I'm looking for a smallish excavator as I have to do some trenching and tree clearing Alabama, I didn't want a mini but something > 15k and smaller than 25k. There are a few CAT 307E2 with 2500 hours on them around me. Anyone have any history with them, I can't find much on reliability for some reason which immediately tends to make me wonder if they were that popular or people avoided them for some reason.. First excavator be gentle please lol.
If you are not working in really tight quarters, then the side pinned boom of the 307 versus the 308 would be preferable (in my opinion…). Higher lift height, more stability with heavy loads, and better sight lines to the bucket. Also some ‘slop’ is inevitable in the kingpost on swing boom models. No experience with that particular model but have owned several Cat minis over the years and they were always good solid machines; smooth hydraulics, good power & excellent parts support.
We have a 308E or E2 at work. First, the cab is stupid. The door is narrow so it's hard to get in and out, the top of the front window is too low if you're working up high and the whole cab just feels thrown together. Actually the whole machine seems like an afterthought like Cat needed to fill a gap in the product line fast. The thumb is weak and can twist if you aren't careful how you grab and move stuff, plus it doesn't tuck in against the stick very close. The stick has two pin positions for the cylinder so you can either hit yourself in the face and not have any reach, or have good reach and be worthless for close in work. I really don't see why they couldn't have made the cylinder slightly longer and had the best of both. The blade doesn't have as much range of motion as I'd like. I'm comparing it to 20-25 year old Takeuchi, Komatsu and Kobelcos of similar size, that I ran 15-20 years ago, all of which I'd rather run. And to top all that off, it's made in China. But I will say it does have good power and it's fast and smooth.