Ireland’s Newest CVRT Centre at Reynolds Commercials
03/04/2025
Established since 1993, last year saw Reynolds Commercials opening its new CVRT Centre and it marked an exciting milestone moment for the family-run company. Irish Trucker touch base with Director of Operations Anthony Reynolds to hear the latest on this thriving business which is situated in the Midlands.
This April will mark one year since Reynolds Commercials’ CVRT Centre officially opened for business at Tones Road in Walderstown, Athlone, Co Westmeath. Minster for Enterprise Peter Burke TD and Cllr. Tom Farrell cut the ribbon on Reynolds Commercials State of the Art CVRT Centre on Saturday June 1st 2024, an occasion attended by over 500 people, from local well-wishers to family, friends and its many customers.
Founded by Managing Director Paul Reynolds, the company is now a SIMI Member, RSA Authorised CVRT Centre and Renault Trucks Dealer with 28 full-time staff on its books, having saw significant growth in the past half decade or so.
It’s all a far cry from where Paul himself first began with Reynolds Commercials 32 years ago, with just one man and his apprentice in a 30x30ft shed at the rear of the Reynolds family home.
Now, it’s very much a one-stop shop for its customers, offering them repairs, servicing, testing, bodyworks and spare parts for Renault Trucks commercial trucks and vans.
Anthony Reynolds joined his father’s company on a full-time basis in 2018, and the Director of Operations took some time to tell Irish Trucker about the very encouraging developments at Reynolds Commercials as of late.
“Growing from a staff of 10 to 28 people in the space of six or seven years has been exciting but challenging, but we’ve had to try and move with the times,” he outlined.
"What I mean is, that we need to move beyond informal, ad-hoc management and adopt a more structured, professional approach, and start thinking of ourselves as a Main Dealer, rather than just a small garage at the back of the family home."
As a Qualified Financial Advisor (QFA), Anthony’s own background saw him earning a degree in Commerce before going on to obtain a Master’s degree in E-commerce.
After that, the Lake County native would go on to work in the Central Bank and in AIB before taking the decision to immerse himself the family business.
Fast-forward some seven years later and Reynolds Commercials is now a one-stop shop for customers and it’s growing trend looks set to continue.
“My dad said to me that he wasn’t going to go ahead with the expansion unless he had someone to take it over, so that’s how I came in and started looking at it from a different side, I suppose,” said Anthony.
“We’ve got to where we’ve got to because of Paul’s graft and working all hours to make sure lads were kept on the road. He has a great name for that.”
The brave move into CVRT Testing was a long time in the making for the company, as its Director of Operations explained:
“The reason we built it is because we were spending so much time driving to other places for the testing, and that was time we weren’t getting paid for. We’d be were gone for an hour or two everyday bringing stuff in and out of town and not getting paid for that. So, we had a huge customer base anyway and it just made the decision to open a CVRT Centre and we’re one-stop shop now for our customers, basically.
“We pretty much hit the ground running with it. The numbers are growing week-on-week with it, and we have one full-time tester and one part-time tester.
“With any new test centre, it’s going to take a year or maybe two years to build up to full capacity. January has been great, and we are looking at now hopefully taking on another tester midway through 2025. If numbers keep going the way they are going, we’re going to have to do that. Paul’s daughter, my sister Elizabeth has come on board to manage the CVRT Centre, and that’s working out very well.”
Testing roughly 250 vehicles monthly at the present time, the superb facility has the capacity to test 1,000 vehicles a month and the team at Reynolds Commercials will be eager to hit that number, although new centres tend to take two to three years to hit their capacity figures.
Of course, there’s also the Renault Trucks Dealership which sees it selling new and used Renault trucks and vans.
Last year, Reynolds Commercials was awarded the prestigious 2024 Irish Dealer of the Year award from Renault Trucks, recognising the company’s commitment to providing exceptional service and support to its customers.
“We’ve started to do a lot of vans now, with the Renault Master and the Renault Trafic vans proving very popular,” said Anthony.
“Our new-vehicle sales are growing by 50% year-on-year the past 5 years. That’s been a big thing for us and, again, it goes back to the one-stop shop thing where we can sell, we can do the service and repairs, and we can now do the CVRT Testing.
“With the trucks, that’s an area we’re looking to start working on growing. We’ve taken on a full-time Salesman in the last six months and he’s primarily focused on the vans, but he’s going to hopefully go into the trucks as well.”
So, all of that considered, the clear question is what has been the key ingredient behind this second-generation family firm’s success over the years?
“I suppose a lot of it is the legacy side of it,” Anthony pointed out. “Paul’s customers, traditionally, they’ve come in here and they know that they’re going to get the work done right.
“Paul has built a great reputation for providing good service and we turn things around quickly. We have a serious facility now as well with a seven-bay workshop, so we can get through plenty of work.
“We’re picking up new customers all the time here and we’re growing. People come back to us for the level of service they get.”
It’s an approach which has saw many new customers, from Public and Private Sectors choosing Reynolds Commercials first ahead of other competitors.
Looking forward, Anthony says they’ll be eager to continue providing customers with the same excellent service while trying to further grow the business in two particular departments.
“Mainly, the test centre is the big focus (for 2025). We’re going to try and build that as close to full capacity as we can.
“Testing is a more straightforward business than repairs, it’s in-and-out within the hour, so we’re looking to build it and get as many people inside the door as we can. We’ve spent a lot of money to build it, so we need to get return on investment.
“That’s the focus. As well as that, the sales is something that we need to try and keep growing and all of that brings in more work to the workshop.
“We’re getting busier and busier all of the time, so we need to make sure that we don’t drop our service level. We want to keep on top of that and that would be mainly it for ‘25,” he concluded.
Reynolds Commercials
Tones Road,
Walderstown,
Athlone,
Co Westmeath (N37 EH24).
Tel: 090 648 5550
E-mail: [email protected]
First published in Irish Trucker magazine March/April 2025, Vol 28-2
