Hey guys, I have been looking to upgrade our 330-3 hitachi and was looking to try a doosan 300lc. Price is awesome and I see a lot about. Over 120k cheaper than a hitachi. Does anyone know what they are like?
G'day Hitachijames. I'm on a big project in the southern US. We have something like 65 cranes running around here from 15 tonners to 1200 tonner. More backhoes than I can count. One contractor had a smaller Doosan and recently replaced it with a 300. I spoke with the operator who loved it. We have about every model of Cat, Komatsu and John Deere that you can imagine here. The Doosan seems to produce as well as the similar sized machines of other brands. I would give it some serious thought. They have some serious engineering capabilities to draw on at Doosan. Especially with their owning Bobcat. I've been thinking about getting into some small contracting in addition to my normal consulting business. I've narrowed the field down to considering Doosan and/or New Holland. Can't afford Cat (and wouldn't put up with their "my way or the highway" attitude anyway). Like Bobcat equipment, but again pricy. Deere same-good equipment but pricy. Like Volvo but bad local dealership.
Hi james. Real popular on this side of the ditch mate. Doosan and hyundai. Mate here has Doosan 55/ 140 / and 300 high and wide forestry spec, weighing in at 36 ton. had a previous 300 that did 6000 trouble free hours and a 280 Halla before that. Keeps them for 6-7k hours then buys a new one, and has always easily sold the previous one back to the dealer. Pic of it i hope ? ? cheers merv.
Doosan getting great name over this side of the pond... Would defo consider it especially if you in a position to change it after 6/7k hours... genuinely dont know what they be like when get older though...
that worked, another one of job
Yair . . . D6 Merv . Nice piccys mate. How much better is an excavator on that sort of benching work than a dozer? . . . like I mean machines with a comparable hourly rate? That sort of dirt has me drooling to get in there with a Kom.65 or an old D7. Cheers.
Don,t want to hijack your thread too much James, but will explain abit more. Horses for courses scrub. Nothing beats that big mechanical arm for dealing with stumps, especially roading uphill. And in this country you have to somehow get to the top before you can come down hill. beauty of a digger is you can deal to the stumps on your batters; or anywhere for that matter, and dig around them. And push the slash away below you.Incidently owner specced this machine with a 40 tonner bucket too. Bulldozer you always end up burying some slash, and stumps can be a battle. This country you can only attack a stump from the one direction with a dozer. All this was done with that digger and my D6. me mainly pushing dirt for cuts and fills and finishing to grade. Landing at the end and steep road down ridgeline was done by me as was mainly just pushing loose dirt, digger broke out digging into hill and i pushed away from it.. Stumps are ok going downhill with a dozer, but uphill forget it. Even with a big tractor. D7H is a great forest roading tool spent alot of time on one of them just seems a good size. Another guy here uses a D8R, but is a immense pita to shift legally. Is ok on harder ground but doesn,t like softer country. He mainly does alot of landings on easier country and is a cheaper option there. But combination of a big digger and smaller dozer works better and cheaper than big dozer and digger. All this roading was 'eyeballometry', no surveying. You make a road loaded logging trucks can climb. One road in this block was a 17% climb on gravel with 44000kg. that particular piece was logged in mid summer so trucks could climb. Road in pic was logged over autumn. This country is a red clay over sandstone and turns to poop bigtime with rain. Also was no rock locally on land for metal, so that had to be purchased. End of day is only x amount of dollars for logs. Roading, logging and trucking to come out of that; and there has to be a return for the forest owner and wood seller. couple more pics on same job, one of truck climbing, note dirt being spat out from drive tyres. Cheers Merv
Merv - Is that all first rotation Forest ? Were there only ridge tracks for access for silviculture and fire purposes ?
yes was all first rotation. Was only tracks along top of main ridge, plus one road down some slightly easier terrain in centre spine of ridge. All done with a D4D too, diggers didn,t exist when it was planted, well not in this part of the world.
I bought a used 140 in this thread: So far the only problems: condenser fan replaced for AC to work Shroud around muffler cracked because aux valves were attached to it (excess weight on sheet metal) I beefed that up. It does get tippy with a full bucket at the end of it's reach! Really like the thumb for clean up work.
I work for one of the Doosan dealers and can safely recommend one They are quite a good machine, the new common rail engines are very good on fuel. We had one logging contractor who boasted the amount of fuel he was saving was paying the repayments on the new digger. (He previously had Cat diggers) The only real problem we have are coolers but they are only on the older LCV and Solar machines with brass core and steel tanks. Other things are welds on steel pipes but again they aren't a major issue. Make sure you change your hydraulic oil as well. We've replaced many pumps after 7000-8000 hours but that's only because the oil hasn't been changed since new Apart from that if I were looking to buy one that would definitely be my first port of call
We have a DX420LC that I spent some time on today. Its a nice machine. No complaints.
We are the main attachment supplier on our side of Canada for just about everyone except CAT. IMHO, for an engineering point of view, Doosan is fast becoming one of the better machines. The issue here was more related to poor dealer network rather than machine issues. They are trying real hard to get into an established market and the Bobcat network will give them the best chance. My favourite is the Volvo though... just from designing and working with the machine. They are ahead of their competitors when it comes to safety features. Although the others are catching up! Bottom of my list would be Kobelco (just rough product with bad design!) and Komatsu is falling fast... probably the weakest machine frames on an excavtor that I've had to design around... but I don't run them! I just make 'em capable of handling the local terrain!
I have to disagree with kobelco, we have. 350,330, and 485 kobelco excavator, and they are impressive to say the least. They outproduce our previous hitachis by a fair margin and have proven very reliable with our 330 approaching 10,000 hours running an allu SMH bucket or NPK GH12 breaker, and out 350 approaching 6500 hours with an allu SMH since new. We are currently looking at adding another 485 to the stable.
I know of a problem with the safety levers and the way the arm rests move. Seems there was a guy driving a 225 and there was some guys working around the bucket. He lifted the safety lever to shut down any movement and instead of stopping movement the whole lever component lifted up and got caught in the arm rest which violently moved the dipper arm forward striking a worker. The guy died. The action that caused the accident could not be repeated and as far as I know the machine is still not released from the safety authorities in Dublin. I have spoke to fitters who know of this problem with these machines / Doosan with this particular safety feature are simple death traps for anyone to be around.
I reckon you're thinking of the older 225LCVs the newer DX models have a different style of safety lever I'm not saying you're wrong but I've spent the last 3.5 years working for a Doosan dealer and I've never come across that problem. I can see how it could happen but never heard of it. The safety cut out works by using a micro switch under the armrest, there is a possibility that the micro switch was faulty and stuck on when the armrest was up. But that sort of thing could happen with any excavator
Hey Jock, hoping maybe you could help. I'm trying to track down a DX255LC workshop manual. I've found some sites selling them for around $50 to $100 but I don't know if they're reputable. Any advice?
Hey mate Sorry for the late reply I've been away on holiday I have access to paper copies, I can ask at work if we sell electronic copies What are you chasing?
Hi Merv Do you happen to have any literature around from the Halla 280?
Hi Canadan. no info at all sorry. Although I do know he had a really good run from it. Only thing that happened in 7000hrs was muffler rotted out ! Was a few other 280s also in the area on logging work; loading, sorting, shovelling,' owners also were quite happy with them. Is even still one old girl still running part time too I think