours spent at the drum.
On a drum carrying a few hundred picks, that adds up quickly over a season.
Why the quality holds up
PPA picks come from a manufacturer with more than 20 years in road milling and construction wear parts. Production lines are automated, and quality is checked from raw material through to final inspection.
We’ve visited the factory ourselves. Seeing the operation first-hand is the reason we were comfortable sending picks out to trial in the first place.
[Read: From factory floor to Fremantle]
Want to run your own trial?
If you’re running OEM picks now and want to see how ours compare, we’re happy to send some out. Put them on your drum alongside what you normally run and judge the wear for yourself.
Get in touch and tell us what machine you’re running and the type of work. We’ll match the right pick to the job.
