Lets talk Komatsu.

Tony got me to thinkin' about Komatsu. I have run 375a and 475a dozers, 930 E haul trucks, and a pc 660 hoe. The 475 is a heck of a dozer. The 2 375's I ran pushed ok but would beat the snot out of you. One had steering clutches one had joystick control. The 660 was a great hoe, I'll still take a Cat or Deere. But, the 930 E was completley awsome. That is an impressive truck. I think the Cat 793 and 789 handle better in the wet weather, but the Komatsu was superior in any other way.

Over all I prefer Caterpillar. But Komatsu certainly has it's perks.... what do you think.

By the way Tony, the Komatsu logo is just for you.... for one more day!

I have only been on a couple of Komatsu excavators, mainly a PC400 and a PC1250... the 400 was slow and seemed a bit underpowered, as for the 1250... it was amazing.

"Lets talk Komatsu"

But I thought we weren't supposed to use foul language on here.

Brian

Ahh thats not foul language.....Hyundai... now thats foul language!

I believe "foriegn oil" is foul language in Ft. Crack though eh alco?

erick ive been around cats and komatsu one place had an ols 355a it was a hoss cats had final drive issues. they also had brand new d6r's and i was working on them when they were new they had a old d65ex and bad mouthed it but in the year i worked for them batteries and hoses is all but reg main. i did

rented a d65 and a d7 same time 65 pushed more dirt less fuel
like the cat cab better but like the look of the new konatsu

Having been a dealer field mechanic for a few years, I've worked on most of the line.

I haven't seen any other excavator ever compare to the PC400-3 & 5 in their days. You could make them run anyway you wanted them to run. That Dash five machine could still run over the top of any machine made today including the Dash eight line. They were the first truly computerized excavators and the first with load sensing hydraulics. The engineering on them was far better than anything built in the US at that time.

Having said that, I have to say I haven't thought much of the line since they started putting Cummins engines in the excavators and wheel loaders back in the early nineties. The other thing I have seen on Komatsu is that everthing on any of their machines tend to wear out at the same time. You lose an engine and within months the pump is shot and then a final drive and then a swing reducer and then the other final and on and on. The price of parts is at the point where you can't afford to repair them when so many big ticket items wear out at the same time. At fifteen thousand hours you have nothing left for trade in and you can't afford to fix the thing.

The big issue for me on the big dozers was the drive train pods. If you lose a steering clutch you pull the pod which means tipping the cab and removing the whole drive train. Now you might have only one item in that pod that is bad which might only cost a few thousand dollars to fix. But since all the oil is common to all the parts, you now have to go through the whole drive train for tens of thousands of dollars. Companies that run big dozers know it takes big money to keep them running, but all it takes is one swapout of a power pod at fewer than expected hours to knock the machine off the spread sheet.

With the price of parts and the poor resale values on used Komatsu equipment I wouldn't recommend buying them unless they get rotated out of the fleet before those high dollar repairs start showing up.

Let's Talk 'Kummagutsa'?

Hi, Eric.
I have yet to run a 'Kummagutsa' machine that I didn't enjoy running, at least since they progressed beyond the old, OLD D60A's and D80A's that were my first contact with them back in the 1960's. (Where were you then? Did your father even have a twinkle in his eye? LOL.)

Having said that, I will also reiterate what I have said here and elsewhere several times in the past. Parts and service for 'Kummagutsa' machines are hard to come by around this part of the world and 'Kummagutsa' machines in general, in my experience at least, seem to have only about 2/3 of the service life to first re-build of a similar Cat machine in the same work and only about 2/3 the life between subsequent re-builds too.

John C., many years ago. I worked with a company which owned 5 Kato excavators, 3 'Kummagutsa's' and 3 Cats. One of the Kato's was a 1220 Mark 2 and I would still rate it the smoothest and most powerful excavator that I have ever run on a pound for pound basis. It had NO computers and NO electronics.

The same company also had a Kato 1880 Mark 2 and a 'Kummagutsa' PC400-3. Everybody reckoned the 1880 was a slow pile of pus 'cos it spent almost all of the first 6,000 hours of its life running a set of demolition shears at about 1/2 throttle. It didn't matter how much force you used on those shears, the V8 Mitsubishi 'donk' just purred along with the same relaxed sound.

