Hi everyone, I'm in the market for a power rake, grapple bucket and auger attachment. There is a ritchie brother yard in my city and they sell these knockoff chinese attachments. Based on past auctions, it seems I can get a power rake (harley rake) for about 2-3k, a grapple bucket for about 1.5-2.5k and an auger attachment with bits for about 2.5k. Comparable prices from name brand are about 12k for the power rake from quick attach, 3.5k for grapple bucket and the auger I want with bits would be abour 4k plus shipping for all these. What would you guys do in my position? These are mainly for personal use at my property but if opportunity arises, I'd like to use them for work as well. Any one out there can chime in with your personal experience on the chinese made ones?
I got a grapple rake and auger from Ritchie Bros. The auger was fine, worked well, did what it needed to. I am in FL and only have sand to deal with. The grapple rake was a POS. I bent, then tore it up in quick order. I welded it back together, sold it, and bought a real one from SkidPro. https://skidpro.com/skid-steer-attachments/grapples/skeleton-grapple/
"Wolverine" or whatever they are calling them now are typical cheap Chinese imitations of good quality domestic made attachments: in other words, you get what you pay for.
That's what I was thinking. So tempting to buy those cheap chinese attachments...
You won't buy them but once....
It’s just pissing your money away afaic. Think about buying something that’s 3 to $4000 cheaper, the hydraulic motor blows and sends a bunch of shrapnel through you’re not so cheap skid steer/CTL, how much do you think that will cost to fix… I’m not saying it can’t happen with brand-name attachments, but it would be something I’d be thinking about every time I turned the auxiliaries on…there’s a reason it sooooo cheap.
Never thought about that scenario, I'll be skipping those cheap attachments at the auction. They sell HUNDREDS of them at every auction, brand new... I think they bring them in just to auction from overseas.
Everyone said Jap cars were cheap crap in the 70's too. They didn't turn out to be though.
True, but in the late 60's --early 70s, most Jap tools were crap....about 10 years or so, and they began improving , then comes Taiwan crap tools, another 10 years or so, they improve and we start getting Chinese crap; some has improved, most has not, next up is India and Vietnam. I suppose eventually the South American countries will get their chance.
I’m not saying it is good or bad to buy them, I’m just providing my point of view on them. Have seen plenty of them bent and broken left in a heap but also have seen plenty being used out and about. My thought process leads to me to believe that its cheaper for a reason, what are those reasons….. I think you see so many sold at auction because smaller attachment dealers buy them up and sell them on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or at their business.
I wanted a 18" auger for a pole barn project last year. The Amish crew brought a Bobcat auger, and I ran it on my JD240. Never ran an auger before, they gave me some coaching, and it did well. I hit shale 2' down, and had smoke coming from the hole, the impact jarring loading was very bad. We took every hole to a full 4' deep. I don't think the chinese auger drive I was wanting to buy could hold up to that abuse.
Most of those attachments all sell for close to the same price and they all end up on facebook marketplace and craigslist for 2-3x what they paid that hopefully nobody is actually buying. 'Diesel Creek' on YouTube got a brush mower from Ritchie Brothers and he has a few videos running it and fixing it after it breaks. Definitely getting what you pay for on those things. The grapple is probably the least risky out of all of them as you aren't risking grenading your hydraulics if the attachment fails. Perhaps if you are handy they could be up-suited to last longer?
yea i saw that video on diesel creek, reason I asked lol. I guess I will just pay the money and buy quality. I can't even find any used ones anywhere. I found a "quick attach" grapple and the one I want is almost 5k!
I have 2 Quick Attach (Saber tooth, rock grapple bucket) and one Virnig scrape grapple buckets. Most except for a rock grapple bought years ago and were bought when things were relatively less expensive. I use them...very hard. The Quick Attach 84" rock grapple bought last year for just over 5K (I couldn't believe it was that expensive) loaded 30 side dumps off lava rock on its first job. The Virnig scrape grapple has been on countless demo jobs, always attached to large frame high hp track loaders or large frame high hp wheeled machines. The Saber tooth bucket I use for clearing trees, poles and so forth. None have failed, none were cheap, but the grab angles have been thought out, good grab power with the grab cylinders. They have heavy, quality steel, quality wields are what these two companies have in common. Buy once, cry once it really applies to SSL/CTL attachments. You cant just look at the price, but compare the steel quality and thickness with each other, even among well known names. However when you really compare these Chinese knock off attachments to NA quality attachment OEM's, you can see they are not worth the money in any application home or certainly not commercially.
