i’m new to this page and excavators. My dad and I are in the market for a mid range excavator 130-160 size frame. Will be used to clear a couple nice size trees on a new piece of land we got and clean up some tree lines else where that are starting to grow back. Also will be using it for installing and digging up pipe drops and clean a few ditches. I have been in contact with the salesman at our local dealerships and united rental waiting to hear back from them. So far i have only found two machines in my size and price range well one is over. First one is a deere 160g 2015 model with 2,500 hours with no aux hydraulics and no thumb. They are asking $70k on it and another $6k for a manual thumb. It is also at another one of their locations 4.5 hrs away so I kind of want to see if i can find something closer before. United rental has a 2018 kobelco Sk140sr-5 with 3,800 hrs has hyd thumb on it. They are asking 79k for it. I was wanting to stat in the 50-60k price range and up to $70k for the perfect machine. I had a buddy of mine told me to stay away from the kobelcos. Most the farms around me run volvo 140s and we would rent a machine from our neighbor here and there in the past. Is there any machines to avoid in that size range. I had found a case cx145d with 5k hours with hyd thumb for $65k on facebook talked to the guy and said he changed his mind as of now and is planning to not upgrade. A thumb is a must hydraulic would be even better. It doesn’t help that i am trying to purchase something asap to get the new land cleared.
C&C equipment sales in Indiana on YouTube been getting 150/170 class Volvo Deere Hyundai excavators you usually see a video of that machine getting repaired/pm before sale
Don’t settle for a manual thumb! No matter what!
Hydraulic thumbs are nice and for the most part better than a manual thumb. Alot of hydraulic thumbs are set to 'break away' so you don't damage the cylinder with bucket force. That can be a little annoying when handling big trees at times. I personally wouldn't let a manual thumb be a 'deal breaker' on the perfect machine. I can have my manual thumb on my PC200 switched in a 1 to 2 minutes most of the time by myself. But I will not argue that a hyd thumb is better 90% of the time!! YMMV
Well the 160 i have my eyes on has no thumb. The dealer quoted me 19k more to add the aux hyd cylinder and thumb and 6k more for manual thumb.
Is the thumb made out of gold?
No but at one time when it was little it was sucked on and later it might have pulled out a plum. Except the thumbs that were on our little angels and yea they were made out of gold.
Case 215, welcome to the HEF. This topic is re-visited at least once a month. There are numerous active threads. This is my favorite. Homeowners buying old giant excavators? Is this only viable for YouTubers looki ng to generate content? I have thirty acres on mountain side. My fantasy is to have giant excavator that works but is cheap. HeavyEquipmentForums
And a classic going back to 2010. It should be required reading for any new HEF member. HeavyEquipmentForums
Times have changed Farm excavator was a drott 40/JD 690's. Coaldust the guy bought a Komatsu 650 & Hitachi front shovels for home use was great for a hobby can't go wrong for popping trees
I see it all the time up here. Somebody buys the most oddball, gray market, obsolete auction machine they can find in Seattle and they spend more money shipping to the bush than it cost. With luck, it walks off the barge under its own power.
Help wanted No Komatsu 21 or 75 excavator or yellow Mitsubishi but will help with your Komatsu 650 garden project
I used to look at machines like that for people intending on shipping them north. Met some pretty colorful characters in those days. Made some calls to bankers a few times to check on their money situations before getting out to the pickup to look at a machine. Gold miners were the most fun and most stressful.
Here’s why I say “no matter what”. Farm use to me implies some fence, farm stead, and tree clean up. You “want” a hydraulic thumb for those jobs. Son and I cleaned 3/4 mile of buried woven wire sprinkled with dead stumps in eight hours. Hauled off five side dump loads. The posts had been pulled and trees cut off for firewood and stumps treated five years ago so that part was easy. The hydraulic thumb made pulling wire out of the dirt and bundling it up into an arcade game. It was fun! Took very little hand work. I’d keep shopping. I’d take a less perfect excavator….if it had the thumb.
My view is 100% opposite. My main consideration is the machine itself, secondly is that it is plumbed for 2-way auxiliary hydraulics. Then you can add a hydraulic thumb at any time if you wish. I personally do not like fixed thumbs at all. All that being said, around the farm for your limited use, you could probably get by without a thumb, at least for a while. Lest we forget, thumbs are a fairly new invention and mostly limited to North America, an incredible amount of work has been done over the years without them. You need to take a real look at wants vs needs. I'm both a beef cattle farmer and a contractor and my equipment for each venture is vastly different. I run both businesses with a sharp pencil, on the construction side production, efficiency and minimal downtime is the name of the game. I run mostly new equipment and the best of the best. The farm is quite different, its about running old but reliable equipment, much of it considered outdated. I'm willing to sacrifice a little speed, comfort and ease of use to keep my profit margins high.
I'll also add, 200hrs a year use is the breakeven point for most equipment to be profitable. If you are using it less than that either rent, borrow, or buy something cheap. $80K for a 'farm excavator' doesn't pencil out unless you have A LOT of work for it. If it's going to be a toy then just call it what it is and don't try to justify it.
