mini excavators

[Qualey]

Anybody here familiar with the CAT 302. 5? I'm not too keen on my local CAT dealer, but they have a 2002 with a cab, long reach stick and 2000 hours that they are pushing on us really bad. Seems like a lot of hours for $22,500. Do the little machines suffer from turntable wear, etc like the big ones, or does their weight save them some of this expense? I have been looking at the Bobcats and the Deeres as well, but CAT is willing to give a fair number for a 85" snowblower attachment that I want to unload. For what its worth, the machine will be used to dig graves as well as excavate for out wall, walks and driveway sites.



Thanks



Matt

 

[bmoeller]

22K sounds kinda high to me also, but I know they don't give those things away. I'm not all that familiar with the mini excavators myself, but I did see an ad for a J. D. 15? a couple of years ago, and they wanted 15K for it. That thing is 'bout as small as they come, if not the smallest. When I was Tech school, we had one there. They have steel tracks, not the rubber. Pretty neat, though.



Depending on how big that Cat is and if you have a skid loader w/aux. hydraulics, you may want to put one on the front of it. The mini that we had at school did O. K. , but was really slow compared to the one my boss rented for a couple days to use on his Case 1840.

 

[Qualey]

Bmoeller



I've looked at the excavator attachments, and although they are cheaper, the lack the maneuverablilty and small size the miniX has. Its not out of the question, but I don't think I could fit that setup into a lot of these New England graveyards



Matt

 

[Vaquero]

The dirt moving company I work for rented these little excavators to lay drainage pipe under an airport taxiway that we built. We first rented the Bobcat version and we were very disappointed with its power, controls, and reach. We then switched it out for a Cat version and I was impressed with its ability to dig in the 100% compaction dirt that the Bobcat had trouble with. I personally am a JD excavator/ hoe fan and Cat for everything else but I enjoyed running the mini Cat(controls, cab, reach). I'm sorry I can't remember the models we had but they were the same size. IMHO would go with the Cat or JD. As far as the price it seems high to me.



Hope this helps, Kris