Nothing exciting, but NCDOT parked there Volvo Motorgrader and Athey Row Pickerupper across from my house all weekend. They sure do know how to mess up the shoulders on the local roads.
Is the Volvo grader any good? I thought state govt would spend the extra change to get a Cat or somewthing.
I'm not sure, I've never run one. They must like them because they have a lot of them.
Never put my hands on the controls of one of them Swedish maintainers..Couldn`t say honestly.They look like good machines but looks can be deceiving in blades.
Those Volvo's are a Champion in Swedish clothing. Pretty much the same as the late model Champs built in Goderich, Ontario, Canada (still are) but with a Volvo diesel and moderned up a tad. Of course I'm biased and believe that Cat makes the only grader worth operating...lol..! I find the Champ...errr..Volvo a little less stable, and not as easy to get comfortable with. Still, it is a pretty good machine.
Thanks:drinkup
tripper,spoken like a true blademan.I cut my teeth on the mouldboard of a 1978 140 G, been runnin a Cat of different sizes most of my adult life. I`ve gotten on John Deere blades as rentals on jobs far from home, gotten on a Case blade(dont waste your money,even as a rental)... I learned on a Cat and Cat is the only blade in my opinion. I am partial to a 12 H for slick finishin and a 140 H for large scale processing, finishing and followin scraper hands that aint too bueno at gettin close on a rough cut. At the end of the day,nothin I`ve ever run blade wise hangs with Caterpillar blades..
I have never seen another grader other a Cat on state worksites.
It all depends how much the local CAT house wants to put a machine on the property. I work for the local county highway authority and we used to buy our graders and dozers out right and a little Link Belt cable crane (Wish I had bought that little jewel when we sold it). Had a couple of every brand but since they were expensive, we'd hang on to them for ever. No state of the art machines in our shop and definitely not a CAT in sight . We started to lease our heavy equipment. MICAT had an aggressive leasing program and we got CAT graders, 2 hydraulic excavators and dozers. I'm not longer the supervisor that puts the stuff to work so I'm not in on all the details but the most recent leases haven't been CAT.
I sure do hope they're using only single axle's w/ the tail gate down. Your going to get nowhere with that extension on the Athey if they're backing under it. We use just the straight 25' conveyors and have some trouble getting over certain tandem trucks we have with the tall tail gates.
Graders that we purchase now are Volvos. I never had a chance to try one out as there is none in my area yet, but from what I'm hearing they are a very nice grader. In my area we still have the Champions. From 1996 to 1999 models and they are good machines as well. The grader that I used to have was a 1996 VHP 120. Great machine and still going strong. I didn't cut my teeth on one of these, but operated one (same year and model) for a few years. I had a 1977 Champion before that and it was like going from a Volkswagon to a Limo! I absolutely loved it. When the department purchased the new 96 Champion I had the choice to keep the Cat or take the new one. Very difficult decision, so I tried it out for a few days and decided to take it. Only reason was that it had a great heater and of course it was brand new. It was a very good machine though. The old Cat is still going strong, but the body is getting in poor shape. I've said this before...it's really hard to beat a Cat.
The fact that Volvo's head office is in NC may have something to do with the purchase decision
So you say hometown discount?
The State of NC used to buy approximately 50 to 75 Champion 700 Series graders year after year. I know the Champion rep that used to bag that deal. This started way before Volvo even had a plant or Sales office in NC and for sure way before Volvo bought the Champion product line. It was a huge account for Champion and they took it very serious which is probably why they continue to buy the Volvo version today.
Nort Carolina DOT Graders The Volvo grader shown in the above photo is a 700B Series machine with a 7liter Volvo engine, mounted in a what is the earlier Champion-based platform. Current production Volvo graders, and those most recently purchased by NCDOT, are the G900 Series and are 100% Volvo -designed and -built with complete Volvo engine, transmission and final drives. Contrary to conventional belief, the grader specs written by NCDOT and most other state DOT's are quite exacting and mandate that bidders supply more fully equipped machines than the typical contractor grader. State DOT contracts carry extreme, longterm warranty provisions and only top line, well-proven products are acceptable. Professional organizations, like NCDOT, have easy ways of "writing out" any unproven products or vendors and in reality accept bids on only the best performing brands. These agencies purchase at the low prices based on their large volumes which can be very attractive to the top line grader manufacturers, including Cat, Deere and Volvo.
Gosh this guy sounds familiar. What happened that year Dresser slid in and stole the bid for 50 or so machines?
they demo'd a volvo here.... of course none the blade hands liked it.... we had a state blade ... it had the front lift for a plow.... the gravel maker ripper in front of the blade... plus the regular ripper on the back
i was just tryin to think of what make clay county has and dresser is what they have