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Buying a digger


Vijay

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On 10 June 2016 at 19:18, dogman said:

Vijay,

if you live in London why not take a trip along the M4 and visit Newbury on the 22nd June

http://thehewdenauction.com/

Plenty to chose from normally

Took a trip with a mate to this auction today and glad I did. I didn't go with the intention of buying, it was more to look as digger sizes and what sort of money they go at auction.

It was mainly CAT diggers and the sizes I looked at were the 2.8, 3.5 and 5 tonne machines. Including fees and VAT, the 2.8's were around £10,500, the 3.5's were around £13,000 and the 5's were around £14,800. Most seemed to come with 1 or two buckets and from what I've been looking at online, these didn't seem to be anything special in terms of what you get or price.

So the search continues :)

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Not sure of the capacity, but the only smaller diggers they had were 2007/2008 Cat 301.6's, the cheapest was £5250 but had an accelerator problem. Five of them went for £6000 and one went for £6700. All those prices are + 3% + VAT :) each

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On 15 June 2016 at 11:49, DeeJunFan said:

Now I'm curious

Being curious tor a long time is good exercise. Probably.

Truth be told, I've forgotten what it was - but I thought I had over quipped.

Edited by Ferdinand
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12 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Being curious tor a long time is good exercise. Probably.

No it's not, it's torture.

It cause road rage. It cause sore necks. It causes road accidents. It causes wives to sigh. It cause children to tease. It causes bigger holes in bank balances. It's fun.

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6 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

No it's not, it's torture.

It cause road rage. It cause sore necks. It causes road accidents. It causes wives to sigh. It cause children to tease. It causes bigger holes in bank balances. It's fun.

(Reply removed for reasons of good taste).

:P

Shakespeare: If I prick you, do you not plead...

Edited by Ferdinand
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Any thoughts on Daewoo and Takeuchi diggers?  There is a 5.2 tonne Daewoo and a 4.75 tonne Takeuchi digger that have popped up. More money than I want to spend but I'm thinking long term and other uses (like lifting in the ground floor beams)

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2 hours ago, vfrdave said:

I think that's a good machine.

I haven't used one myself, but a local ground works contractor has one, and it was used to dig the foundations of my present house.  It is currently sat in next door's garden having installed his treatment plant earlier in the week.

I would go and have a look, make sure it runs okay, check for leaks, check how much play there is in all the joints etc.

The only difference is the one my local contractor has is on rubber tracks. That one is on steel tracks so it's probably older. Steel tracks last longer and seem to be harder to throw a track off, but they are somewhat unkind if you want to travel along a tarmac road in anything other than a straight line. My little 3 tonner has steel tracks so I wouldn't let that put you off.

 

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What do you think is the better buy for the same money, a new smaller machine of around 2.5 or 3 tonne or an older one of around 5 tonne? I've asked a couple of friends and they both said an older larger machine to make work easier.

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Really depends on what you need to do.

A big machine has greater reach and breakout force, and works faster.

A smaller machine will be neater on smaller jobs, and still manage to do most normal jobs around a site, just take a wee bit longer.

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If 1.5 metre is your deepest excavation, then just about any machine will do that.

For me, the choice was made by what was available nearby at the time. If the machine is to far away, transport costs add up a lot. Perhaps not an issue in densely populated areas where you will have a lot of choice nearby, but up here there wasn't much for sale close by.

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Evening Dave,

I understand things can be done with a smaller machine but I'm trying to think of the bigger picture oh how a bigger digger would make digging easier and quicker and also as your guys have pointed out, the other uses for the digger ;) 

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