John Deere Skid Steer & Mini Excavators

[Land Design]

Hello,

I was just wondering if I could get some input from all of you about John Deere skid steers and mini excavators. I have been looking at their website about these machines and am now looking for some "real world" input. Just wondered if some people could share their views of these machines (any models) good and bad. Feedback can be with the machines used for any line of work, landscape, construction, demo, etc........

THANKS!

[Caribbean Breeze]

Land Design,

In my experience, I will tell you that John Deere makes a good skid loader. Hitachi makes most of the excavators large and small which is also good.

In skid loaders, I would rate them in the 5th or 6th position in terms of being the best overall unit.
Bobcat, Case, Gehl and Cat have better machines.

If I wanted a durable, rugged machine, I would buy something like Bobcat or Case or even Gehl. John Deere skid steers have had many issues, even the newest series, I know that the loader arm cannot take the punishment from some applications that other brand can take. The arms start to swing when elevated...

In Mini Exc's, Kubota, Bobcat & Takeuchi are in my opinion, the better quality units. The Hitachi / John Deere units are not bad, but I would spend my money with a brand that is making there own, in order to ensure that my machine wil have value down the road and parts will be available always..
My good friend has a 317 and just bought a Bobcat S175. I realize that he does not like the way his 317 is working with his Hyd. hammer.

I operated a Bobcat 430 for a week and was very happy with its power and serviceability,

If you need anything else, let me know,

Caribbean Breeze
Proud Supporter & User of Komatsu Heavy Equipment

[jd270]

so far i have had the jd 270 has been the best trouble free skidloader i have ever owned way better than the 873 bobcat i had before it even has the same motor as our 555g crawler loader the arms are way heaver than the bobcat and they dont wobble even with my 84inch tooth bucket loaded with dirt all the way up.....the machine is built way heaver than a bobcat and for me the jd dealer is way better than the bobcat one so guess to each his own buy what you like

[thepawnshop]

Land Design,

I own both a JD 320 Skidsteer & a 35D Mini-excavator. I demoed both the Cat and the Bobcat skidsteers before I bought the 320. I love teh machine. It has a weight distribtion that puts 60% of the weight in the rear and 40% up front whereas everyone else goes with a "70/30" split, which to me seemed more "tippy". We ahve used it to load fill dirt onto dump trucks and haven't had any problems, she digs great and is a good all around size. As for the hammer issue that Carribbean spoke of, well, the 317 and 320 are both small machines and may not hammer well. Personally, I would rather not run a hammer on my own machine. I think I will rent one (machine) when and if the need arises (it beats the hell out of your machine!)

As far as the mini's go, I only tried out the Cat 304CR and the JD 35D. YEs, teh JD is a rebranded Hitachi, but I think Hitachi makes some of the best excavators in the business. I LOVE the 35D. I prefer it over my skid in most situations, but the skid can move more material faster. I know you would not be going wrong with either machine...BUT you need to get them out and demo them. Try them out, see how comfortable you are in the cockpit. THat way you will know for sure you have made the right decision. And if the dealer doesn't want you to try their machine for a couple of weeks, then they don't want to sell you a machine.

One other thing to consider as far as skid steers go...CTL's (Compact Track Loaders) can do the same work as a skid in more types of terrain than a skid. I would like to get one of those myself, but since I have only had my skid 6 months I am too upside down to consider changing (though the JD version isn't coming out until September!).

Good Luck making a decision...the demoing is part of the fun. It's great to have two or three machines on your site at the same time so you can try something on one machine and then instantly jump on a competitors and try it again!

[Caribbean Breeze]

Land Design,

John Deere skid steers have a unique loader arm design. Yes the arms are heavier, their design with has numerous pivot points, vertical lift units have numerous pivot areas as well, now the fact is as follows-

In Puerto Rico, the John Deere dealer which is Casco Equipment, has a rental fleet of about 20 machines. These machines are not John Deere but Bobcat.
They do not want to buy JD. and of course John Deere was not happy about that! In PR the people beat the crap out of everything that is in rental. The Bobcat machines have a sure advantage for running attachments such as Hammers & Planers. The Bobcat, Case, Cat, Gehl, Mustang all have stronger arms. Case has a very strong vertical lift arm, probably the best...

Weight of the arm does not matter - it is its rigidity that matters, on the arm of a John Deere, the pivot areas - pins wear and contribute to BOOM SWAY.

