looking to purchase 2018 John Deere 300G (12'4" stick) OR Cat 330 Next Gen

[blowntire96]

Looking for any input/comments/suggestion today. Im a general contractor, own several older excavators, none of them are CAT or DEERE. concerned about 12' 4" stick opposed to the 10' 4" stick.

 

[Bls repair]

What are your concerns?

 

[blowntire96]

concerned about the 12' 4" stick operating performance most JD come with 10' stick

 

[blowntire96]

concerned about the 12' 4" stick operating performance most JD come with 10' stick

 

[Bls repair]

According to this 12’ 4” is standard

 

[heymccall]

Cat has a better track record with emissions controls.
Between the technology, the crap support from DTAC to my dealer, John Deere's court cases arguing that they own the software, and 5.5 months without my 1500hr 544K4i with what ended up being a plugged EGR cooler inlet, John Deere can go to hell.
Oh, and Murphy Tractor charges, on average, 15% above list price on all my parts.

 

[mister laugh]

The best way to make the decision will be for you to get in them and run them both, decide what you like. I worked as a tech and a deere dealer for 10 years. The 300G's are very solid machines, they perform very well. Around here the deere machines perform much better than the cats as far as downtime for after treatment issues. Personally I find the deere/Hitachi hoes to be much smoother operating than the cat counterparts. As far as the previously mentioned DTAC issues I have seen within the dealer I worked at, DTAC is only as good as the person asking the question. Any time someone puts in an intelligent inquiry and it's clear some thought or time was put into the issue before it was presented the answer was also intelligent and typically helpful. If an inquiry was something that had little time or effort put in on the front side the answer would typically be basic and not helpful. As far as the software goes you can get access to both suctomer versions of cat ET and Deere service advisor. Both versions are basically the same and do not allow programming of controllers. However as a small contractor both are likely cost prohibitive. Much cheaper to use your warranty, or just call the dealer on the few issues you will likely have put of warranty. I would also like to mention that when I was in the field as a dealer tech I would say 7 out of 10 emissions issues were caused by operators. Either aborting regens, idling the machine all night, or repeatedly shutting the machine down while it is in regen. Operator training if you are stepping into newer machines will be key in reducing your headache.