Wouldn't be surprised if RB is importing that crap just to auction here in NA. Iron Planet owned by RB owns quite a bit of the equipment they auction in addition to other owners. As others have said you get what you pay for. I'll add - Buyer Beware.
Considering volume of attachments they sell, they are probably the ones importing them. Who are buying these attachments anyway? I hardly see any reviews online about them.. Hey KSSS, between the saber grapple and the rock grapple, which one do you like best for clearing brush and such? Do you have the open back on the saber grapple to be a problem with branches poking thru and taking your head off? I was also looking into the quick attach power rake. I was looking for used but everybody wants an arm and a leg for them so I think I'll fork out a few extra thousand and buy new.
I have been using the rock grapple for brush. The tines are closer together so brush doesn't slide between the tines like it can with the Saber bucket. I use the Saber bucket for trees and stumps, telephone poles and so forth. The bucket is much more rigid than the rock bucket. I have never had brush come all the way through that opening but I did once have it come through and shear a hyd line off my quick coupler. I have been meaning to put a section of HD expanded metal over it, just have not got around to it. I really like that bucket over all, the hole in the back should have been better thought out however. I had a job moving 300 telephone poles twice. They were 80' long and 4.5-5K per pole. The bucket grabbed the poles with minimal impact and was rigid enough not to flex with all that weight going side to side when moving the poles.
Nice, I was thinking the saber bucket too, i just wanted a solid back though. 4.5-5k lbs poles?. That's heavy!. What kind of a machine do you have that lifts that much weight?
I moved them with a CASE SV340 with 17.5 tires. I will see if I have pictures of it. We thought we may need a wheel loader to move them but the SSL did it. Had to be careful as I had to lift them to full height and it easily could flip the machine over or turn the arms into spagetti, but the 17.5 tires provided more stability and counter weight and moving slowly and smoothly worked well. I was impressed. The ROC on the machine is 3400 but it can actually operate at just under 6K of weight.
I have no ties to this outfit other than a very happy customer......... https://www.harlemanglobal.com/product-category/skid-steer-attachments/grapples/
Looking at those pics reminded me of something that may help someone looking for a rock grapple or using a root grapple to handle something other than brush. The rock grapple I got from Quick Attach had the back of the bucket covered in steel. Initially I thought maybe I would lose the ability to separate rock from dirt with that back enclosed. After using it the first time it became evident that 1. It still does a great job separating dirt from rock. 2. If your loading trucks, it keeps all that debris from raining down on the machine when you load. So now when I look at similar grapples, having that back enclosed is a really nice feature. I see the guarded version of the Harleman grapples have that, at least in the center. If you are using it only for brush it probably would not matter, but like everything, sometimes you may find yourself using the bucket outside of its initial purpose.
I use my Harleman primarily for handling brush, and it is nice to rarely have sticks knocking on the windshield
The main issue with cheap Chinese attachments is the inferior steel they use. They use A36, which is 36,000 lb yield strength steel. Bobcat starts at A50 steel, there is a document somewhere on that, which is 50,000 lbs yield strength steel. Really decent makers will often use up to 100,000 lb steel. It costs more and it lasts way longer. I bought a Loflin (branded as MTL) root grapple with some sort of cheap steel in and it, thing lasted maybe 6 months before it was toast. And Loflin is an American brand made in Denton, NC. I have a recent thread here on this grapple. The chinese stuff is even weaker. Stick with name brands like Bobcat, Land Pride, FFC, Bradco, dozens of good American brands.
Not only the material but where in the heII do you get parts? Who knows where the hydraulic pieces came from and if they are standard. Ed
Talked to one of the local auction companies and they get 1-2 con-ex's in with the attachments for every yard sale. Then sell everything including the con-ex. Coming right from the port and manufacturer.
The auctions are flooded with cheap Chinese crap in those steel shipping cages. First they steal a design from a quality American brand down to a mm, make it out of cheap metal in Shangdong and sell it for peanuts at Ritchie Bros. They put quality manufacturers out of business especially local fab shops.
