Digger choices

[Robbie260]

Sunward that was the other chinese brand.

@nickk You will be hard pushed to get much better than a worn out pile of near scrap, for only £7000 a very early nissan or kubota 2.5 ton with steel tracks and normally lots of rust. They are also being early mini diggers not that mini, they are quite big and ungainly in comparison to the more modern offerings, youd be better off with a 2cx.

 

[nickk]

Found this,local to me ,just concerned if it’s had salt water soaking. EbayItem 283946497454
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BOBCAT-3...only-6950-vat-3ton-Kubota-digger/283946497454

 

[Agrismith]

I find it a bit odd that Komatsu and Hitachi make such good 13t plus machines but fail miserably on the smaller excavators, then you have Kubota and a few others that make great small diggers but kind of get it all wrong on the bigger stuff. Nothing ticks all the boxes but some do tick a few more than others.

My favourite 13 tonner is the Komatsu.

A Hitachi and LG ripping out a wall that was being pushed over by roots and de stumping.

View attachment 243408 View attachment 243409 View attachment 243410 View attachment 243411


Our old Komatsu 13 tonner

View attachment 243412

That middle site is the top of Leatherhead isn't it ??

As for jcb I haven't driven many
But the new ones are nice to drive
And of the older ones the jcb 803 is a very good machine well regarded on the plant forums and will represent about the best value for money you will find
But still struggle to get one in budget
I think you really will struggle to get something in budget
Considering depreciation on the bobcats whichawhich are 0% finance and depending on how long you want it for it may end up more economical to buy new and sell it when your finished with it

 

[sako243]

Worth keeping an eye on the Excavators for sale in UK & Ireland Farcebook group. There's quite a lot of machines that come up on there.

 

[Robbie260]

Found this,local to me ,just concerned if it’s had salt water soaking. EbayItem 283946497454
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BOBCAT-3...only-6950-vat-3ton-Kubota-digger/283946497454

Although it looks good the description is too short for a serious seller who is charging vat. Be careful there are a lot of scams on ebay you might be better looking on plant trader, though there can be a few there too.

 

[8ob]

That middle site is the top of Leatherhead isn't it ?

Well spotted that man Despite TM going on at 9.30am and off again at 3pm it caused absolute mayhem, so much so we thought bucket and bashed on, did the job in a day instead of the three we had agreed with highways, its a bit of a rat run through there.

Bob

 

[Agrismith]

Well spotted that man Despite TM going on at 9.30am and off again at 3pm it caused absolute mayhem, so much so we thought bucket and bashed on, did the job in a day instead of the three we had agreed with highways, its a bit of a rat run through there.

Bob

Tbf it's the same anywhere in Surrey the general rush and arrogance of drivers on the roads are becoming unbearable
I've been on a couple of tm sites now that we have had to pull off and leave the job unfinished

 

[James1979]

@addjunkie ,budget about £7000,but could be swayed by eventual resale value when I’ve finished with it in about 3years.dismissed the wheeled machinery as 2 of the locations are tight to buildings.

May sound stupid but....... Have you checked in with the burial grounds and woodland burial places?

Guy I know in Norfolk got one with no hours on after speaking to the local cemetary. They have one for digging the holes, but they always have a spare in case the main one stops halfway through a job, as it were. The one he got was that spare - this cemetary change them every 3 years regardless. The guy who was in charge took his details and gave him the heads up when they were getting rid. Think he paid a small amount over your budget for a 3 yo Tacheuchi. They arent bothered about resale value - tax dollars at work and all that!

 

[Mick Annick]

Mixer truck we were filling piles 500+ of the thingsView attachment 243370

Looks odd, no feed hopper!

 

[anto44]

Found this,local to me ,just concerned if it’s had salt water soaking. EbayItem 283946497454
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BOBCAT-3...only-6950-vat-3ton-Kubota-digger/283946497454

I wouldn't touch that thing, if the body's that rusty it's going to be a pain to work on.

 

[500e]

Looks odd, no feed hopper!

We were turning it out into a hopper with shutter to dump mix, on the end of a Merlo boom, did not want to dig mixer out quicker anyway to move Merlo than lorry

 

[fizzy]

Avoid JCB. Crap built in Britain.

kubota, bobcat, Takeuchi, cat.

So is it British workers who are crap?
Or the engineers?
Or the welders?
Or what?
They have sold 100,000 of them so must be doing something right?

What about the standard JCB? Is that crap? And the fast trac? As used by the US army?

 

[Robbie260]

So is it British workers who are crap?
Or the engineers?
Or the welders?
Or what?
They have sold 100,000 of them so must be doing something right?

