Thank you very much for the reply! I had heard B models, in particular the 980B were junk so wasn't sure if all B models were or just that one in particular.
I'm just going to be loading top soil, dirt and bark on a moderate scale I think so was thinking the 544b would be able to handle it. It looked like a really clean machine (whether that was from the pressure washing or not), quite a few new hoses, oil and filter changes very recent, new starter and a couple other newer parts. The pins seemed to be pretty tight too, hardly any wiggle room in them. I think whoever owned it took really good care of it as the body didn't have any dents, had all the doors to cover the engine etc. Seems like a clean machine. Says there are 1808 hours on it but I know that isn't right.
Was reading around on some threads and google, sounds like the b,c,d series had tranny problems? Anyone hear of that? Could also be due to operator error BUT don't want to have to fix something all the time.
Can't seem to find any 544e loaders near me that I can look at.
Included 2 pics of the actual machine itself.
I have two IT28B with 13000 and 11000 hours and not to many major problems love the quick hitch but loader work is less productive than a z-bar linkage loader. the bucket is slower and the roll back and dump angle is less but if not working in production they are fine. the 544b is in my opinion very comparable as it does not have the z-bar linkage either. My preference would be go a little newer to a 544e if looking for large production but depends on the work you are looking to do. My 544e has 4k hours runs good and I like this loader a lot for loading topsoil and gravel but doubt it will make 30k hours. I have had a 544a before and feel that it was not as good as the cat IT's. The earlier deere only have a 2 spd trans where the cat has the 4 the deer I had always ran hot when worked hard even after many things were tied. The deer also burned more fuel than the cats it seemed.
