Please click the link for details http://www.earthmoversmagazine.co.uk/?p=8809 I don't know how many of you know, or what your opinions are, but it's a bleak day in my opinion.
as for the backhoes being discontinued, in my book its no great loss. Never been around their graders.
I have - nothing to write home about..
they had better get more aggressive on their pricing on their other products or they will be gone.
I've never seen a Volvo TLB and have only seen pictures of their graders. I can understand why they're being dropped....
They are getting very aggressive with pricing for 1st time Volvo buyers on other models trying to gain marketshare in the US. We bought 2 new A25F ADT's for less than Cat or Deere. They have always been close to 20% more than Cat/Deere in the past.
They are terribly expensive and far too technologically advanced for the developing world. That being said, their graders have been popularly traded in RSA, not as popular as Cat or JDs with a Bell badge, but you see enough of them to hear how terrible they are.
Volvo's ADTs have always been the class of the field. In a previous life I was often asked an opinion by customers looking at Cat ADTs, the response was always - "buy Volvo, you won't regret it".
Agreed, I worked on Bell/Deere ADT's for years and wasn't impressed. I changed jobs at we bought a couple new Cat 725's, still not impressed. I was told to buy 2 more trucks and kind of took a flyer on getting a quote on Volvo's since they're terms and price always steered us away. I was very happy how it ended up and the trucks are like Cadillacs.
The problem about it was that at the time I was working for a Cat dealer........
That does present an issue...
Guess that means champion graders can produce bigger graders again.
champion is not producing grader's any more they sold largest one to lee boy and it's being built in lee boy's plant. while volvo owned them they changed the design so much that it cost too much to built with all the bell's and whistle's that it couldn't compete in it's market.
Never seen a Volvo backhoe. Saw plenty of graders in the last couple of years. The state is on low bid for them and they were almost exclusive of Champion so in many cases they morphed into the Volvo product. Last I heard from some friends running them was they were not happy. Does this mean that the current crop of units will be orphans for parts?
I can't say I'm surprised they are being dropped. We have several Volvo machines, most of them run ok, but the blade is horribly balanced and always has some issue with the electrical system. The backhoe also has electrical issues from time to time. The issues aren't the worst part, it's the manuals that are sadly lacking. Of course I am biased, being spoiled and all by the likes of Caterpillar. lol