Should i buy a second hand excavator or new? help

[Lionelgeikie]

can anybody give me some advice.. dont know which 1 should i buy OLD excavator or New excavator help please!!!!!!!

 

[chevota84]

What do you plan on doing with it? What size? How hard do you want to work it? How much money do want to spend? Hows your mechanical ability? Personally id rather buy a good used cat, komatsu, deere over a darkmatch new machine.

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[digger104]

If you have the money there is nothing like new, but that is a lot of bread unless you have a lot of work, You could buy a good used unit and if you are handy, save a lot of money, It all depends on you usage and skills. and if you want to work on a excavator or not. Also you could get a used unit that has a lot of hidden problems, and part are very expensive. Maybe you could find a good used unit with a warranty, but with that being said you will pay more up front to cover the unknowns. Or you may be lucky and buy a good used unit and run it for year with little problem, It is all how the cards fall.

 

[Kobe130]

Good comments both. I just bought a used machine - Kobelco SK130 a 1998. Bought it thru machinery trader with Internet pictures only. It had its share of problems but also a couple of delights such as a reman engine recently installed plus a redone boom cylinder and few leaking hoses. On the downside the wiring was a nightmare - I ripped it all out to redo it. I didn`t pay that much for this machine and feel I still got a fair shake - but then I seem to be a demon for taking on mechanical challenges. I shudder to think what a guy with limited mechanical or electrical skills would do with this baby, if you hired somebody and paid Kobelco prices for all parts it would cost you a fortune. If you have confidence in your abilities to fix things and won`t be operating 10 hours a day used might be pretty good. But if you have enough work for it, personally I think $165,000 for a new Kobelco SK210 is a steal. Good luck and happy digging.

 

[eianewb]

kobe130, have you already redone the electrical on that 130 machine? i have the same one, same year, and was thinking of doing the same thing. hardly anything electrical works on my machine, but it is sound mechanically. what do the new harnesses cost? is it pretty much plug and play, or is it a nightmare?

thanks!

 

[Kobe130]

kobe130, have you already redone the electrical on that 130 machine? i have the same one, same year, and was thinking of doing the same thing. hardly anything electrical works on my machine, but it is sound mechanically. what do the new harnesses cost? is it pretty much plug and play, or is it a nightmare?

thanks!

I am in the process of redoing it. As with yours, anything steel is in nice shape but few electrical functions worked when I got it, most of the switches were missing, in fact when it was delivered it quit running about 15 ft from where I wanted it after running on the truck for 3 hours(!!!!!!!!). When I started looking at the problem (key broken off in igniton switch & non functioning battery relay) I could see it needed lots of love and attention in the electrical dept. I didn't price out wiring harnesses as I only want minimal functions to work like engine, safety lockout, 2 sp travel, auxiliary hyds. There was a huge mass of wiring in this model - to me most of it was unused and a hazard so I took it out. Replaced the battery relay with an aftermarket manual HD off/on switch from ColeHersee - lots of stuff like tha - the simpler the electrical is - the fewer the problems. Engine idiot lites are being replaced with actual working guages so I can tell what the little 4BT is doing. Prefer them anyway. I'm just running new wiring sometimes in different places than Kobelco did it to avoid hot things like the turbo and dirty places. I'm sure the OEM harnesses are very expensive. I may add back in some functions in future such as lights. Even there I would run 2 aftermarket 12 volts in series to be compatible with the 24 volt system. Probably much cheaper. At first it seems like a daunting task but once you get the old crap out of the way and draw some schematics it's not too bad. Even fun - up to a point!

Regards.

 

[eianewb]

kobe130,

i would sure like to get my guages working as well, i went out and bought an aftermarket guage set. i don't know if i can make it work or not. what kind of guages did you get and where? the one i have only has 6' long hoses and stuff... but i think i will need them longer, so i am thinking about returning it and getting electric ones since you can change the length of the wires easily.

thanks.

 

[Kobe130]

I have a bunch of mechanical aftermarket gauges I'm going to use and they seem to be long enough. The water temp runs straight from the sender location and thru the back of the cab to the right side of operators area. I'm trying to keep everything out of the lower area below the engine except for the starter solenoid. I agree the electric type can be easier to run. I wanted to replace the two main output hoses coming off the main pumps but its tougher to find the larger metric fittings here although it looked like they could do it if I waited for parts (non-Kobelco). I just laughed when Kobelco quoted me Cdn $ 760 to replace those 2 hoses. I used to think Cat prices were outrageous!

Regards

 

[REVHARD]

Hi guys, we found an IHI 40 ton crawler crane. does anyone here know the lubricant grade and capacities of such equipment or of any equipment with the same specs (40tonner crawler crane/excavator)
such as the following:
1. engine oil
2. gear/transmission oil
3. oil for the hydraulic system
4. other lubricants needed

need to decide if we need to have a drum of lubricants for these, just for the run-in period. i think this thing wasnt used for a long time. thanks for your replies in advance

 

[Piltownmax]

I would go for a second hand machine thats well looked after. A machine a couple of years old could be mechanically perfect and far cheaper than a new machine.

 

[Jlillie2]

I bought my machine (With a bad drive motor) for $2500.00, but I was able to fix that myself. A new machine would be preferable, but it would be closer to $35,000.00 so its kind of apples and oranges. If I had the 35g's I would have loved to have bought a brand new machine, but as I can fix most of the problems that come up myself the cheap machine works for me. So it would depend on the skill set you have, and what you have available to you.

 

[yanmarman]

yes buy used go to auctions where the day before you can run excavators of all types,and pick what you like. i run yanmars now