Mini Digger Worth the Money?

[patp]

We have seen a 3.8 ton tracked mini digger for sale. They want £9000 plus Vat. Is this good value do others think? We are right at the beginning of our project and are doing ground source heating. We have several offers, locally, to hire diggers. Next door farmer friend wants £50 per day. 

 

Pros of buying own one is not worrying about other people's property and cost.

 

Cons are resale value - we are not very good at selling and can be a soft touch for a hard bargainer!

 

Pat

[patp]

Digger looks to be in very good condition. Dry stored. Comes with 5ft 2ft and 1ft bucket on rubber tracks.

 

[K78]

If you can hire one for £50 a day, why on earth pay £10,800 for one?

[nod]

This pops up on a regular basis 

Those that have diggers find them invaluable 

But with diggers there’s no one size fits all 

3.5 is your most versatile 

Personally I think hire is the best option 

Certainly in your case £50 is a great price 

[Ferdinand]

I would hire the farmer’s, depending on any conditions not mentioned here.

[patp]

Farmer's one does come with a negative. While out on hire someone put the wrong fuel in and it has some sort of algae growth in the tank. This means that the filter has to be changed regularly. Not a problem for us as Chris is very mechanically minded. Just another little negative. It is just a few hundred metres away on the farm so that is a positive.

Chris hates bothering people so he would rather have his own machine but I think the hire option is the better one. If this one goes wrong then farmer about a quarter mile away has one we can hire too.

[Gone West]

We hired when we wanted one, also at £50 a day, although several years ago. The chap was at the end of the road, brought it down, with diesel. All the advantages and no hassle if anything goes wrong.

[ToughButterCup]

There are pros and cons to a  decision either way. Local circumstances and risk appetite are  important factors.

 

Diggers  damage things, break down, eat budget. But if you can mend things, maintain the digger and re-sell it at roughly what it cost - what's to lose ? Here's my answer:

 

I took a year and many posts on BH on whether to buy, and then which one to buy: long story short, after 4 years, we're nearly ready to sell our Kubota.

I have put 500 + hours on the engine, replaced the tracks, maintained it to a very high standard - dealer only on site servicing.

 

Cost via the purchase route 

Initial outlay £13k

Off the top of my head: new tracks, new track clips and a full 500 hours service £700. Replacement hoses £50. Bits and bobs - massive shackles, official Kubota lifting hooks £150. Massive lifting chain £100.

Say £14k

Sale: very worst case  £10 k

Nett cost: £4k

 

Cost via Hire

500 hours (same engine hours as above)  = 62.5 days

For my type of digger, the cost is £150 per day plus transport : £210

62 * 210 = £13,020

Nett cost: £13k

 

The kicker is that through the purchase route, the digger is available 24/7 at the drop of a hat - sometimes all that was required is a fifteen minute job with a digger that saves a two man / day job. And you cant get that level of utility with a hire digger.  Nobody can arrange a hire  to suit the requirement for a 15 minute job. 

 

Finally - and this surprised me most - most of the jobs done with the help of a digger had nowt to do with digging

 Lifting, smoothing, nudging, squashing, anchoring, hammering (posts), blocking, holding still enabling one-person working where two would have been required.

 

Even my wife loves our digger

" Best thing we've bought to date" she's happy to repeat to anyone who will listen.

"Better than the scaffolding?"

"Well just about, yes"

 

The key thing is context. Perfect for us : maybe not for you.

 

A 3.8 for £9k? Hmmm - I'm wincing a bit.

How many hours on the engine, what are the tracks like, look at the track clips, and how sloppy is the main ring? Proportional controls?Service Schedule  fully stamped?

 

With your own digger there's one big disadvantage, yer mates all want to play on  it- so I have a garden gnome ready for them. His name is Clarence.

"If you can lift Clarence off the ground without knocking him over , you can have a play". To date, only one young lass has managed it. Diggers need a gentle touch.

[MikeSharp01]

3.8T is a biggie- 1.5T is all you are going to need if that is too small then you probably need a 6 or 8T machine. You cannot move it yourself and the market for such size machines is largely commercial and not self builders. 

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, MikeSharp01 said:

[...] You cannot move it yourself [...]

 

Good point Mike. I have 3.5tonne Land Rover. Ergo, I can only move a trailer  with a digger that weighs 3.5 tonnes LESS than  the weight of the trailer. 

Hence my Kubota 203alpha AND three buckets is bang on the limit for me. If @patp you have a bigger tow machine you can tow a bigger digger. Don't forget the bucket weight is added to the digger weight.

[patp]

Great answers, as usual

 

£9000 + VAT is, of course, the asking price. Not sure if they would take an offer? Then we would have to bargain and, just like above when we come to sell it, we are not very good at that side of things. We nearly always make a loss, or they stay here and rot.

 

We also have the problem that we probably have just enough money to build the shell before we have to sell our current house. Buying a digger might scupper that and force us to sell up in the Autumn/Winter