In 1980 I installed a thumb and a Link-Belt 5400. It was the first one I did. I'm getting older now but my poor math says that was forty six years ago. I've been part of decision making processes that came to the conclusion that if the machine didn't have a live thumb, we didn't need the machine. That being said, big machines, say over forty ton, didn't do a lot of general work that could utilize a thumb. Underground utilities and mining is where it generally just got in the way. For small to mid size though, the thumb becomes about 50% or more of the machine's capability. I do agree with the 200 hour a year premise. For less than that you are paying for a toy that may make a few things easier but just sits around rotting away and taking up space. You end up having to fix something every time you want to use it.
Don't get me wrong, I find a thumb indispensable for most of the work I do. Clearing land, working in the woods, loading logs, demolition, loading trash and debris, etc. I also find them to be in the way for certain specific digging tasking like digging deep straight wall holes for piers and the like. Regardless, for a commercial use machine I wholeheartedly agree and recommend a hydraulic thumb. But, on the farm sometimes all you needs is machine size and muscle, especially if you are not loading logs on trucks or other forestry related tasks. As I mentioned before, get a machine with 2-way aux hydraulics and you can add a thumb when the budget allows. For a farm use machine I liken it to a 4-in-1 bucket on a track loader, sure most people want one, but don't pass up a good machine just because it doesn't have one.
We got a really good deal on a Hyundai 210-7 9 years ago. Really well kept municipal machine with whole new undercarriage…no thumb, 3 nice buckets. Have got really good at tree work, clearing etc. Use 34” tooth bucket to good effect. Previously all our 12-13.5 ton machines had nice progressive link thumbs. Absolutely would prefer a thumb but have never regretted this machine. Using it today for bulking out pay, tailings etc.
A hoe is designed to dig and load as it's main capabilities. The thumb adds the pick/place/pull capabilities. If you're not planning on doing a lot of pick/place/pull, then the thumb is optional. But for a farm, I'd think the pick/place/pull is the most needed capability.
It amazes me how quickly people become dependent on technology and how some things become "essential." I grew up running backhoes, didn't start running excavators until probably 20yrs ago. We never had a thumb on a backhoe (most still don't) and I could pick up and carry logs, stumps, rocks, pull out old fence and load it on a truck, pick up an carry bundles of brush, bust up and load slabs of concrete and so on all just using the hoe with a standard tooth bucket, just sayin'...
Well hell, give up hydraulics entirely and go back to cable rigs. I’ve been doing same thing with a TLB for similar time. Getting an excavator with thumb showed ME I’d been doing things the hard way. I’m glad I learned the skills without thumb, but life’s too short not to use what’s available.
Never in this thread have I said he shouldn't buy an excavator with a thumb, or that he shouldn't ever add one to a machine without. Simply, don't let the thumb situation be the dictating factor when buying a machine. Buy a good machine for the right price and you can add a thumb whenever you desire. So far the machines the OP posted don't pencil out for the hours usage and type of work he's planning, at least in my mind. Then again, maybe he's a BTO and $80-90K is pocket change.
I'll also add this in regards to thumbs. Every excavator I've owned has had a thumb, most likely any I buy in the future will too, but it has to be right or it's just a PITA. 1) Must be a main pin thumb 2) Must be a hydraulic thumb 3) Must mesh with the teeth properly 4) The auxiliary flow and relief settings need to be right so you can grab an object and simultaneously operate the bucket and aux to rotate it without letting it go. 5) I've never owned or run one, but a progressive thumb looks pretty nice What I HATE are these cheap little weld on manual thumbs that every used machine on marketplace or craigslist seem to have on them. They don't match up to the bucket properly, are a pain to operate, and are only one wrong move away from folding up like a cheap suit or ripping a hole in the stick. If I bought a used machine with one of those I'd take the cutting torch to it and just use it without a thumb until I could fit something better.
My buddy had a ‘homemade’ thumb mounted with the lower pivot pin welded to the stick. Flimsy setup with massive torque applied to lower pin….saw it recently: twisting up like a pretzel. Warned him to pick a load (like a large tree) in the middle only… Also (very annoying) when retracted the unit sticks way out from the stick. I would prefer no thumb in this type of situation. Our 270 had a basic (but strong/well engineered CWS) thumb. This worked perfectly well. The progressive link thumbs on our ZX120/135 were very nice for dealing with ‘buckbrush’ etc…Nice to have the extra reach/rotation but really not necessary. All our minis had a basic main pin thumb. Nothing wrong with those. All that said, some days I really wish our 210 had a thumb (lol). Like when I am fumbling to pick up a stump!
I had to take my thumb off on the backhoe, to do an 1800’ trench for utilities on a neighboring house. Needed the 12” bucket, or wanted it, so took the thumb off and made up a shorter pin. Actually found it pretty easy to pick up rocks and stumps without it. That said, it was nice to get it back on. Personally, I would rather have an extendable-hoe than a thumb on a backhoe as long as I have a thumb available on something else. The idea of putting a thumb on an older excavator is a nice idea, as long as it’s set up for it but from scratch, can exceed the cost of a farm use excavator. Simple math.