A reach truck is a specialist machine, and reach truck hire is one of the most common requests in warehousing. It earns its place in narrow aisles and tall racking, and when a racking layout changes or a peak season lands, hiring a 16BRJ-9 for a few weeks or months is a popular way to get the capability without a long commitment. This is a close look at the machine we showed at CeMAT 2026, what it does well, and why it is so often hired.
We brought the Hyundai 16BRJ-9 to CeMAT 2026. On the stand, visitors looked it over and pictured it doing the thing a reach truck is built for in their own warehouse: extending its forks forward into racking, placing a pallet cleanly, and pulling back into an aisle far too narrow for a counterbalance forklift to work in. They could also sit in the cab and feel the seat for themselves. A seat that keeps the operator comfortable through a shift is one that leaves them less fatigued and better able to focus on the work.
The defining feature is in the name. On a reach truck the mast and forks travel forward on a reach mechanism, so the truck body itself stays put in the aisle while the forks extend to place or retrieve a load. On the 16BRJ-9 this is handled by a multi-roller reach assembly, which is what gives the movement its smoothness and control.
That forward reach is why the truck can work in aisles a counterbalance forklift could never enter. It does not need room to drive its whole body up to the rack. It only needs room to turn, and the 16BRJ-9 is built compact for exactly that.
If you want the full picture on how reach trucks compare to other warehouse equipment, our guide to the best equipment for narrow aisles goes wider than this page does.
This is the question that decides whether a reach truck fits your warehouse, and it comes down to turning radius. The 16BRJ-9 has a turning radius of 1,685mm, an overall width of 1,149mm, and a wheelbase of 1,460mm. Those numbers are what let it turn and stack in aisles where storage density matters and floor space is expensive.
The practical result is more pallet positions on the same slab. A layout planned around a reach truck fits more racking than one planned around a counterbalance truck, because the aisles between the racks can be so much narrower.
The 16BRJ-9 is offered with mast options reaching up to roughly 10.5 metres. Choosing the right lift height for your racking is its own decision, and our guide to high-reach forklifts covers how to match mast height to your racking.
A reach truck is at its best indoors on smooth, consistent floors, handling defined pallets in racking built for narrow-aisle work. It is worth being honest about where it is not the right tool. Rough or wet outdoor surfaces, mixed-use yards, and jobs with a lot of long-distance travel between buildings usually suit a different machine, and in those settings a diesel forklift will often do more useful work than a reach truck that looks capable on paper.
A reach truck driver spends the whole shift making fine, repeated movements at height, so fatigue and control are everything. The 16BRJ-9 is built around that. It has a full suspension seat that adjusts to the driver, with suspension stiffness set to the driver’s weight across a 45 to 170kg range, which keeps a lighter and a heavier operator equally comfortable over a long shift.
The controls are designed to take effort out of the day. Fingertip controls handle the hydraulics with small, low-effort movements, a 3.5 inch LCD colour monitor keeps speed, steer angle, battery state and working mode in view, and the brake pedal is designed for smooth, predictable stopping. A non-slip floor mat and a headrest cushion round out a cab meant to be lived in, not just sat in.
Selectable performance modes matter here too. The driver can run the truck in High, Normal or Economy mode to suit the task, and a Turtle mode drops the travel speed in congested or narrow areas so the operator is not fighting the machine in tight spots.
The 16BRJ-9 is a sit-on reach truck, which is the layout most drivers moving full pallets all shift prefer, since it keeps the operator seated and supported rather than standing for hours. Seeing the load at height is the other thing that makes or breaks a shift on a reach truck, and the mast is built with an optimised lift cylinder arrangement that opens up the operator’s line of sight to the forks. For work at the top of tall racking, an optional fork camera and monitor and an optional height indicator take the guesswork out of placing a pallet the driver cannot easily see from the seat, so they can position it accurately without craning or second-guessing.
For the operation, the case is about space, safety and continuity. The compact design and forward reach are what raise storage density, so the same building holds more stock, and they make putaway and retrieval faster in medium to high bay racking. That is the return that usually justifies bringing a reach truck in at all.
Safety is built to match the way reach trucks work. Curve control limits travel speed based on turning radius, so the truck slows itself through turns rather than relying on the driver to do it every time. An anti roll-back system holds the truck on a ramp instead of letting it drift back. A down-safety valve keeps the forks descending at a controlled speed and stops them dropping if a hydraulic line is suddenly damaged. Automatic centre positioning turns the drive wheel back to centre at start-up, and a steering angle sensing system shows the operator which way the wheels are pointing before they move. Even so, an experienced forklift operator moving onto a different reach truck or mast configuration usually needs a short familiarisation, and that is worth building into the first day on a hired unit.
Keeping the machine working through a shift is the other half of it. The 16BRJ-9 runs a 48V/420Ah battery, and a battery disconnect lever with a large handle plus a reach-out battery replacement design means the battery can be swapped quickly for multi-shift running rather than parking the truck for hours. For a heavy duty cycle it is worth planning the charging windows and a spare battery early, since a truck that fits the aisle but cannot last the shift creates its own bottleneck.
A hired machine has to be dependable, and the 16BRJ-9 is arranged to stay that way. The MOSFET-type controller is sealed to IP65 against water and dust and carries a self-diagnosis function, so faults are read out rather than hunted for. A rotating hood opens up to 105 degrees to reach the drive components under the seat, a centralised fuse box keeps inspection simple, and a hydraulic filter protects the pump and valve. A password starting system keeps the truck secured on site.
Reach trucks are one of the most commonly hired machines in the warehouse, and the 16BRJ-9 sees a lot of that demand. Because a reach truck is a specialist, its workload is often seasonal or project-based, which is when hire fits well. A warehouse that needs high-density storage for a peak, a site trialling a new racking layout, or an operation that wants a specialist machine for a defined period all make good hire candidates. Hiring also moves the maintenance and battery upkeep onto the supplier, which suits a machine this specialised.
For an operation running a reach truck at high hours all year round, buying often makes better sense, and plenty of businesses do exactly that. Which route fits your operation depends on how many hours the truck will actually run, and our guide to forklift leasing versus buying works through that decision in full.
It is an electric forklift designed for narrow-aisle warehouse work, where the mast and forks extend forward on a reach mechanism to place and retrieve pallets in racking while the truck body stays in the aisle.
It has a turning radius of 1,685mm, an overall width of 1,149mm and a wheelbase of 1,460mm, which lets it turn and stack in aisles far narrower than a counterbalance forklift needs.
It is available with mast options reaching up to around 10.5 metres. Matching lift height to your racking is covered in our high-reach forklift guide.
It is a sit-on reach truck, with a full adjustable suspension seat. That layout keeps the operator seated and supported through a long shift of full-pallet handling.
Yes. It uses a 48V/420Ah battery with a battery disconnect lever and a reach-out replacement design, so the battery can be swapped quickly for multi-shift operation.
Yes. Reach trucks are commonly hired because their workload is often seasonal or project-based, and hire moves maintenance and battery upkeep onto the supplier.
Beyond rate and duration, it is worth confirming the service response time, who handles maintenance and faults, and whether battery charging equipment, attachments and operator familiarisation are included. For a machine that is critical to your shift, the support behind it matters as much as the truck itself.
If a warehouse reach truck is what your racking calls for, the 16BRJ-9 is built for narrow aisles and long shifts. Talk to us about hiring a 16BRJ-9 for a peak or a project, or about buying one outright. You can explore our reach trucks or get in touch to match a machine to your aisles and racking.
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