If you elevate a machine loader arm that has 3000 hrs or more, push on the side of the bucket, this sway - all machines will eventually have - JD normally has more than others.

I think John Deere has great Backhoes, Ag Equipment etc. but many users are yet to be convinced of their ability of the SSL to stand up to attachments.
But come on guys - the partnership with Hitachi is not going to be for much longer - then what happens to you parts availaibility and support in the long run...... when these short term, marketing ventures come to an end?
If tomorrow it ends and today you bought a JD mini, I do not want to even think about resale value........


jd270,

is weight a advantage to someone whom does landscaping, drive on jobsites that often has mud ? I think you may be right about the weight but this point may not really be to the advantage of LAND DESIGN.

All the best!,
CB

[Land Design]

Hello,

Thank you to all that have replied! Your insite is very helpful and much appreciated. Any other opionions/observations by those that have posted or anyone else would be great!

Thank you,
Phase 3

[Scag48]

Well I guess I'll put in my 2 cents worth. We have a Cat 216 skid steer and just recently purchased a Cat 303CR mini excavator. The 216 in almost 2 years old with about 350 hrs on it and it performs flawlessly for the last 12 months. We had some small hydraulic system problems when we first bought the machine, but our dealer took care of that. The 303CR has only 12 hours on it, but we had a rental unit until our machine showed up and I have about 50-60 hours on a 303CR and I like the machine ALOT. Smooth, quick, very strong for a machine it's size, and overall a great performer.

Personally, I think equipment is just like trucks, everyone is brand loyal and for some (myself included) are very leary of switching brands, especially when you've had good luck with one brand. But in our case, dealer support and a company comitted to quality products is worth everything to us. There might be a better machine than our 303CR or our 216, but in my eyes, there isn't one. My advice is to demo what you can and take into account dealer support, serviceability, ease of operation, etc. when making a choice. You'll know what machine to buy when you find it, it'll just hit you and there will be no doubt in your mind.

[ksss]

The size of skid steer really shouldn't matter when it comes to using a hammer. Properly sizing the hammer to the machine is whats important. If I bought a skid steer and felt I needed to rent a skid steer to do hammer work, than I bought the wrong skid steer. Our machines get heavy hammer usage especially the 70XT. The hammers are hard on the hydrualic fittings, but other than that I have not seen any impact on the machines. I was speaking to the store manager for the Deere dealership here on Friday (they sell Deere and Bobcat). He said that he would wait a couple of years before buying a Deere skid steer. While at ConExpo I spoke with a Deere rep for sometime about their new machines and their older machines. He was very knowledgable on what went wrong with the first series. He feels that the 300 series has righted the wrongs of the first series. They may turn out to be good machines, but they would not be my choice right now. If the 300 series is another dog you will not be able to give them away, much like the 200 series is now.

I think it pretty hard to find a lot of fault with the Hitachi mini excavator. I think the issue is more what your application is and how the strengths of the Hitachi match that. They are smooth and comfortable. I don't see them as being very heavy duty or having a great deal of break out. But if your not doing jobs that are dependent on these things, they would be a great choice. Choosing skid steers is much the same. Each brand seems to excel in different areas. Thats why demoing them is so important.

[Gravel Rat]

As for skidsteers all I have ran is Bobcat the old style with the foot pedals which definatly gives you a full body work out. If I was going to go with a skidsteer it probably would be a Bobcat machine they have been building skidsteers the longest. I would really like to try one of the tracked machines the rubber tired skid steers are really limited to the terrain you can go on. I also wonder if the track machines ride smoother ?

As for mini excavators I would say Kubota would be my number 1 choice I wasn't too impressed with Bobcat mini's.

[Land Design]

Anyone else have any comments? Anyone have additional comments they would like to add? What would you say John Deere machines rank overall out of the other manufacturers (best, worst, etc....).

Thanks,
Land Design

[Caribbean Breeze]

I would say that Bobcat & Case is clearly ahead of anyone else, Cat, Gehl make great units - I would say that John Deere presently with the 200 Series would rank in at about 5 or 6th place.

Volume wise they also fit into that area.

I want to be clear that Bobcat & Case are probably leading according to volumes.

