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Newer Hyundai excavators?

245dlc

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Hi guys we've got a small excavating company and the bulk of our work is utility installations and fine grade work like laser ditching and drainage related work. We also do some brush mulching with our Promac 36" brush cutter and our 52" Promac flail mulcher. We've got an '06 Hitachi ZX160LC with nearly 7,000 hours and its starting to need some pretty major TLC like pins and bushings, maybe a swing bearing, and at least one seal for the track slack adjuster. However its been very reliable and give very little trouble and has excellent fuel consumption. Our other excavator is a 2013 Kobelco SK210LC Mark 9 with the POS CNH or Fiat Iveco engine that has caused us quite a few issues with its DEF system (that has since been resolved with a bypass) and then last summer the fly by wire control system had a major SNAFU resulting in us not being able to use the auxiliary hydraulics. The dealer that sold us the POS Kobelco is also now selling Hyundai and I've been wondering what the quality and reliability of these machines is like? I think if we did get one it would be either another 160 or a 180 as the 220 model would be too heavy for our truck and trailer. I would also be hoping to get one with a backfill blade as I see its an option on their website and they come in very handy on a wide variety of jobs.
 

Tones

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I understand your thinking about the blade so I'll give you a little heads up. Blades on excavators shorten the life of the track drive in a big way. The drive system is only manufactured to move the total weight of the machine with a small portion of time working on incline/decline. Using a blade has the same effect on the drive as working on an incline. Hyundai use Hydash/Nabtesco drives and they are not that well designed and are not cheap to replace or repair.
 

245dlc

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Yeah I know about undercarriage wear but its something that keeps us on hire longer and we don't have to bring in another piece of equipment. But yeah I didn't know anything about the hydraulic systems or the mechanical systems that Hyundai uses which is more what I'm interested in. What is the quality of the steel they use like?
 

John C.

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In my experience both the Korean makes, Hyundai and Doosan, are about a generation in technology behind the majors. I've been hearing they are getting better with the cheap stuff that usually fails. Plastic parts, electronic components and electrical connections where always the pain a few years back. Hyundai and Doosan logging machines are showing up big time in the PNW. They are a whole lot less expensive to purchase up front but don't seem to get the long life the major brands get. I had one customer tell me years ago they got double the production over a Cat log shovel. When I asked them how, they told me they could afford to buy two Doosans for the price of one Cat. Then a couple of years ago they traded the Doosans in on a couple of Cats.

I'd recommend checking out how hard it might be to get some electronic parts and wear items like undercarriage before taking the plunge. As far as service personnel go, I recommend you have someone pretty sharp on call to fix them. There are not many good wrenches able to repair them and so far as I've seen not much literature available telling you how to troubleshoot and repair them.
 

245dlc

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Yeah I agree there aren't that many good mechanics anymore. This electronic problem we had last summer with our Kobelco was made worse by the fact that the dealer sent out a shop mechanic with little if any tools and most importantly no computer. I don't mind being a generation behind the other brands as long as parts are available quickly it just seems that everybody is going with electronic controls and I don't know if that's really something we need to pursue as pilot hydraulics have proven themselves again and again. But if components like the final drives and undercarriage are made out of garbage then that's something we can walk away from. We're not Cat fans and not much for Deere, the way there dealers in these parts treat small companies and the distance away they are from our area of operations we will likely stay with Hitachi......maybe Case.
 

stretch

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Up here in CT one of the local dealers has been selling Hyundais for 25 years and I know folks who have been buying/operating them consistently for 15-20 years without a major complaint. Heck, I hear people moaning more about Cat and the local dealer than the Asian brands! To me that speaks volumes about Hyundai and the dealer. I'm sure a lot of people on the board will tell you to run the other way, but they're a decent machine. My old man and I may get one in the near future.
 

dirthog

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We have been selling them for a good number of years and like was said they are about a generation behind but catching up fast. There parts and support is on par with everything else a lot of it depends on the dealer we send people to school regularly and have a good parts supply. They used to be cheaper than Kobelco and others but that is also changing fast also.
 

heymccall

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I understand your thinking about the blade so I'll give you a little heads up. Blades on excavators shorten the life of the track drive in a big way. The drive system is only manufactured to move the total weight of the machine with a small portion of time working on incline/decline. Using a blade has the same effect on the drive as working on an incline.

