Thanks for offering an opinion. This whole conversation is pretty anecdotal but I'd really like to hear more details about why you have that opinion. Can you please elaborate a little bit on that? In the meantime I will offer what little experience I have with Komatsu.I only saw the word komatsu mentioned briefly. Demoed a 305.5 thinking of replacing my 55 and no way did I want to own the cat after seeing and feeling the difference between the two.
I have a friend who has both a Cat 305C CR, and a Komatsu PC55MR (2018 I believe). When I asked him about it he basically referred me to one of his employees (To me that says that, even though he doesn't have a lot of direct seat time comparison to offer, he also doesn't have any major complaints about it either-visa vie the boss would be aware of major issues). His employee is also a friend of mine. The employee/other friend did tell me that he prefers the Komatsu over the Cat. He said he prefers the visibility (not fair comparison as the subject PC 55 is an open ROPS machine), how much smoother the hydraulics of the machine are, and that it will reach a little farther than the 305. The reach is not an issue as the 55 compares better to the 305.5e2 (which actually has a tad bit more reach than the 55 on paper). I actually like the tilting cab feature (for ease of maintenance) of the Komatsu. I do plan to go check his machine out and probably get a quote from the local Komatsu outfit. With my comments on performance out of the way I will move on to the, possibly more important, topic of support. While I have a dealer about 40 miles south of me (in another state), and a dealer about 10 miles north of me (it's more rather" kind of a dealer") I fear that support would be lacking with the Komatsu and I can't say if Komatsu is offering a sweet price, or the financing (zero down and 0% for 60 months). I guess we will see when I call them (I don't even know the salesman's name!). When I say "kind of a dealer" it is because the actual brick and mortar dealership is either 4 or 6.5 hours away from me. In my town said dealer has a fenced in yard (sub-letting most of it to one of our local material suppliers), a vacant double-wide, a shipping container with some parts (which they claim you can pick parts up from if you order), and a mobile mechanics truck. They have been claiming that they intend to build a real dealership here for the whole 20 years that I have lived here. That doesn't speak very well to their commitment to this area (to me anyway). My friend's PC55MR is the only small Komatsu I have seen in the area. There are quite a few larger units working around here and those that I have talked to are happy with them. Said dealer has actually put about 6 or 8 brand new Takeuchi minis in that yard recently. I do live in a small town so One could argue that I'm just in too rural of an area. That argument is easily de-bunked when Cat, Deere (and Hitachi), Case (and Kobelco), and Bobcat, all have real dealerships here. Regardless I will reach out to them even though I don't feel very comfortable with the level of support that I think they can offer. With all that being said I would still love to hear your (more detailed) argument about why you feel so strongly Komatsu over Cat regarding current 5.5 ton minis.