so ironically now that volvo has the sweet new skid steer I'm in the market for the sweet old style 2 armed unit. back in the day before we bought the jcb i considered these units because it seemed you could get them for nothing. i recall a loaded 60 hp unit w pilots and ac with 90 hours on craigslist for $14,000. for whatever reason the asking prices of them have gone up significantly in the last 2 years it seems. and now that i want one, there are none to be found. so the question is are they as sweet as they look?? aka sweet as in sweet rugged reliable cheap beater machine. they have the sweet seat and ergonomics but i noticed the pilot control hits the window as your using it! are the pilot controls good? aka similar to my jcb electric controls. i hear people talking from time to time about their cats taking 4 seconds to respond, which would be unacceptable. im in the market for a volvo because the price of old bobcats is exorbitant and i don't really care for them anyway. also was the air conditioner always a foot higher than the top of the cab? cuz that would get sheared off instantly...
I always felt that the old Scat Track machines were a clunky hunk of junk. Volvo never did any real design modifications to them as I recall. I think Volvo felt it was better to farm out production of skidsteers than it was to try and totally redesign the old Scat Trak lineup.
I have run the MC110 I think it is. It has pilots and a Cummins motor. I have a buddy with a large landscape company that bought it. Volvo was running a crazy good deal at the time so he bought it. They have numerous skid steers all different colors. I know that the last time I talked with him about it, the Volvo was the last machine to get used. I ran it and found it really awkward. The loader arms are way out in front of the machine, hard to explain but, I found it odd, as I remember the pilots were fine, power was good. These Scat Trac machines were junk before Volvo bought the rights to the machine and they didn't do much to help them out. Volvo gave them pilots, AC and so forth but they are largely the same machine with little improvement from the prior design.
Theres a reason they were cheap, nobody wanted them. They were actually too expensive for what they were new also. Our salesman at the time had sold all of two and one was to himself. You are confusing Cat EH with Cat Pilot. The Cat pilots respond as well as any pilot. The C series came out in 07 with EH and had very slow reaction times. Even when the series was discontinued the controls were still no match for pilots. The D's are much better. Still can't beat pilots for feel and response, but EH is catching up quickly. Haven't heard of anyone complaining about response out of true pilots on any color machine. They are more precise than mechanical controls IMO.
here is my question. can i get a construction style tractor loader with a 3 pt hitch and pto instead of the backhoe? now I'm thinking about getting a loader tractor instead of a second skid steer, but i am less than impressed with such machines, and more impressed with the construction machines. i feel like they would not be good for hauling loads of silage and such though.