I’m curious. My u48-5 was like $71k, the equivalent 305 is like $90+. What is the difference? I’ve never ran a cat so curious.
No need to press the button to activate the aux hydraulics every time the safety lever is cycled perhaps? That would be worth almost $20k to me
That extra markup paid for my wages, bennies, company vehicle, liquid lunches and P-card. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game, bro. Because Cat still struggles with the compact market. They have big iron figured out. Logistics, parts, marketing, manufacturing, territories, yada, yada. The economy of scale doesn’t pencil out with compact equipment. Been there and sat in those meetings when I was working in NACD. Cat has never been successful at making small engines for the same reasons.
I wouldn’t surprise me if Cat leaves the compact market, soon. Compact equipment is built like a consumer commodity. Like a disposable appliance. Like a Nissan Sentra Cat will enter a market late and leave a market soon as profitability drops. Truck engines, trucks, mining excavators, ag equipment and what am I forgetting? Then, focus on their core. Then, locomotives, then boots, lol, lol, lol.
Truck engines not profitable, try telling that to any truck driver and they'll tell you its a lie.
Yup. Nature finds a way. In 2008 when the truck engine market was in turmoil, the EPA consent decree was done, 2.5 gram NOX was the law of the land, Cummins almost got out. Cat made their announcement and Cummins went all in. Risked it for the biscuit.
Not quite correct. Cat engines were not profitable to the extent that big iron was. Big iron makes 60% on parts and labor. The engines were simple enough that so many people outside the Cat system could do the work for 10 to 15% profit margin. Cat also could not build a truck and they wanted vertical integration like they have on the big iron. Looking at huge development costs of compliance plus they only offered an engine so they entered into the joint partnership with Navistar. It didn't take long to see the error in that thinking. From what I saw in the Cummins engines, they were all in from the start. They were the first US manufacturer to comply with Tier 1, 2 and 3. That's part of the reason so many manufacturers overseas converted to Cummins. They also stay within their skill set. They build engines and nothing else that I'm aware of.
What a time to be alive. We witnessed massive and constant change in engine emissions from 2004 to 2011. Especially the truck side. Our truck engine techs were dealing with bi-weekly software updates. Cat Truck Engine News publications got thicker and more often. Impossible to keep up with. Cat was spending 1 million bucks a day with ACERT development. Remember International and their, “ We won’t use EGR!” Campaign? They purchased banked credits as long as they could and then the EPA almost put them out of biz with fines. The worst part about it is all the people and customers that got stuck with these “bridge engines” that never worked right.
I thought that was "we won't use SCR" and were using something like 30% EGR and ridiculous boost instead. Or was there an anti-EGR phase before that?
Cat just called it NRS or CGI. NOx Reduction System or Clean Gas Induction. For some reason Cat loves to make up new terms for items that already exist.
You are correct about that, Birken. Those International advertisements were entertaining. Yeah, funny about Cat calling their EGR system CGI. Oh’ no, it’s not EGR. We use inert gas produced post- aftertreatment. With enough hard pipe and tube to plumb a house. And a spark plug to light the exhaust on fire, because let’s pump raw diesel into the exhaust and light it on fire. Wait, what? Talk about thread drift. What were we discussing, again? How expensive Caterpillar equipment is or something?
Part of it can be the dealer, there is large price differences from dealer to dealer. Some dealers are very competitive compared to other brands.
Compare a Kubota distributor to a Caterpillar dealer corporate campus. The Kubota dealer looks like a buy here/pay here roadside used car lot. At the Cat dealer, I can get a complementary mocha from a well - endowed barista , shop at the gift store, a bag of popcorn and stroll through the museum.
So i guess the consensus is that the performance/reliability has nothing to do with it. Mostly just the cost of the yellow paint. And kubota dealers are still mom/pop wile cat is a monster global company that enjoys huge profits from dedicated customers, kinda like the cultist mentality Deere experiences from their followers. Its a shame those 2 companies charge their customers a premium.
I don’t necessarily agree, A lot of the CAT machines have more features the the competition. For example, my 309 gas slope indicate where it shows two axis slope on the screen, it also has a 2nd auxiliary with a dedicated high flow pump. ( I don’t think kubotas have that). The biggest issue for me is parts availability. With CAT 95 % of the orders are at the local drop box the next morning. The other 5% are there within a couple days to a week depending if they come from the east coast or most recently Australia and japan with no freight cost.
