Anyone have any experience with them? I was looking at Wackers new WL 35 mini loader the other day and the dealer had a few brand new Kawasakis sitting on his lot. He is going to bring the 4 yarder out for me to demo next week. He said that Kawasaki has been manufacturing loaders longer than anyone. I then asked him why I never see any working. He said it was due to poor marketing on their part.:beatsme
I have never ran one, but there loaders that I have seen at auctions seemed to be nice machines. I pretty sure they offer joystick steering on alot of there machines too.
ive got 2000 65 ZIV and i haven't had any problems, other than fixing little things that were broken when i got it. Filter sets weren't that pricey either. Has done everything asked of it thus far. mine has a jrb qc with forks and 2 1/2 yd bucket
Kawasaki loaders we have sold and serviced them for the last 15 ys or so and they are great machines we have a couple of the 95 models out that have almost 20,000 hr and very little repairs to them. It's a good thing too as the customer is not known for taking care of his equipment. The mines around here are realiseing just how good of a machine they have even suprised most of us in the service dept too with there rugedness.
I have run a 65z and a 75z and liked them very much. A friend of mine worked in a pit close by and tried one the same size as a 988. He liked it a lot. Out all new loaders they tried cat was 1st and Kawaski 2nd. John
Similar story down ere, the dealer has got with the program and they are selling well...I have run a 65 and a 95, seem OK, I'd like to see some more room in the cab.
Don't know about new ones but have looked at older machines. They seem to get high hours without many problems and were not very complicated to fix. The one I looked at were 980 and 988 size. Had Cummins engines and two speed transmissions. They were owned by large companies and I believe were purchased for leverage on other Cat machines.
Yea brian your 65 is a sweet machine. I used it for 5 minutes to pick up steve's 16' protech to put on a trailer. It was weird for me being a twin stick, as all the other loaders I have ran had a single stick. Mike has a 60 and a 65 (ur machines twin) kawi and swears by them. I just wish we could get some snow. I am dying to see the 60 kawi, 65 kawi, 65 kawi and 66 ford all pushing snow.
All the cement guys around here that always bought new Cats for their sand and gravel operations are now sporting new Kawasaki's. I also know a guy with a much older Kawasaki that has had great luck with it for the last several years. It looks like hell but has never had any catastrophic failure that I know of.
I have a 80Z on demo right now, We've run Cat 950's over 20 years now. We have a new H series thats nothing but problems. The Kawi is like Cat 10years ago, not that thats a bad thing. Sitting in the seat is like operating a 950F. it looks and feels just like it. The other nice thing about the Kawi is it will not spin the tires, you can practicly drive up a pile of wet leaves no problem and the turning radius is over 2 feet shorter than the cat and komatsu. I agree the cab could be bigger, but is does cost about 35000 less than a 950H. One disadvantage is once you get used to the tilt hood on the Cat G and H series, the old school hood configuration is definatley less mechanic frindley.
Hey Will, tell steve thanks for letting me run it at the mall on thurs nite. Got most of my repairs done today should be ready for sat/sun Brian
I like them the one of the big things for us was the shorter turning radius.
i was looking at 65Z-5 as well, the guy said it out performs his 544G. it has 9000 ish hrs and he said no major repairs at all
Im used to working with the larger loaders, 80's and up. They are good loaders, with few problems, and the ones that they have are the same all the time, steering pumps, condensor fans, and unloader valves. We have a ton of these loaders out on sites, with very few calls, some of these machines have over 30000 hrs. on them!
Kawasaki 50 & 80 I just found 2 new brochures ,from the 90s. The 80 is powered by a Nissan NE6TO4 (D.i & Turbo) & is 185 FWHP . GP bucket is 2.4 to 3.3 M2,depending on type. I've never heard a bad word about them.