A friend is looking at purchasing a small tracked excavator. Two he has looked at were a Cat 302.7 and a Kymron xh20D. The Kymron is a much lighter machine for less than half the cost. The use would be for installing and repairing rural water lines, meters, etc.
Does anyone have any input on this? What about Kubota and other brands?
I think he wants me to help him finance it.
There are a lot of factors to consider.
I've owned a few of these minis plus some larger equipment and run excavators up to 27 metric tons. The common factor is no matter what you are running, by the end of the day at least in some moment you'll want more power, a bigger bucket, and more reach. Intended to be humorous but true.
The point here is maximum dig depth is not really that useful of a specification. If you look around there should be a chart (maybe in the CAT performance manual which your dealer will have) that shows a profile of the digging capability. What will be immediately apparent is you don't want to be working for any length of time at max depth if you can avoid that, it is very inefficient. When you look at the chart it will be obvious where the optimal performance band is.
Next up I would be looking at dealer support, which is going to be a local consideration. I don't think CAT is the best machine available in the sense of performance, but their support for parts and service is legendary. I spent a lot of money with CAT for that reason. No matter what they kept things running. If you are not doing this full time or productivity is not a central concern this may not be as important. If keeping the machine running at all times no matter what and field service are important it would be hard to beat CAT.
At the other end of the scale I owned a Volvo excavator which I liked a real lot but the local dealership policy on parts support was so bad I would not own another one. That could just be a local problem, it really was a very good machine.
Probably the best machine I ever owned was a Kubota mini, it was the KX-121-3. With a hydraulic thumb there was very little in ordinary construction work like what you are describing that this machine wouldn't do, and I have no idea what Kubota's warranty service is like because the machine never broke down, it never gave me any trouble at all, it just worked. And it was quite powerful and well-designed -- if you need a bigger machine than this then you need a much bigger machine than this. The dealership was first-rate, I called them with part numbers and they shipped whatever I needed immediately so I could do my own service. Based upon my experience I'd buy Kubota again without hesitation, it would be my first choice unless there were some other compelling factors.
This all leads to the question of how big of a machine are you set up to tow. If you have a truck and a trailer already and you can work with something that fits with what you already have safely, that is a consideration. If you're going to be buying a truck and a trailer that opens up other possibilities. In that case I think it makes sense to get the biggest machine (within reason) that comfortably fits into the space you'll ordinarily be working in. It's frustrating, disappointing, and expensive to buy less machine than you need. It loses value the moment you sign for it, so trading up is rarely working in your favor financially.
Which brings us to the subject of used machines. If a machine has been well maintained and responsibly used it's possible to save a lot of money buying used equipment. Typically the dealerships make the financing quite attractive, but make no mistake about it, you're paying for that too.
That's what comes to mind off the top of my head.