I think everyone needs to buy one of those cheap attachments and depend on it to make a living. It'll make you appreciate a quality built attachment.
I am not totally convinced that the buyer who needs a well built grapple bucket, buys a knock off attachment instead of a Virnig or Bradco or whatever. I am sure that there are some sales lost to these POS attachments that would have gone to a quality NA OEM, but I don't think they are entirely the same buyer. The guy that works the attachment hard, may first buy the knock off (if he is not very smart) but likely ends up buying the quality attachment after the Knock off fails anyway. The farmer or whomever that doesn't need it everyday or doesn't depend on it working to make money but would just like to have a cheap grapple bucket around, probably was never going to spend 6K on the quality version in the first place.
Some are just inticed by the low price and it's new. That's what RB is counting on. I think it cheapens RB's brand but they have done a lot to cheapen their brand. They make billions so they could care less. It's good they were prevented from buying Euro Auctions and it would have been better if they would have been prevented from buying the bulk of their competition. Monopolies aren't good.
KSSS you’re absolutely right. I’m that farmer. I needed a grapple 2 years ago for this 5 acre farm. Bought an “economy” KC skeleton grapple from a central NJ equipment dealer for $1700. It’s advertised as American Made but who knows. I could have never paid 6k for an attachment only because I simply dont have the money. I use it once a week. It doesn’t look cheap but doesn’t look like 6 k either. ♂️
I bought my grapple "used". Called the. Bobact dealer, "I have 2 at my Livonia branch, I'll send you pics tomorrow". One looked like it was used as a boat anchor, the other was very nice. I bought the "pretty" one. Looking it over at delivery.....***? This is new. Yup, but the paint is peeling in a few places, can't sell it as new...... Yea, I stole it. Lmao... Ed
Well the main problem with cheap brands is parts availability when they brake. Also you absolutely get what you pay for. All the years I have been around equipment the cheapest I would go with is a company called CID based out of NC. People can say whatever they want but that is my advice from turning wrenches for 13 years on equipment. I've worked at a CAT, Bobcat and now Kubota dealer. Cheap attachments always end up costing more in the long run.
RB is a bunch of con-artist. When I worked at CAT we would unload the trade ins that were junk to RB. People would buy them bring them back to us to fix the one or two things RB said was wrong. We would give them a laundry list of things worn out and they would be like how do you know. We would tell them because we sold it to RB. Then they would always get mad that RB ripped them off.
Not all the equipment at RB is worn out junk. They have a sale coming up right away in Nisku/Edmonton with quite a bit of low hour Cat machines. A large contractor is closing up operations and there's equipment from other well known contractors. One machine that really stood out was an 842 hour Komatsu 155X or something like that. A lot of machines under 6000 hours and even more under 10,000 hours. RB really do run the gammot but not usually very many really poor machines. They sell machines for parts though. I wish I would have had the money, I would have bought another grader the same model as mine sold as a parts machine. Jade Equipment bought it for $3200 or there abouts.
RB has a big selection - but you're right, it's buyer beware. Even something that looks great can show up in your yard with dead batteries, leaking filters, etc. The fees on both sides are also pretty steep! eqhq is getting ready to launch a new online auction with no seller fees and a low buyer fee. You can check us out here: https://eqhq.com/ We also have a pretty cool search tool that lets you look at machinery trader, ironplanet, etc. all in one place so you can get a good idea of what's on the market. Feel free to reach out with any questions - happy to help.
I think you need to read the forum rules concerning advertising. RB's biggest advantage is their huge customer base and world wide marketing. The marketing costs a lot of money. RB does sell some junk but also a lot of good stuff. How would you make a profit for yourself and get the best price for your consignors with only charging low buyer's fee's? How could you afford to do much advertising to get the best prices?
Have been looking through the items for the upcoming sale. Saw that dozer, pretty nice…way out of my league though. There is an 1987 D7h with ripper, I am curious to see what that goes for. Need a 4” water pump, so following those….quite a few shown.
Some are better than others. Exame I've seen grapples that used maybe 3/4" (if that) bolts in single shear for the pivot. Couldn't expect that to last with much use. Proper grapple uses greased pins in double shear at least.
Mine did the same thing within a couple hours of use. Granted I did hit a few rocks, but still shouldn't sling a blade through the deck! I bought a proper stump jumper and blades.