Alaska Dan
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2009
- Messages
- 58
- Location
- Wasilla
- Occupation
- I make a line of holsters and other gun related pr
I started looking at used dozers last week and the movie, "Used Cars" with Kirk Russell came to mind. In it he played an unscrupulous salesman rolling back odometers on older cars from 120,000 to 35,000.
As I got further into it I noticed the hours reported on some dozers didn't make sense. For example, I looked at two Komatsus being sold by a used Komatsu dealer that ran and looked like 10,000 hour machines. The engines sounded bad, there was a tremendous amount of blow-by, gears grinded with the clutch all the way in, one wouldn't turn left while backing up a slight incline, and overall they just looked rough and not well maintained. The Hobbs Meter said 2600 & 2700 hours. 11K each.
I asked a dealer about this and he said Hobbs Meters can be rolled back. And a friend at a rental company said sometimes they'll swap out meters if one goes bad, but will log it into their maintenance records.
I like Komatsu because of the size, but don't know much about them. I admit to being cynical. I don't want to buy something I think has 2700 hours when it actually has 10,000 and needs a new engine or transmission in 6 months.
Has anyone else come across this?
As I got further into it I noticed the hours reported on some dozers didn't make sense. For example, I looked at two Komatsus being sold by a used Komatsu dealer that ran and looked like 10,000 hour machines. The engines sounded bad, there was a tremendous amount of blow-by, gears grinded with the clutch all the way in, one wouldn't turn left while backing up a slight incline, and overall they just looked rough and not well maintained. The Hobbs Meter said 2600 & 2700 hours. 11K each.
I asked a dealer about this and he said Hobbs Meters can be rolled back. And a friend at a rental company said sometimes they'll swap out meters if one goes bad, but will log it into their maintenance records.
I like Komatsu because of the size, but don't know much about them. I admit to being cynical. I don't want to buy something I think has 2700 hours when it actually has 10,000 and needs a new engine or transmission in 6 months.
Has anyone else come across this?