Looking to Buy a Mini Digger - anyone selling?

[patp]

Around 1.5 ton. With cab. Budget up to £10K. Build nearly finished just need it for tidying up and landscaping.

 

East Anglia preferred but will travel.

[nod]

I would definitely hire if that’s all you need it for

[PeterW]

+1 to hire. I pay £230/week delivered for a 1.5t, £300/week for a 2.5t which can pull a 4ft bucket so is perfect for landscaping. By the time you factor in service, insurance and depreciation you could get 4-6 weeks hire when you need it and not have a machine sat idle for days at a time. 

[Conor]

Got a call and email from my local hire company. 3 months ago I could hardly get a digger for a weekend and no offers or discounts. Now they are offering hire at 30% less now. Definitely haggle and hire

[patp]

These comments are interesting. He is not a fan of hiring as he has an over developed sense of responsibility. He will fret that they are waiting for the machine to be returned. Because of his health conditions he cannot rush anything and he fancies the idea of pootling about on his machine doing jobs as and when he feels like it. He also does love a machine  I will broach the subject though.

[Barryscotland]

I bought one as I wanted it there to be used when I had time and as an when it was needed (and if its there you use it for alot of things other than digging) rather than be tied to a timeline as to when its on hire. 

 

Guess it depends on the size and state of your plot and how far forward you are with your build but i'd always buy and the way they hold there price chances are you will get back what you paid. (Or at least thats what I told the wife and am Hoping!)

[markc]

Very few good machines at the right price at the moment. Shortage anyway and weak £ meaning loads of plant being snapped up and going abroad.

if buying ‘cheap’ be aware of potential repair costs, track motors and drives are like rocking horse Pooh and a slew block will cost a fortune.

[twice round the block]

I know the advantage of buying one at the start of a build, but even mine I had to put a new crown and pinion gear in it as I lost all drive.

 

If you own your own small machine you can use it when the weather conditions are suitable so you don't churn all the ground up, rather than being pressurised by a rental period to get the job done.

Buy from a local dealer  that way your transport cost will be less, make sure it comes with a selection of buckets.

Have a look on

 

www.machinerytrader.co.uk

 

I wouldn't hire, such a  handy tool to have available if you don't mind some of your finances tied up.

[patp]

That website looks great thank you. Have been looking on Facebook Marketplace but there are some dodgy people about on there:( It is too much money to risk.

[Vijay]

plenty of scams too. I bought mine from a dealer in the end

[markc]

8 minutes ago, Vijay said:

plenty of scams too. I bought mine from a dealer in the end

Oh yes! Whenever I see them on EBay I always send a message saying yes I will take it … same message comes back that it is presently in Edinburgh but they will bring it to me after I pay.  On one I said I was in Edinburgh at the moment so happy to collect and pay cash …. No response.

[Kelvin]

My neighbour got a horrendous quote from the DNO to supply two holiday homes he was building. (£65k) His son is a joiner and he advised him to buy digger as he’d make his money back. It cost him £14k and he reckons it’s saved him £50k in excavating work  plus he’s done more landscaping than he otherwise might have done. Better still he thinks it’s worth more than he paid for it and has been reliable.
 

He’s telling me to get one too but my challenge is my plot is rural with no immediate neighbour and loads of farm equipment gets stolen around here. I would do if we lived on the site. 

[twice round the block]

2 hours ago, patp said:

That website looks great thank you. Have been looking on Facebook Marketplace but there are some dodgy people about on there:( It is too much money to risk.

Buy from a dealer he will have the machine registered with TER Equipment Register and will give you the certificate of registration to prove it isn't stolen.

The risks are too great buying from Facebook, Gumtree, Ebay

 

Anyone with a trailer, dumper, digger etc should get it registered with TER, it costs nothing to do, and you upload the serial numbers plus photos of the item, if it's stolen notify them and the police. The police use the site to trace the legal owner of equipment when they do stop and searches etc.

[dnb]

On 31/10/2022 at 06:57, patp said:

Because of his health conditions he cannot rush anything and he fancies the idea of pootling about on his machine doing jobs as and when he feels like it. He also does love a machine

There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying a digger because you want a digger. I've done a lot of work with mine and there's a lot still to do, but when all is said and done I wanted a digger of my own.

