Hi, I have a Cat CS-433C compactor. I believe CS means it came with a smooth drum but it has a pad foot drum now. It has 4600 hours. seem to run well, not blow by in the engine, just replaced some hoses. Looks like the pump and final drive may have been replaced at some point. I know there will be repairs along the way but does anyone know what the average useful life of a machine like this would be? 10,000 hours? More? Less?
Are you talking about total machine life to scrap or a life to component rebuild..? If it's the former then provided you can get parts for it and the chassis/frames are in good order and not cracked then it should be infinitely rebuildable. Let's face it everything apart from the chassis is either a rebuildable component (e.g. engine) or a bolt-on spare part (e.g. a wiring harness) and as such is replaceable.
I've seen plenty of the over 6,000 hours but they were also over ten years old to. Around here unless the machines are on a paving crew they are lucky to get ten hours a week.
I generally try to sell them before 5000 hours. No point on risking a breakdown in the middle of a hot mat somewhere.
We hav a 433c it has 9000 hours on it. We have done some work on it had to weld up on the drum redo the drive motor brakes and a power coupling not all at once. Best thing you can do is to make sure the operators dont sit still while it vibrating. We need to due more work on the drum now because of it