still shopping for a bulk pusher,always have bought at auctions,and not had a lick of trouble,saved thousands compared to what a dealer wanted,but sooner or later I am going to get a lemon.now looking at cat d8n and the last two I checked out both stated around 10000 hrs with hour meter change outs.called cat history tech and he said these machines had 20000 hrs ten years previous.getting a little worried now,how many hours do these older dozers actually have,if anything they sure do not keep good track of the actual hours.one of them had several different hour meters on it,nobody had any info on that.seems like these bigger machines have a lot of hour discrepancy's, machine will be lucky if it gets 500 hrs on it a year,all clay soil here pushing pond dams and terraces,been wet a lot, leaning towards a d7r lgp now,still running into the same hour meter issue.giving up 18000 pounds and four yds a push,but will not be pulling out of the slop every day,slightly newer and might be a little easier to work on myself,sooner or later the lemon is coming just a matter of time???
What are you so worried about with high hours? We had a 9n with 35k hours that was an awesome machine that was bought at auction. Have a couple at work now with 45k. Just because they have high hours doesn't mean they weren't maintained. Check it over well and go from there.
looks like the 7 and 8 share some of the same parts so no shortage there,just would like to have a better service history,if a tractor has 30000 hrs I am sure they have changed, rebuilt something on it.
just talked with cat tech guy on another one,not much history again,he talked like major tranny rebuild hours are around 10000,he also stated buying without history is like going to vegas.talked with a guy who bought a d8r with new tranny and puked it out after 200hrs,said possible non oem cat parts were used so good for history on that one,twenty grand later up and going,still loves the tractor!
Buying used means "As Is, Where Is with all inherent and obvious defects." Unless you get into something electronic you will never be able to trust a hour meter reading. So why bother considering "stated" hours anyway. Anyone can say anything and there is no law against saying it as long as it is said in the proper way. The quality of the repairs is also a major concern. I've "rebuilt" items just to get them sold. The owners would only pay for the type of parts to make the machine move long enough to get on a trailer. Figure anyone with the money to buy an 8N is going to run it a minimum of 2,000 hours a year and if the subject tractor is ten years old you can figure frame hours to be somewhere around 20,000 hours. If it is in a mining operation you can pretty easily double those hours. You can buy an insurance policy if you want to ease your mind. I have talked to a couple of people who tried that and didn't end up completely satisfied. The major items for dozers are power plant, drive train, undercarriage. Do your due diligence with inspection, operational tests and oil samples if warranted and that is pretty much the best you can do.
I found some of cat dozers in used condition there is available just 12900 or 7890 hours, so may be it's too good nowadays. you can go with 10000 or 10000+ hours and really will useful to work.
Our dozers will get rebuilt ad infinitum until the chassis gives up. Let's face it everything else is a bolt-on and can be replaced. Highest hour dozer I've come across in the last few years had 55k on it was an as reliable as newer machines with 15k on them. A lot depends on the quality of the rebuild.
We have about 10 D10R's left on site, from 70-150K hours. They are running with 10 D10T's and there is very little to separate them on availability. We overhaul at at the 18-20000 hour mark.