They bought the PC400-3 when the 1880 had 2,500 hours up. By the time they first got to work side by side with buckets on both, the PC400-3 had 3,000 hours up and the 1880 had 6,000 hours. Everybody reckoned the PC400-3 was the 'ant's pants', quick stable and powerful. When we put the two side by side on the same job, the Kato 1880 was wearing a slightly bigger bucket, by about 1/3 of a cu. yd. Turned out the Kato 1880 would dig 5 buckets to the PC400's 4 buckets all the time and would often dig 4 buckets to the PC400's 3. The only function on that slow old Kato that the PC400 did faster was walking.

In addition, the Kato just sat there and dug dirt while the poor 'Kummagutsa' operator was forever sliding around and having to get himself back into his digging position and he wasn't a mug operator. He was generally reckoned to be better than me, even by me, and I was running the Kato.

A large part of the difference was in sheer digging force. The Kato could sock its bucket half bucket depth into the tightly packed topsoil and simply roll it up for a full bucket. The PC400 had to dig only about 8" deep and keep working the bucket and dipper to fill his bucket. And it was still sliding all over the place just doing that. I also got the chance to run the PC400-3 in the same digging as the Kato on another job a couple of months later. I was using the Kato 1880 to load trucks with shale fill straight out of the face, un-ripped and un-shot. I had no trouble keeping 5 semi-tippers on the road. Then I blew a hydraulic hose and they gave me the PC400 for a couple of hours while the hose was repaired. I found myself working my 'fundamental orifice' trying to keep those same 5 semi-tippers on the road on the same haul. I was very pleased to have that 'slow old' Kato back.


The PC400 also cost somwhat more than the Kato 1880 in initial purchase price too. In its first 7,000 hours, the Kato had a new radiator, a new planetary gear set for the drive to the hydraulic pumps and routine maintenance. Oh, and a couple of windscreens due to flying debris from the shears. The PC400 only had 4,000 hours on it when I left that company, so no real contest there.

Just my 0.02.

There are quite a few Komatsus around here (we have a pretty good dealer) and their excavators are regarded by many to be the best. There are several 200s from -3s to -6s with 15-20,000 hours on them that are still going strong. Their dozers from what I have herd the early ones were a joke, but now they are good. The couple guys that have them say they will push more than a Cat, but they admit that the Cat is faster, so in the end it is a draw.

Hey Deas, The 60's ????:lmao:lmao Never heard of em'. I'm a 75 model myself.

I run Cat and Komatsu dozers. In my experience the komatsus seem to have small niggly problems but the engine and drive train stays good. On the small problems the costs mount up. The cats seem to be very reliable but when they go bang it makes a serious dent in your wallet.

sfc said:

I run Cat and Komatsu dozers. In my experience the komatsus seem to have small niggly problems but the engine and drive train stays good. On the small problems the costs mount up. The cats seem to be very reliable but when they go bang it makes a serious dent in your wallet.

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Most of the gear I ever owned was Cat, (stayed there because of parts back-up and service) however we worked alongside Komatsu gear and it worked and looked OK to me. If a Chevy, Ford or Toyota gives a good run, you will buy another. Right..........C ya........Ray

Komatsu makes a strong excavator, however from the parts end they are not even close to cat. Most of the Japanese machines are made to last about 5 years from what one person working for a Komatsu dealer was telling me. Then after that there look at it as junk it and buy new. Really do not see to many older Komatsu machines still running like you would with Cat.

Komatsu Dozer

Hello Folks,
Since the subject was brought up, I was not sure how many folks would tolerate the Komatsu manufacture. I have a couple of pics of the unit I had purchased several years ago. The purchase was based on supply and demand and price. The problem I have is that this unit is a "Grey" model which at the time I had no clue what that meant. Well now I need some parts and finding the parts are not the same as the american model..

The question I have would anyone know where a dealer in the USA would sell or get access to "Grey" model parts?

Thank you,
NOB

Actually I don't know of any Komatsu dealers that won't sell you parts. Just give them the serial number and tell them what you need. The Komatsu parts system doesn't care who the machine was made for. All that they cared about was selling another machine.