What about the standard JCB? Is that crap? And the fast trac? As used by the US army?

Id agree with you fizzy. Mr Bamford is still the only non American in the American construction industries hall of fame. Volvo sells jcb mini diggers and skid steers rebranded as thier own and volvo dosent sell rubbish.

They have two of the greatest and arguably most important inovations in construction machinery too thier name, the tractor loader backhoe or jcb in britian and the telehandler both of which have only in the last few years started to lose favour as the main contractor go to in britian and europe because of greater space constraints on site. But both still going strong in america where building sites are larger. Plus even though they arent as popular still yet to see any major uk construction site with out one of each lurking in a corner somewhere. No matter which brand you buy of either of these to machines jcb still owns the patents on both of them so your still buying a jcb and paying jcb for one if you get one. Other inventions also include the single arm skid steer, the telescopic skid steer among others, and they managed to refine the wheeled excavator concept with the hydradig to what it always should have been.

Thier mini diggers dont have the same dig out force as other brands admittedly. But this is the land rover vs Toyota argument all over again, land rover built a vehicle to do a specific job, toyota over engineered a vehicle to do the same job. Technically the land rover is the greater feat of engineering as there was no waste it did exactly what it was supposed to do, it only became rubbish when people were dangerously overloading thier toyotas and doing the same thing at far greater risk to themselves and others. Its the same with mini diggers you see so often with the extra dig force the diggers not been designed for it in the Japanese or other countries models the diggers being operated dangerously way beyond thier limits with tracks waving in the air, unstable on the ground etc. The jcbs dont do this as they run out of dig force at the right point sure its frustrating but really it saying well wait a minute you need to find a different way of doing this or go get something bigger that can do this safely. If the jcb fails like the land rover it will be less catastrophic and dangerous than if the Toyota or kubota fails because you wont have taken the machine beyond its engineered safety limits.

 

[Robbie260]

On another note you probably can make the jcb have as much dig out force as a kubota. You would need to go adjust the hydraulic system pressure relief valves but this is taking it beyond its designed safety limits so not a good idea.

 

[anto44]

The main thing jcb are getting slated for is reliability and cost of parts not actual performance most people are fairly happy with that. It's the fact that the jcbs break down more often and when they do break down they cost more to fix than the other makes.

 

[Robbie260]

The main thing jcb are getting slated for is reliability and cost of parts not actual performance most people are fairly happy with that. It's the fact that the jcbs break down more often and when they do break down they cost more to fix than the other makes.

I think that happened because they very quickly had to pour a lot of money into research, designing and making thier own engines when perkins got bought out by cat a while back. I dont think they ever quite recoverd from it as they had never made thier own engines before.

 

[Jacktegla]

The main thing jcb are getting slated for is reliability and cost of parts not actual performance most people are fairly happy with that. It's the fact that the jcbs break down more often and when they do break down they cost more to fix than the other makes.

I know a few people who work for job, one in the design department and one works at a service depot, and they both say that jcb design and build really good machines and then, try and squeeze the most profit out of them by using some cheaper materials and components, this is why they can be unreliable. An example is a farmer I know has a telehandler its 2 years old and the yellow paint still looks like new but the black paint has all peeled off, due to them using inferior paint. So I don't think jobs all bad but they need to get some of their priority in order.

 

[MK1 RS Bruce]

What's up with the Merlo ...I bloody love our Merlo , when that JCB went out the yard and the green meanie turned up ..it was like the big fella had all my birthdays at once in mind haha

I have no complaint about the performance of a merlo they are almost unbeatable but when it comes to build quality they are far from the best. We have had two over the last 12 years, the first wasn't too bad which was why a new one was bought. it was easily the worst piece of machinery we have ever had. push in hydraulic couplings being the biggest issue with it. It got to the point that we were putting a 5 gallon drum if hydraulic oil in it every few weeks.the other issue was the hydraulic functions operating on their own and also an intermittent fault where the machine wouldn't start. Turn the key nothing but beeping try again and it would turn over and fire, but you could sometimes have to try the key 100 times and the next time it would go first turn of the key. Each time you had the mechanics out it would cost us 1000s and the faults would never be fully resolved.

We now have a bobcat tele handler, 5 yr, 5000hr warranty, plus 5 years 0% finance is hard to beat and so far the machine has done everything the merlo did.

 

[MK1 RS Bruce]

For Mini diggers Takeuchi are the go to machine up here used to drive a TB175 and it could shame bigger machines with its power and speed. Only thing I remember going wrong was a small plastic tube leaking and that thing did a power of work.