There are brand new Komatsu excavators of all size on a rental lot right now. they just came from the port. There is probably six million in equipment there they are now starting to rent out. All safety labels are in Japanese, all manuals are Japanese and I do not know what other things make them differ from U.S. models but seems to me this is a safety violation and if someone gets hurt they would be liable. Can someone point me to the federal regulations on the import or heavy equipment. I do not think these are legal. Thanks, Maka
PFFTT I am not sure of your regulations, But Ritchie Brothers are good at dumping equipment here that doesnt meet our Regulations, I suppose they do it all round the world..
correct but to work on any work site in Australia they have to be brought up to spec Labels in my opinion is nothing, you just dont want them there because they were not made in the US.
The only thing that could be addressed is whether or not they have EPA decals somewhere on the engine. There are no safety regulations governing excavators that would prevent them from being sold in the United States that I have been made aware of. What is the companies name that is renting them?
most of them are used up POS's. well the paint overhaul is usually nice, if you get a radio equipped one the FM only goes to 89. something. usually refered to as gray market machine, with terrible parts availability for the most part, but there are exceptions . I worked for a company that both two, one was all most non-usable , as long as the ditch was about 8' wide you wouldn't bang the side of the ditch
We dont have any issues with cat or komatsu grey market machines here in aus, parts can be found easily
Ditto, Havent found a part yet that wasnt readily available, the parts guys might look down their noses if you tell them what it is, but if you give them the part number they never seem to know the difference.
We have imported Cat machines from all over the world. We always replace all the decals and books with English language ones for liability reasons. If we rented or sold a machine with everything written in Japanese and someone got hurt or killed, the lawyer would have a field day.
Just to let you know the only way they would be illegal is if they do not have EPA compliance otherwise it is good to go.
I've never seen where the decals made any difference. Those machines are always sold "AS IS" and it is the owner's responsibility to ensure safe operation.
i bought a kubota grey market machine k-030 all the writing is in english no japanese writing that i can see and i have found a place in Brisbane aus that can get me nearly any part he said from japan. would this be right ? as i have heard grey market parts are hard to find. and also could you adapt parts to fit the grey market machine ?. my understanding is that only the specs differ ??
I wonder if they were shipped after Japans Disaster?Do they glow in the dark? What better way to help the economy than to import and sell to make Manufactures here lay workers off.***********