Mini excavator hours

[Jack345]

If a excavator has been maintained ,repaired when broken oil changed etc what is considered a lot of hours?
Their is a lot I dont know about these machines such as "drive and swing motors" and life expectancy is there anyway to check these hyd motors?
The machine I,m looking at is a Kobota kx61-2 with 3700 hours I know hours don't mean much if equipment is not taken care of but some stuff just wears out and needs replacing after time.
Thanks, Jack

 

[LAA]

If you could run it for a couple of hours you could most likely tell if any of your motors were getting weak by any difference in power between cold hydraulic oil and hot hydraulic oil. I would not consider 3700 true hours excessive, see how much slack is in the cylinder and bucket pins if you have any reason to doubt the hours. Usually track motors go first, get sluggish and weak but they are not that expensive to rebuild as a rule. There will be wear parts coming up to change out at that hour range but that can"t be avoided with any machine. If I was thinking of buying a properly cared for machine in that hour range I would not consider paying more than half the price of the same machine new.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Yes, check for slop in the bucket pins especially. That is one of the best ways to tell how an excavator was maintained. If the bucket is still fairly tight and doesn't flop around is a good inductor it was greased often. Also look for grease at all the pivot points. It's better to see excess grease than not to see any grease at all. Kubota's are a well built machine so 3700 hours isn't really that much. Another good idea is to have the hydraulic oil sampled. That can tell if there's anything abnormal in the hyd. system. Dave

 

[Ken Macfarlane]

I've seen 1000 hr minis in terrible shape and 8000 hr machines in great shape. Have to evaluate the wear.