Seriously? Shirley, you can't be. Can you point to ANY proof whatsoever?
 

check

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in the mail
Seriously? Shirley, you can't be. Can you point to ANY proof whatsoever?
Seems pretty self-evident. Compare excavator undercarriages to dozer undercarriages. Dozer track drives are built much heavier duty because they have to be to push dirt.
 

John C.

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Dozers have been hydraulic motors and planetary reductions for many years. I haven't seen a small to mid size dozer in years that wasn't that way. Planetary reductions on dozers go back to at least the sixties on machines I've worked on.
 

Tones

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There is a huge difference in the build of track drive between dozers and excavators. I've experienced failures on excavator track drive motors that are fitted onto another machine similar to a dozer(OEM) and the splines on the hydraulic motors have FAILED multiple times, once sending crap into the planetary hub and destroying every gear and bearing. A $7000 fix, $14000 for a complete new assembly and a 12 week wait.
Hence my comment about blades on excavators.
 

heymccall

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I've got 4 6-9k hour TB180FR Takeuchis, 1 Takeuchi TB53FR with 8k hours, a 12k hour kobelco ed150srlc, 4 Cat 314 lcrs with between 3&9k hours, and a 12k hour Cat 321clcr with a blade, and out of all of them, only duocone seals on one set of TB180FR finals. Hell, I had a 14k TB035 that never had a final drive issue.
So, I've got to wonder, how can that be true(blades stress the final drives)?
 

John C.

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Broken final drives on excavators happen very rarely anymore. The blades on small to mid sized excavators do not have as much capacity to load up as their size and the cutting angles are set for the most part. I believe the engineers have used that design to reduce the impact loading and strain that can be applied to a blade on an excavator. Having said that I have looked a plenty of excavators with broken blades and push beams and original final drives.
 

dirthog

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The bigger excavators with blades on have much bigger drives and tracks on at least the Kobelco do.
 
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Hope you didn't buy the Hyundai, I have an 08 160 lcd7a with POS Mitsubishi engine and Hyundai CANNOT work on it! I even sent an email to Georgia office and got NO response. I can't imagine selling a product that you can't work on, they refer you to a local mechanic who doesn't have required software either. The machine only has 2700 hrs on it, so frustrating!
 

Bls repair

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A dozer should have about 1/2 the hours pushing.How many hours would a trackhoe with a blade have pushing out of say 5000 hrs
 

John C.

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That is a really good question. I don't know about time but the Cat dozers will tell you the distance traveled in each direction on the monitor panel. From my experience it isn't half and half usually. I'm guessing here but seem to recall somewhere around 60% forward and 40% reverse on a dozer was common. I would guess blade time on an excavator to be between 10% to maybe 25% for the most part. I have had to rebuild blades on excavators that had less than 2,500 hours on the clock so am guessing again that those machines used the blade a whole lot more.
 

dirthog

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Hope you didn't buy the Hyundai, I have an 08 160 lcd7a with POS Mitsubishi engine and Hyundai CANNOT work on it! I even sent an email to Georgia office and got NO response. I can't imagine selling a product that you can't work on, they refer you to a local mechanic who doesn't have required software either. The machine only has 2700 hrs on it, so frustrating!
Hope you didn't buy the Hyundai, I have an 08 160 lcd7a with POS Mitsubishi engine and Hyundai CANNOT work on it! I even sent an email to Georgia office and got NO response. I can't imagine selling a product that you can't work on, they refer you to a local mechanic who doesn't have required software either. The machine only has 2700 hrs on it, so frustrating!
It's not Hyundia that is the problem it's your dealer pure and simple. Hyundia will provide them with the information and everything thing is just like every other manufacture you have to pay for the computer programs and some dealers do not want to do that!
 
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