So I'm still hunting a dozer. Had a pre job with the customer on Monday, and I'll have 3/4's of a mile of road to build that will have to handle loaded tractor trailers, single lane, so 12' minimum, 15' prefered. An additional 1.5 miles of new skid trail, then cleaning up 3 landings and dressing up 4 miles aprox of old trails after the skidders are done. The job is going hourly, I'm thinking it may take a month, maybe more to do all the required work. The job should be close to the total payment for the used dozer. I wanted a deere 650h, forestry package, winch, w/ like 4k hours & decent chains, but when I called a local dealer they said that they had a cat d4h low hour repo there, and they didnt know the $$ but were sure it was very resonable... My work is little jobs mainly. Garage pads, maybe a house site, re-habbing dirt drives, farm road / log road maintence and that type of stuff... Which do you choose, and don't say cat cause its the right color yellow. Deere has the small dozers about right for the past 40 years when they started making a 450c.
Not my field of expertise at all, but a friend whose it is, just got rid of a 650 Deere, cause he said it was too big for residential work, and I think the D4h is bigger. Like I say, dozers aren't my strongest subject, I'm just quoting him.
If I remember correctly the D4H is similar to the current D5M/N. It's a high drive unit and will push more than the 650 in one pass. I don't have ton of experience with Deere dozers. I have been told, by several people, that Deere is making a great finish dozer these days. I must admit that the majority of finish dozer experience I have is on Cats. I usually go for the D5 G/K when renting. I recently rented a Deere 450H becuase I was curious, and the availability of at Cat was questionable. The Deere was noticeably smaller than what I was used to. I don't mean physically smaller. The machine just would not push the amount of dirt that I'm used to. The 650 will probably be a closer comparison to the D5s that I normally use. There were several small issues that I found annoying but, over all, I though the 450H was a good little dozer. I will look to the Cat the next time I need to rent though. There is not enough info., here, for me to make a decision (if I was doing the buying). IMO the D4H would be better for road building and house pads. The 650 will be better for the road rehab (assuming you mean placement and finish grading of aggregate), and finish grading around buildings. If you are talking H series (DEERE) then the hydrostatic drive system will allow you more efficient dozing while turning (not the case with the G series). The Deere G series, as a whole, does not have the same fan base/converts as they H, and now J series, dozers. As far as brand goes I would lean toward the Cat as I feel I get the better service from them (in my area, and that may not be true in your area), they have better resale, and IMO they have higher quality undercarriage parts (OEM). I think the bigger issue here is the application and these machines are different but can, in many ways, overlap in application. IMO the bigest drawback to the Deere could be the hours (we don't know if the Cat has less or more hours), and the fact that I would require rippers, instead of the winch (again, you have not stated if the Cat has rippers, winch, or nothing out back). IMO these small dozers NEED rippers as they are just too light to doze the harder soils w/o them. Yes the winch can be a life saver in rough, rocky, or steep terrain but you have not stated a forestry application. Sweeps and screens (part of most forestry packages) would be nice if you are pushing over trees. The D4 will finish grade but will require more practice/better operator do do the job, IMO (it's just a ltiile bit harder to "feel" sublte grade changes, and blade visibility is not as good as the low drive units). If you are afraid that the 650 is too big (which I doubt) than the D4 will be that much more too big. The 650 can do most of the jobs that the 4 can (unless you need rippers) but it will take you longer. I know that you can work through tough ground w/o rippers, at least to some degree (you can rip with one end of the blade angled in), but it is WAY less efficient and will greatly accelerate U/C wear (many more passes vs rippers, and you will have to steer to stay straight). I know I have not given you a definitive answer but I felt as though this post will give you enough information for you to dtermine, for yourself, which one may better suit you and your application. It's just not a black and white type of question. The best thing you can do is to try them both out, as I'm sure you know.
Road rehab, the road is no longer passable by 4x4 pickup and questionable in a farm tractor. Sometimes more material is brought in, but alot of the times its use what you have. In other news I was able to look at the d4h today, but the batteries were flat... 89' machine 8pb serial, sweeps and rear screen but no winch. Im sure I can find one later though if I have to. Condition wise it wasn't too bad, needed a pin retainer on the center bolt of the blade, tracks were good, idlers showed some wear, but i don't think it was excessive. Oils were on level, and not bad. Going to go run it sometime here...
