Has anyone here ran a CAT 420 D and if so whats your opinion?
I ran Cab and Air 420D the visibilty was very good along with the power. Operaton was smooth, and the extend a hoe was a nice opition
It is by far the nicest backhoe I have ever run. It has a lot of power and very smooth controls. The front hydraulics are pretty fast, which is nice for loading trucks. The pilot controls in the rear are smoother to use then some video game controllers. Ours has a full cab,4x4, 4n1 bucket, extendahoe, and stabilizer guards. I would recommend getting stabilizer guards, they are relatively cheap and will save a lot of money in the long run by preventing hydraulic contamination Ours was $42,500 with 3,000 hours.
WE had a 420IT here for a little while when doing some utility work.It was a rental that had next to no hours on it had air ride seat which I would highly recomend and the new excavator control arms in the rear very good visabilty and plenty of power.
Basically everything everyone has said. Excellent machine overall.
Deere makes some great backhoes too. We have two 410's and a 710. Great machines.
Good. I bought the 420D and was inpressed with it. I have a New Holland 555E that has had the hell worked out of it and it is still a good machine. The backhoe I grew up on was a Ford 555 and we used it completley up. I just could not get there with the New Holland Dealer on Price so I went with the CAT.
Keep us posted on performance and reliability!
If you want to feel even better about your purchase, do a search on various websites for Cat backhoes for sale. It is not uncommon to see them with over 10,000 hours and still bring $20,000.
I noticed that they hold value well. CAT must really be trying to get product out the door. I had 0% financing for 36 months offers on USED equipment. I got a 60 month deal for 3.2% so I decided to purchase the 420D with cab & air, 4 wheel drive, extended stick and the 307 excavator. Now if I can get used to the pilot controls. They "FEEL" different than the wobbles I am used to. My fave was the 555 we had. It was a 4 stick and I swear you could feel a twig in sand with it. Great backhoe, that thing never ever got maintained, got rolled, was used as a bulldozer all the time, grease zerts were plugged most of my life and the tranny/frame( you know, before Ford had component in frame construction) was cracked and we had to weld a little more of it up every month. It would be 100 degrees out and you had to hit it with ether to get it going. But it would dig and dig and dig. I miss that backhoe. Makes me remeber when I was a kid riding around on it with my Dad and thibking how cool I was that I was the 10 year old I knew who could run it. I let my twin girls ride in the CAB with me now and play with the levers.... no way in Hell I would let them on it without and enclosed cab.. heard of way too many horror stories about kids riding and falling off... maybe Dad did not like me too much after all....
Congratulations Hotwire. Let us know how you make out with them. Did Cat budge much on the price?
hotwire22, The 420D is a nice machine and should give you many years of good service. I'm curious though, what kind of down payment was required for the 60 month/3.2% interest rate? This spring I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a cat mini-x so I'm trying to see what kind of financing options are out there. Thanks
They required no money down. They paid the freight to have the machines brought in and I took delivery at a job in an rural area to save 4% on the tax.
I hope I can find a deal like that in the spring. I was looking at purchasing earlier this year, but they wanted 20% down which I didn't have. The other option was a rent to own, but the bottom line price was a bit steep. Kinda puts me between a rock and a hard spot. I'll be in a better financial situation come spring, so I should be able to negotiate a pretty good deal.
Try the cat dealer now. Apparentley there are some programs out right now to get cats market share with the smaller operators up. The guy told me that they were going after the case and deere market.I dont know though cuz he was a salesman and you know what that means...