Opinions please

[firetrack]

I am in the market for a new skid steer and am lookng at Bobcat M series 650, JD 326D and NH 185. All with pilot/EH controls. Mainly working in bush cleaning up after drill rig plus some bush track maintenance/rehab work and handling shot/surge rock for road stabilization. I intend to fit tilting head stock, 4in1 bucket, pallet forks, chain trencher, post hole borer, chipper and maybe mulcher and grader blade. I will have hiflow hyd fitted. I am steering away from a tracked machine as I believe the undercariage maintenance may be fairly high. I thought of a Takuechi but our dealer is 350klm away and then not reknown for good aftersales service in the other brands they market so I assume Tak will be the same. New machine will have A/C cab, radio etc.
Any one had experience on any of these?

 

[PowerTan]

Takeuchi's are very good machines...tough and durable. Will push dirt like crazy...especially the TL150. However, if the dealer is that far away and doesn't have a great rep for after sales support...then that could put a bad taste in your mouth as far as the Takeuchi product. I know of several contractors that run a Case 440 with hi-flow to use tree mulchers and they love them. A Case 465 would also work well as it's the biggest in Case's lineup.

 

[KSSS]

The Deere and BC are both so new, I am not sure anyone would have any real world experience with them. The biggest issue you may have with any of them will be the mulcher. The older Deeres the C series are all but incapable of running a mulcher. They redesigned them for the D series and have it appears addressed the cooling issues, but I have not heard how well they run a mulcher in the real world.

I would certainly demo them all to be sure they can run without overheating.

Get some demos out and tell us what you think.

I run a mulcher on a 465 and it really is a great set up.

 

[firetrack]

M series bobcat

Had a drive of Bobcats new 630 today and was not impressed as it was very noisy and seemed to have a lot of vibrations at idle. The dealer told me that he thought it was quite but my old S185K SJC was definately quiter and smoother to operate. Liked the improved vision, entry, cab layout, storage pockets, lights though. I asked the dealer if it had the noise attenuation kit installed and he didn't know what I was talking about so we went through the options available and it is apparent it doesn't have it installed. Has anyone operated one with the sound kit in it.
JD skid steers are not a big player in my part of Australia so I didn't realise they had a problem with cooling - was it with hyd oil or engine temp?
Now probably not going to have mulcher, but will have chipper, laser blade, tilting hitch, 4in1 bucket, pallet forks, chain trencher, slasher(rotary cutter). I now realise that the 630/650 size Bobcat and 328 JD aren't up to the task of a mulcher.
thanks for the input

 

[MXZ]

The issue with the old Deere's was hydraulic cooling in demanding attachments such as a mulching head. Required an auxillary cooler to be fitted if you wanted to run one. The new cooling system has more cooling surface and 1st pass air over both the oil and coolant radiators, as well as the option of fitting a reversible fan to intermittently clean out debris while working in dusty situations.

On paper looks like a nice setup, but as previously mentioned, they haven't been out more than a few months, so not a lot of field time to really know how they're working in a mulching application. I'd be interested to hear if anyone's got one out there in that line of work.

 

[Builtstronger]

The Cat CTL's tracks cost $5500.00 they haven't replaced many due to the fact that they are so new. Bobcat gets around 2000 hours out of theirs. I guess the question is can you get more work done in an hour to justify the extra cost.