Most of those machines that I worked on came in with a parts book. It was written in Japanese but the numbers are there with the drawings.

Good Luck!

Parts Problem

John C. said:

Actually I don't know of any Komatsu dealers that won't sell you parts. Just give them the serial number and tell them what you need. The Komatsu parts system doesn't care who the machine was made for. All that they cared about was selling another machine.

Most of those machines that I worked on came in with a parts book. It was written in Japanese but the numbers are there with the drawings.

Good Luck!

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Hello John C.

I had tried that route and the local dealer and some others had indicated that they could not supply some of the parts. That could be do to the fact the dealers parts guy did not want to research on the cross reference or just plain lasy... With the serial number that is how I had found out it was a grey unit. If any of you may have a good parts guy or dealer you deal with please let me know. I have contacted a few just from browsing on the internet and had sent them the information but it seems a few did not respond back? and when they did they did not respond to my calls via voice mail left for them. I do not mind the shipping charges at all.

As I had posted the pics the second one down is where I need the part. The track adjuster is a grease filled ram drive that tensions the tracks. The seal had bursted and causing the tracks to come off, and also the main drive gear the teeth seem to be a little sharp on the points and may need to be replaced "Third pic".

I hope I did not highjack this thread maybe I should have started a new thread, but hoping that someone maybe abe to point me in the correct diection. I have purchase the equipment personaly for my farm. I am not a contractor or have a business unless these units have an xray unit attached..LOL I work as a field service engineer on medical xray units and industrial.

Thank you,
NOB

'60's models.

Hi, Eric.
I suspected that you would not be of a vintage where you could have much experieince of those earlier Kummagutsa machines. I wouldn't rate them as complete disasters, simply as not being as user-friendly as the Cats of the time.

Of all the Kummagutsa machines that I have had anything to do with, it seems to me that their excavators have the best service life.

Re Kummagutsa machines out-producing the 'equivalent' sized Cat machines, has anybody looked at the relevant specs hard enough or long enough to notice that the Kummagutsa machines almost always have more horsepower and more weight than the Cats they are usually matched against? 'Nuff said?

John C, NightOwlBird's problem is not that the Kummagutsa dealers won't sell him the parts. It is more that they don't have the parts to sell him because the model that he has is not one that Kummagutsa themselves imported and distributed but rather a model that was imported by another party and sold without a dealer network to back them up. The machine itself is a Kummagutsa, just not a model that Kummagutsa supports in the U.S., because they didn't originally import it. That is why the term 'grey market' was coined.

Komatsu Grey Unit

Deas Plant said:

Hi, Eric.
I suspected that you would not be of a vintage where you could have much experieince of those earlier Kummagutsa machines. I wouldn't rate them as complete disasters, simply as not being as user-friendly as the Cats of the time.

Of all the Kummagutsa machines that I have had anything to do with, it seems to me that their excavators have the best service life.

Re Kummagutsa machines out-producing the 'equivalent' sized Cat machines, has anybody looked at the relevant specs hard enough or long enough to notice that the Kummagutsa machines almost always have more horsepower and more weight than the Cats they are usually matched against? 'Nuff said?

John C, NightOwlBird's problem is not that the Kummagutsa dealers won't sell him the parts. It is more that they don't have the parts to sell him because the model that he has is not one that Kummagutsa themselves imported and distributed but rather a model that was imported by another party and sold without a dealer network to back them up. The machine itself is a Kummagutsa, just not a model that Kummagutsa supports in the U.S., because they didn't originally import it. That is why the term 'grey market' was coined.

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Thank you for responding to the my response. I have never seen the word "Kummagusta" I would assume "Komatsu"? I think you hit the nail on the head! Very well put in your response! I am hoping that there maybe a dealer who would be able to help. I am not very good with translation with Japanies lang. and if I can not find a dealer in the US to help then it is going to be a long learning curve to learn Jap... or even be on the same page to explain a part.... Oh I wish I had taken the alternative american lang coarse (Spanish) to learn Jap... instead...

Thank you,
NOB

I have never ran anything Komatsu in fact I don't know if I have ever been on a job with any of there iron.

Dozerboy said:

I have never ran anything Komatsu in fact I don't know if I have ever been on a job with any of there iron.

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The only thing we run is Komatsu.