Which brand excavator do you like the most?

bobcat have been bought by doosan some years ago..(2-3 years think?) but can"t argue on them since a never made a full day with one..doosan make some bobcat excavator model, the new "M" series are shared on both side except for the paint!! personally i"ve just worked with a deere and kubota on mini..and prefered the kubota..

there"s some doosan here in montreal aera...however komatsu and after cat are the most popular here...

1. Volvo (had EC240B 9000hours, Just bought brand new EC240C absolutely brilliant, both have extraordinary power and smooth.)
2. Sumitomo (SH120 and SH210 very quick machines, economical and good breakout especially the 12T)
3. Cat (Used older 322C, had a soft spot for it.)

Never tried Komatsu, but heard nothing but good things. Mini's would have to be BOBCAT 323, 435 etc.

I'm a newbie here , but not with excavators,it all depends on what you are doing with them,for m for digging services and residential work the cat 120 c or cl were monsters graded great and had gobbs of power, for pipelining the hitachi or deere 270 again were outstanding, it was not uncommon to get 1000 meters of ditch in a 10 hour shift, for big water and sewer, deere or hitachi, because of there ability to grade well at full extension, for statioary pit or quarry work , I would have nothing but a big cat but for anything that needs finese,I would probably go with..actually a link belt, awesome power great grading qualities and good track power.. but that just my opinion ...

cat and volvo would be my top two.

CASE I really like the Sumitomo excavators.

Link Belt

Kobelco

Volvo & Hitachi

Clearly, we need to drill down into the "other" category

Tracksoup71 said:

We had a CAT 5230 shovel that we got an award for over a million man hours, highest in the world for that shovel.

Click to expand...

I'm just curious, how exactly do they calculate man hours for a shovel?

1.hitachi
2.komatsu
3.cat

4. jcb and hyundai

I was thinking the same on the conversion of man hours to machine hours. Is it how long it would take a man to move the same amount of earth a certain distance? Hmmm... A million machine hours. It would have to run about 136hrs per day everyday for 20 years. That's a lot.

I've had the good fortune to have been the sole operator of 3 brand new excavators in succession during my nearly 30 years with the same logging road building and rock crushing company.
'88 JD 892D LC, '95 Cat 330BLC, and a 2001 Cat 325B FM Roadbuilder h/w, which as of yesterday has 11,685 hrs. All of them (to me), were the best excavator of their times, at least the way I was using them. Pioneering, decking r/w, endhaul, pit prep, digging shot hardrock, railcar bridge placement,rip rap, and miles of cross drain pipe installs. Company wide,we have gone through 3-JD, 2 - 2nd hand Komatsus and now are primarily Cat based.
Currently 1-322C w/hammer, 322B Roadbuilder, 2006 322D Roadbuilder with forestry cab, '08 330D Rb forestry cab. 325B LC (standard excavator), JD270? w/long reach boom, and my 325B roadbuilder.
Equipment comparisons can be tough, even interspecies. The reach and power of the 325's is the same, but the Roadbuilder package blows the standard away. H/w uc with Loman finals. Climbed up 77% without pulling or pushing.(stopped midway and measured with abney on window sill). Can work 55%. By '14, we have to have replaced my 325 with one with a forestry cab,and I am curious how other brands with roadbuilder packages compare. The brand thread of yours should help my research at least towards base machines.

#1 is Cat better machine, highest resale value and the biggest factor of all Product Support, I had the salesman from Volvo say to me " well how can you compete with Cats product support " To which I replied " Exactly so why would we want to buy anything but Cat? " Operators complain Volvo's are front heavy ( Best volvo is the 240 / 290 ) Volvo parts prices are out of this world and the delay in getting them is costly, Deere and Hitachi are second to Cat good machines, good resale and 2nd in product support. Kobelco machines in my opinion are O K but people complain to me about downtime waiting for parts, to which I reply should of bought Cat if you hate waiting for parts to arrive. And when they do arrive bring a ton of cash cause like Volvo they are way overpriced, We bought 2 EC460BLC Volvos New in 2006 for 390,000 grand and looking on the net right now i see newer ones with less hrs going for between 50 and 85 grand, We can't let ours go for that so we are stuck with them

when a "typical"...life/ownership of an excavator is 10k hrs...why in the world, unless you had sacks of cash..........spend the 30% premium for Cat equipment? my hyundai and case excavators...don't break down anymore, maybe less even...that my local competitor's 320's. sure, his 320 cat at 10k hrs. might be worth 20-30k...my case and hyundai will have scrap value if nothing else...and i'll have the cost of borrowing that extra 30% money in my pocket. IMO...buying/owning a cat...is kind of like saying..."yeah, i got me a harley"

1 Cat
2 Deere
Pretty much all you see here is cat and deere not really any of them ither brands thy are far and few between the only other thing u can buy here is volvo

I have to say, that i think for the most part, the mainline machines are all the same. I know my volvo has several boom options, several counterweight options.

So comparing machines has to start with how its speced out. You pretty much have to see the order sheet for that.
So to say something like this one has more power than that one, i have to ask, does it really? I tend to think the quoted numbers like breakout and lift force pretty well describe a machine. I like to go by them.

I could be all wet though.

lol my budddy claims the cycle times on a deere are twice as fast as cat i ran deere i dont think so i prefered the 315 over the 160 myself

]dblott. put some fotos up in the logging section. i love the road building hoes, all decked out with guarding and heavy duty everything.
i am a Link - belt man all the way.
have had komatus before. run alot of hoes. but i just like the l-b's .

Cat
Komatsu
Deere

Hello all. Please see what I found recently: www.komatsupartsbook.com
There ara free on-line Komatsu parts catalogues.