Welder Dave
Senior Member
I think the people that were questioning your purchasing a 973 was more of a cautionary reason. A 973 is a big heavy track loader and parts and repairs can be that much more expensive than smaller machines. You have a big advantage over some owner/operators in that you can do a lot of the repairs yourself. It has probably saved you more costly repairs going over the machine and fixing things at the first signs of trouble like the hydrostat hoses. I think a lot of non commercial (or cheap) users might try to save money by just replacing the hoses as they blow instead of being proactive and replacing all of them when they're the same age. There's also a lot of equipment owners that don't fix leaks or other problems until they become a big problem. It usually ends up backfiring and they have a bigger repair or the machine breaks down at the worst time or in the worst place like in the middle of a muddy job.