CB

[thepawnshop]

The new John Deere series is the "300" series and it is a VERY good machine (yes, I am somewhat biased since I did buy a 320 with a bunch of attachments 6 months ago and I LOVE it!!!!). I only demoed the Cat, Bobcat and the JD, though so it is unfair for me to say anything positive or negative about Gehl or Case...BUT...Gehl has the best finance package going...60 months @ 3.5%. That is sweet!

[Planet Landscaping]

I chose a Kubota U35 mini x. 0% 2 years. Pulls a 24" bucket 90% of the time. Demo them all. :waving: Takauchi seems to be the rental unit of choice and that says something. But I got all orange stuff. :rolleyes: :cool2:

[coopers]

The rental company I work for strictly buys Kubota machines. From the CUT's to the mini excavators. I tend to be biased toward Kubota now when it comes to the excavators because I'm used to them. We carry the little kx-41's and the larger 121-3's and the 161-3's. I LOVE the 121's. I think they are very well built machines and we have ZERO problems with them. Ours come with the quick coupler and the hyd. thumb. One and two foot buckets and the three-foot cleanout bucket. We don't have any U35's probably because we don't have a demand for them. We carry two kinds of skidsteers, bobcat and gehl. Some people on here might know already that I absolutely HATE skidsteers. But, gehl IMO has not made a good skidsteer. Gehls's are way too touchy, they're very bouncy and you can't see out of the cage at all. Bobcat does seem to make a good skidsteer, but I haven't had the chance to demo others. I think the controls that cat has in theirs is pretty cool. In my county the major distributor is Kubota. They have two big companies in this county and the next one north that sell Kubota equipment. So a lot of guys buy Kubota here, from farmers to contractors, to rental companies like us. Not quite sure why we don't go with JD skidsteers since we buy their 310's, 120 excavators and larger. Along with their dozers. Maybe they're price is too high compared to Bobcat and Gehl or our GM didn’t like them. But what I do know is that JD makes AWESOME heavy equipment (so does Case). In the end you just got to go try out all the machines that interest you.

[ksss]

Bobcat, CASE, New Holland are the industry leaders in sales in that order. If I were to rank them in my order of personal choice. They would be CASE, Bobcat, maybe Komatsu, CAT, and in the also ran pile NH, Gehl, Deere. I am judging the Deere on the 200 series not 300 since I don't know enough about it to offer an opinion.

[Caribbean Breeze]

Bobcat, CASE, New Holland are the industry leaders in sales in that order. If I were to rank them in my order of personal choice. They would be CASE, Bobcat, maybe Komatsu, CAT, and in the also ran pile NH, Gehl, Deere. I am judging the Deere on the 200 series not 300 since I don't know enough about it to offer an opinion.

ksss,

I agree with you, John Deere does not have the the right formula just yet, the 200 Series were plagued with component problems, we cannot judge the 300 Series because the units are too new.
Case makes an excellent machine (probably the best for operators), Bobcat is probably a bit more aggressive off SSL's than Case.
I heard that the 300 series also had some lemons early in the production.

Caribbean Breeze

[jd270]

they must have sent all the deere lemons your way i havent had any problems whith my 270 there are piles of deeres around here and they are hardly ever in the shop 3 of my good friends are mechanics at my deere dealer and they say that they hardly ever have to work on them every body has difernt luck whith diferent brands or there would only be one brand made just like i will never own another bobcat pos buy what you like with the best dealer support

[Caribbean Breeze]

they must have sent all the deere lemons your way i havent had any problems whith my 270 there are piles of deeres around here and they are hardly ever in the shop 3 of my good friends are mechanics at my deere dealer and they say that they hardly ever have to work on them every body has difernt luck whith diferent brands or there would only be one brand made just like i will never own another bobcat pos buy what you like with the best dealer support

This is what has happened, Deere has sold many units that give no problems but ' total quality control' they did not have. In Puerto Rico, the Deere dealer rents Bobcat machines because Deere was too much downtime.
I would not buy a brand that has varying quality like Deere. Deere should stick to its core business.