Look for the mobile service truck and tech at your local Kubota dealer. What they don't have one??? I priced a new 308 vs an equivalent Kubota excavator. Within 4K $$ and no service and who knows about parts? The decision was real easy for me. I use this machine every day. Not just on the farm every now and then.
The biggest differences I see, besides service, are life cycle costs and resale values. If you are planning on making a living using the Kubota, you better plan on selling it down the road and getting another or a different brand.
I deal with 7 dealers and 4 have trucks that i know of. Generally kubotas dont break….LOL Easy, that was a joke. But cat has monster old iron out there pushing dirt, kubota doesnt. That in itself needs that expensive service truck from time to time. For people like me (plumbing contractor/farm) the premium doesnt add up for our smaller equipment. I looked at a 304 but was not impressed with cab. Didnt run it though so that has me curious if the huge cost difference is. Kubota has grown greatly over the years, especially in ag. People keep mentioning parts, I’ve not experienced any parts related issues with kubota, but again us little guys dont break much. On edit, i am experiencing parts issues with massey. My old tractor has some broken plastic cab trim parts and they have become “obsolete” or discontinued. Its a 2002.
I’ve been using a kubota for my plumbing company since 2008, I’ve scratched up a penny or 2 with them. Before that i used case and Deere tlb.
As a reference, last year i was quoted $77k otd for a kx057-4(cab/bucket/thumb) Cat 305.5 sell for about that with 1000-1500hr. I only have one cat dealer thats local and they are impossible to deal with if your price conscious.
So what is your point?
My point? Or question? Since I’ve never ran a cat I guess I was more curious of performance differences. Not a real concise reason for cost difference. Really only way is to get on one. That’s easier said than done.
I bet you could have a demo on your job with one phone call. Availability of new machines may be an issue still thoough.
Just from personal experience I don't really see much difference in terms of quality between most brands these days. Response time for a service call to Cat isn't much different than any other dealer from what I've seen either. From my own perspective (I'm just a mechanic, not a business owner) I tend to keep everything I buy until its completely used up, so purchase price means far more to me than resale because its going to be worth nothing when I replace it anyways.
There is still a salvage value but it will likely be less than the expenses to retrieve it.
I mean I look after everything I have but at some point its just too far gone to be worth keeping.
Series 60 was first with tier 2, Series 60 was first with EGR, Cummins EGR suffered and they made a deal with Detroit to use their design later on. Cat on the other hand abandoned on road because of the fines being levied by EPA for every non compliant engine they produced. factoid.
Technically all I saw that didn't comply was the Navistar abomination. I don't recall Cat ever taking credit for that one even in the Cat branded trucks. Cat block and crank is all I remember having a Cat cast emblem. We did get the speeches from on high about vertical integration and that Cat would no longer participate directly in that market. Cat was the name on the front of the truck but everything was Navistar. Never heard of any fines by the EPA that Cat was a part of. Certainly not in the equipment industry. Never saw a Detroit in any yellow iron except huge mining trucks and those got re-powered to Cummins.
How come Cat never came back to the truck engine market now that off road emission regulations are pretty much on par with on road (the failed partnership with Navistar not withstanding)?
Vertical integration. They don't want to only make one piece of a machine. They want to make the entire machine.
I remember a 3208 truck motor from the late 80s that had a sticker that basically said engine would have been non compliant but fines had been paid. Way back before we knew how crazy this would all get.
As I recall, emissions regulations for diesels started in 1996.
Reason for Freightliner/Daimler powered trucks, the whole drivetrain belongs to them along with proprietary parts/info. For several years a Freightliner couldn't be bought with a Cummins, a few years back Freightliner allowed them back into the system. PacCar has there own engine, Scania/Volvo has theirs, Freightliner/Daimler has their own, Mack owned by Volvo has their own. No room for Cat and Cat isn't going to bother with that small piece of pie. Cummins is the main free standing engine supplier, and Dodge has been a big player in that. Emission regulations started in 1996 but development by the manufactures was kicked down the road.
I have heard that diesel emissions regs started in [insert year here] but when I had to report our fleet to them I found emissions docs going way back. Here is a sample from 1979 https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/defaul...dv/1979/caterpillar_hdd_a0130029_14d6_7d5.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/defaul...llar_hdd_a0130028_10d5-14d6-18d0-10d4_7d5.pdf And from 1989 when they had developed the complicated EFN which still appears today https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/defaul...0d4-10d4-10d5-10d5-10d5-14d6-14d6_6d0-0d6.pdf I don't know the meaning of this; nobody was checking until the early 2000s and not in earnest until after DPF junk showed up in the marketplace.