[patp]

My brother was telling us of a lady who has MS. She keeps a couple of horses and she has a digger to do all the stable work around the place  

[ProDave]

Many on here including me have bought their own digger.  Mine was a very old one for not a lot of money and when I had finished with it I easily sold it for exactly what I paid for it.  Nothing major broke, just a few relatively minor repairs.

 

The big thing about having your own, is it is there when you want it. It often just got used for a 5 or 10 minute job which if hiring you would have to wait and bunch up all these little jobs into  one day of decent work, which would really have annoyed me not being able to do stuff when I wanted to.

 

I sold mine quite early on in the build, and it's final job was to take the piles of excavated soil and spread them around and level them to form the "lawn"  For a while we were probably viewed as idiots having a part built house surrounded by a nice lawn that I was regularly mowing.  To leave the landscaping until the house was finished as most people do, would have meant keeping the digger longer, or hiring one.

[saveasteading]

Beware. We (in business) used the same small groundworker for many years. He bought oldish excavators (about 5t) rather than hire or lease, and they always developed expensive problems, usually hydraulics, but sometimes tracks.

The repairs were often expensive until they ended up scrapped or abandoned on our site. Eventually someone would take it away foc. Presumably repaired on the  cheap and sold on...to diy?

 

How to avoid I don't know, without a premium to a dealer.

Why is someone selling this digger? I wouldn't know what to look at.

 

For a less hardworked machine on your own plot , I suppose there is a decent chance of getting away with it.

[Radian]

10 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Eventually someone would take it away foc.

I'd expect there to be no shortage of taker's.

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Radian said:

I'd expect there to be no shortage of taker's.

No, we had a digger with broken tracks, sitting in the way for a month. Nice, reliable guy, so we were soft. 

 I think eventually it went foc. He told me it was going to cost £3k or so to replace the tracks, and it needed hoisting off site. Probably any expert looked at general condition too eg why did the tracks come off?

[markc]

12t machine I bought last Xmas with a leaking drive hub, luckily bought it as a toy. Replacement drive hub £2200 but 11 months wait time so it might be running early next year. But worth keeping an eye on EBay earlier this year picked up a Sany 1.6t machine, full cab, 2017 and only 650hrs on it, as new condition with full paperwork for £12500 plus vat…. And it’s a great machine

[patp]

North of Luton machines seem to be much cheaper

[Roger440]

Thread resurrection.

 

Im looking for one too. Should never have sold my old one

 

Anytime in the next few months if someones project is coming to an end. Circa 3 ton, but consider a bit either side of that. Circa £7k would be nice. 

 

looking around, there are no old diggers  Where did they all go?

[twice round the block]

The market will be swamped with them shortly as the ground work and hire companies struggle to rent them out due to the lack of work in the domestic market and all new sites are being put on hold due to the up and coming interest rise.

People are pulling out of sales and the market is collapsing fast, with developer's trying cash incentives to get buyer's to sign.

I have a couple of emails per week where 25 to 45k has been slashed off the price of a properties in an area of Devon, where I'm looking to buy.

 

Sit tight and wait 3 month's and there will be lot's about for sale for a good price.

[Kelvin]

Average sale price is 3% below asking 

[Roger440]

1 hour ago, twice round the block said:

The market will be swamped with them shortly as the ground work and hire companies struggle to rent them out due to the lack of work in the domestic market and all new sites are being put on hold due to the up and coming interest rise.

People are pulling out of sales and the market is collapsing fast, with developer's trying cash incentives to get buyer's to sign.

I have a couple of emails per week where 25 to 45k has been slashed off the price of a properties in an area of Devon, where I'm looking to buy.

 

Sit tight and wait 3 month's and there will be lot's about for sale for a good price.

 

Hmmm, will be interesting to see if that pans out.

 

What sort of value properties are getting that much knocked off? Probably just a return to 2021 prices? Ive been following it closely for 5 years down there. Some grossly overpriced stuff this year.