Hey all. I'm going down the rabbit hole of buying a mini excavator from an individual in AZ. He bought it from a bank. I have the VIN. If everything checks out, I'll go inspect it in person before buying. Question is, what are resources I should use to verify the machines history. i.e. are there places I can do a VIN search to see if it's got a clean history? Any other considerations? I've driven plenty of machines but, never bought one. Thanks.
Moved this thread over to the compact excavator thread. To answer your question - sort of. When you say "clean history" do you mean service/repair/maintenance wise or ownership/financing/lien wise? Or both? If you have the VIN you can take it to your local dealer and have them run it. Anything that has been done at a factory authorized dealer should show up. Depending on the ownership of the machine this may give some valuable information if it was dealer serviced or not if it was bought and maintained/repaired by 3rd parties. For ownership/lien type stuff you may be able to search your Secretary of State's website for UCC statements using the VIN. Just depends on how the State's database is set up.
Probably both. I talked to an inspector over at Ritchie Bros and he said some excavators show up from China with tinkered Hobbs and a swapped out engine. It's got 230 hours so I'm not sure how much history there is but thanks for the suggestion. I'll run it by a dealer tomorrow. Thank you.
If you have some pics post them up. Doesn't tell the whole story but gives a snapshot into the machine.
The system allows four image upload. Here's a link to the 6 photos I have minus the VIN photo. six image link
It's a Chinese brand. Does that count.? See this THREAD for lots of discussion regarding Sany mini excavators.
I knew I'd get some feedback on that. lol It definitely counts and I'll checkout that thread. From my search thus far, some love, some hate. I'm not fan of it's build Country - my pocketbook doesn't really care tho. This was an interesting read from GROK: grok link
Your pocket book will care when you go to resell it and the resale value is worthless. Or when you want parts and have to drive 6hrs round trip to get them. Or when you have technical problems that the "dealer" can't diagnose and you end up with a 10,000lb yard ornament. Or when they won't honor the warranty because it was once sold at auction, I can go on and on.... I'd gladly take a 2300hr Kubota, Tak, Cat, Deere, Hitachi, etc over a 230hr machine from China with **** poor dealer support and questionable build quality.
What is the seller’s reason for wanting to sell the machine having recently bought it.? Has he tumbled into the situation described above by @MG84 and is now wanting to unload it.?
The cheapest part of equipment ownership is the initial purchase price. Parts, repairs, fuel, insurance, labor and support or lack of are much more expensive over the lifetime of the machine. Why are they wanting to sell a machine with 200 or so hours on it?
Looks like a nice, budget friendly machine, that involves some sort of risk. Have a neighbor that has a Sany with many hours on it and it’s his #1 machine for septic work.
His exact words, “No Lein, bought it from the bank a couple months ago. They got in a larger one with matching skid-steer package so I upgraded. Don’t need two excavators, this one is super clean and well cared for. “ Thanks for the input everyone. ))
Question - Why did the bank have it? In my experience if it's bank owned it means it has been repo'd. Was it a lease return? Just trying to figure this out.
It may have been a repo or some sort of asset get to payoff a bank. This was the response: ”The asset was givin back to the bank / asset management and I bought from asset management before it went to auction for balance due. ” VIN check w/ dealer coming back clean.
230 hours is LOW hours. If you are just going to use it homeowner-style, digging YOUR stuff, and you don't plan on lending/renting it out... yeah, it should be fine. That machine is basically new, which is nice. Like Grok states - long term reliability data is scarce. I don't know what the price is, but... keep in mind their resale value is kind of low. Some people love them, others not so much. I've never sat in one, but I think I'd have a hard time doing a straight-across-trade of my 2001 Deere 50 for a brand new SY50U. If that was an option, I'd take it! but... yeah, consciously choosing to spend money on a Sany - knowing it goes back to China, a country that actively hates us... that does kind of bother me. I'd written something else earlier, but thought about it and changed to the above.