Pay close attention to the trunnions on the D4h, especially the older ones. If possible take someone with you to watch as you turn the machine [short quick bursts from side to side should do] look to see if either track shows any obvious camber as you can't feel it when operating unless it's really bad. Also, if you notice positive camber when the machine is parked the trunnions need replaced immediately. If possible remove the covers and check. The trunnions are excessively tapered and are known to fail on the smaller hightrack machines [4-5-527] especially when abused or used primarily as forestry machines. I would also recomend oil samples from trans/converter for a machine that old. Not really prone to failure but rather complicated and very expensive to fix. As far as which machine I would prefer. Hands down the Cat will flat out run circles around the Deere. It will out push and out pull anything in its class, makes a fine finish machine in my opinion and is simply amazing when sidehilling on steep ground. Agree with DGODGR that the D5H would be a better choice if your doing more heavy dozing. As for the Deere, I have a good amount of experience with these as well. The 650 G is a fine little dozer that will do everything you ask it to do and more. They are simple, reliable and well balanced. For my money I would go with the Deere for an older machine as they are easier on the wallet as far as replacement parts and relatively simple for the average owner operator to repair. On the other hand, a fair priced Cat in good condition would be hard to pass up as the little Cat is so much fun to operate.
I have not used that size Deere dozer......but i do have a D4H 3xl .....that does a fantastic job on roughing in roads in hard soils.....10' blade is nice also....comperable to a D5M we own just lighter.....the Cat will push much more in hard soils than the 650h....but i imagine the 650h would be a much faster finish machine.......the cat will probably weigh 25k ish.....while the Deere more in the 18k range....im sure the Deere has significantly lower ground pressure if your working in wet areas....i imagine both will serve you well in different ways
Stumpjumper, What blade set up are you looking at with the D4H. If it is the PAT system then the D4H unit your looking had the light center post that had a tendency to fail. This system was upgraded on the later models above above Serial#4000. Any units with serial # less than 3291 were also only 90hp. Above this they were 95HP. I owned a D4H 9DB 4790 that was a good machine - had PAT blade and rippers. This I imported from Japan, did 1900hours on it and moved it on without experiencing any trouble other than having to re-race one final drive. With the small amount of work your planning I'm positive that either machine would do the job just fine as long as they are in good condition. I would go for the best conditioned machine - there is no money in driving them all day and fixing them all night. We are currently doing approximately 75klm of road(firetracks) with half beign repairing old tracks after flooding and half new tracks straight out of the scrub. Doing this with D5N and Mitsubishi 330 grader(nice job for the government as at this stage Queensland gov't checks don't bounce)
We worked at the sunshine dump down in California just out of LA, we had a D5M and a John Deere 650 both with rippers and angle blades and I think the JD 650 is a little bigger than the Cat D5M. I think the 650 out worked the D5M, the turning ability with the 650 turning around in the dump while finishing the 1' of sand was faster and easyer, another way to go is the Komatsu 65 I have a frend that has the Komatsu 65 with two slopeboards that lay flat and it's a neat little dozer.
I placed an offer on the cat, and we will see... I gave them till friday...
The D5M (high tack, 120 HP, near 26,000#) is bigger than the 650 (90 HP, near 19,000#). The D5G or K (which actually weighs 1,000# more than the 650 Deere [XL vs. LT]) might be what you are thinking about.
Did you find out what is going on w/3rd gear?
My mechanical consultation pannel feels that the problem is that 3rd is blocked in the trans intentionally, the linkage is worn to the tranny controll valve, or that the issue is in the tranny controll valve, nobody is bettin that its a casualty fail in the transmission, and they do not feel that the machine would be further damaged by operation w/o 3rd.
deer vs cat I live in cat land up here in the northeast,and am pretty mutch a cat guy, but i did run a deer 650 back in 01 while working at trump national golf course. we did all the mass excavation with excavators and haul trucks,a lot of blasting, and a bunch of southern guys called shapers would configure the course. they would travel all over the country shaping golf courses, anyway, these guys swore by those deers. They had two 650s a750 and an 850. The 850 didn't impress me much as us union guys didn't impress those shapers either, but we tried to get along. I saw one of those guys dig out and shape a kidnee shaped sand trap with a 650 in about ten min, they were like artists on a dozer! We had to borrow the 650s at the end of the job to blade out item 4 for parking lots, and i was impressed by how balanced they were,and how easy it was to make a radius with it, a nice smooth transition witthout the chain snatching up. For small house lots and driveways, i think the 650 is the way to go, but don't tell my friends! A d5mxl is way too big for small jobs.
Well... the dealer that is involved with the repo cat thinks a little more highly of it than he should. Comparing a d4h 89' against a deere 550g '93, the one is 3x the size, but hp is equal. The acution for the deere is saturday... But I have found others, another 550g & a 550h for decent money. Time will tell...