Lot of stuff from California in those days. I read those documents and what is not stated in them is the "or what." In other words there are no penalties prescribed. Nothing says at what level the regulations apply to either. Do they mean those stated engines from the factory, sold at the dealer level or any at the end user level. Here is a good site that explains the basics of federal emissions standards. https://www.genpowerusa.com/blog/what-to-know-epa-diesel-emission-tiers/
Back to the comparison between Kubota and Cat, Kubota has a very well respected machine. A lot would depend on the dealer. 20K is a big difference on a sub 100K machine if comparing apples to apples. Just because a machine says Cat on the side doesn't make it a better or even a good machine. Seem to recall reading on here that Cat forestry machines for the most part weren't good compared to others and that's why Cat got out of the forestry business.
Personally earth equipment is yellow pick up you circle the problem big trucks are the cheapest heap we can find. Lawn equipment is orange. Most importantly if you don't like the price buy a case Can't Afford Something Else. I've ran both personally I like the cat better the kubota doesn't have suspension on the tracks and that over head door everyone loves is pointless imo because you should not be crawling out with the arms up and I keep my ac in working shape.
Thats funny, I can afford to buy whatever want, I primarily buy CASE and after 28 years, it has worked out quite well.
When did the topic change to CTL's? Even so Kubota came later than most and has built a pretty good following. They were/are the most popular compact tractors in N. America. The success of their tractors has a lot to do with their move into smaller construction equipment. Their engines are for the most part as good or better than anything else on the market and a big reason they come standard on many other high end brands. They were so popular in skid steers Case made the 1838 to have a Kubota model. Case had a good following in their own right too. Most brands make a pretty good product or they wouldn't stay in business.
I noticed the same when I bought my Takeuchi TB260 and priced out every brand who would get back to me. Cat and JCB were iirc about 21-22k more for the same size machine (Cat 306, don't remember what the JCB model was). I talked with the Cat salesman, told him the rough price difference and asked if a better price was available to keep Cat in consideration. He told me that the price on the estimate was as good as he could do and if I wanted a 306 there was a 17 week wait at the time. I ended up buying the Tak which was on the lot 3/4 of mile down the road from the Cat dealer. 860hrs on it so far and it's been a good machine. I've run a 306 a little bit and it's a nice machine but I don't think I would have found the extra cost or the 4+ month wait time to be worth it.
From Cat's perspective, if they are sold out and awaiting new arrivals, they aren't in a position to need to drop prices.
Well I hope not. Our Cat 279D's have been more dependable than the many, many Bobcats I have owned over the years. We just don't have any major issues with them. 279D 01 is a 2016 with over 3K hours and all its had replaced is the hydro bucket latch cylinder and an alternator. This 279 has the electric over hydraulic cylinder that is prone to failure. 279D 02 is a 2019 with over 1500 hours on it and all its had replaced is an alternator. 2018 305E bought used has been a great machine other than replacing a hydro line, all we've had to do is service, fuel and grease it. Back to the OP's question - In my market Kubota is priced similarly with Cat if not more but I've been a Cat customer for 20 years albeit a small one so that has something do to with it. Our Kubota dealer is not very big and more geared to the "Gentlemen Farmers" that want a compact tractor with a front loader and RTV to ride around their 20 acres.
I did my purchase back before everything was hard to get and the 306 was fairly new to the market. Now I'm amazed when any dealer has something but at that time every dealer had equipment lined up on the lot.
FWIW I asked my salesman today the lead time on a 325 Next Gen and he said they had 2 in stock a week ago.
I know our local Cat dealers have since been bought out and hopefully things have improved. The previous owners I think ran under the principal of it's their territory so even if you don't like them you still are in their territory so to bad. I haven't been in the market for anything new lately but their parts/service side was greatly helpful for my 953, quite surprising compared to what I was expecting my experience to be like.
Cummins could see the writing on the wall for diesel engines for decades. They did their own hydrogen research for years. In 2019 Cummins purchased Hydrogenics (a hydrogen fuel cell maker) This year Cummins purchased Meritor (axles etc). Cummins and associates are doing the complete electric power train. The Freightliner/ Cummins hydrogen truck is a reflection of what is happening. (Cummins are also working on hydrogen combustion engines amongst the other various fuels they are putting through their engines.)