[ksss]

JD270,

I am going to share with you information given to me at ConExpo by a Deere representative. We discussed Deere's skid steer venture in great detail. He stated that Deere had recruited some of the best engineers they could steal to build that skid steer. He stated that they did do a great job in designing the machine, the problem was no one knew how to build it. These are his exact words. He stated they built the new production plant for the skid steers. There were problems as soon as they left the plant. He said the money spent on correcting the problems and getting the retrofits done and pushing the series 2 machine out to try and salavage the new launch came out of every ones bonuses and pay raises. I can tell you JD270, this guy as livid when he spoke of the team that built that skid steer. Its not because it was a great machine. It is an industry fact that the 200 series was considered a failure. If yours has ran good for you. I know one gravel crushing out fit here had bought one and it took them 5 different machines before Deere could give them one that ran. I can go on and on about the 200 series machine. Why yours runs I don't know, but good for you. I have news for you though, it better run because its resale value is terrible, check it . Everyone I know that had run them are contractors (not one of the companies that I know that bought a Deere went back to a Deere skid steer when it was replaced, some guys have found themselves upside down due to the rock like resale value). These machines are not cleaning barns and moving hay bales they are breaking concrete, running high production hydrualic attachments as well as moving tons material. If their weak they are going to fail in these applications, and the Deere machines do. I can appreciate your brand loyalty and Deere certainly makes some good equipment (dozers and backhoes) but skid steers are not one of them at least not yet.

[Caribbean Breeze]

JD270,

I am going to share with you information given to me at ConExpo by a Deere representative. We discussed Deere's skid steer venture in great detail. He stated that Deere had recruited some of the best engineers they could steal to build that skid steer. He stated that they did do a great job in designing the machine, the problem was no one knew how to build it. These are his exact words. He stated they built the new production plant for the skid steers. There were problems as soon as they left the plant. He said the money spent on correcting the problems and getting the retrofits done and pushing the series 2 machine out to try and salavage the new launch came out of every ones bonuses and pay raises. I can tell you JD270, this guy as livid when he spoke of the team that built that skid steer. Its not because it was a great machine. It is an industry fact that the 200 series was considered a failure. If yours has ran good for you. I know one gravel crushing out fit here had bought one and it took them 5 different machines before Deere could give them one that ran. I can go on and on about the 200 series machine. Why yours runs I don't know, but good for you. I have news for you though, it better run because its resale value is terrible, check it . Everyone I know that had run them are contractors (not one of the companies that I know that bought a Deere went back to a Deere skid steer when it was replaced, some guys have found themselves upside down due to the rock like resale value). These machines are not cleaning barns and moving hay bales they are breaking concrete, running high production hydrualic attachments as well as moving tons material. If their weak they are going to fail in these applications, and the Deere machines do. I can appreciate your brand loyalty and Deere certainly makes some good equipment (dozers and backhoes) but skid steers are not one of them at least not yet.

ksss,

There are 3 317 Deere's out in Ft Lauderdale that are running hammers, the machines have 800 hrs approx and there are problems such as hyd. leaks and things running loose on the frame.
From this I must say that it is possible that the 300 Series also has issues.
I agree with your statement, Deere's ambitious plan to build SSL's has many customers upset including some people that I know.
The 200 Series has very low resale value compared to Bobcat, Case, Cat Etc...
If it were my choice, I would buy Bobcat or Case SSL, Deere is not on my list to even Demo. Deere just does not have the experience for some CE machines and this is demostrated by their numerous partnerships such as with Bell, Hitachi & Liebherr.

All the best,
CB

[jd270]

actually my 270 has a hard life all i do with it is demo work i tear out footings and i buried a house and dug a basement and have moved thousands of yrds of dirt and clay with it and i have a 84 inch tooth bucket on it i move logs with it and tear out trees so far it has been the toughest skid loader i have ever had as far as the resale i dont really care i paid 20 cash for it with 150 hrs and full warenty i got it to use for myself but i have done jobs for other people and already made back the price of the loader and plenty extra......what i really like about the loader is the motor it is the same one that our555g crawler has in it .what i cant understand is that there are piles of the 200 s running around here and i hear the same thing hardly no problems and they love them i am not brand loyal i want what works and what has the best dealer suport and right now right here it is deere hands down they are only 3 miles from my house ........i love to run heavy equpment i have been working with a buddy dig ponds i have been running a D8L and a D7H while he runs the track hoes a 330 and a 225 we dug one last fall that was 3 acers and 60 foot deep we put 940 hrs on the d7 it was before we got the d8

[Dodgemania]

jd what did you do with all the dirt that came out of the 3 acre pond?

[jd270]

a lot of it went into a ravine on the othere side and some went to a friend of the guy who owens the pond ....the other thing we did is he wanted 6 feet of clay lining the whole pond and that is with a 2 to 1 slope around the sides