Does anyone know the reason for CAT discontinuing the 5000 series of excavators/shovels? Could they not compete with Komatsu's line of hydraulic shovel/excavators (PC1800+)? The market for large excavators is growing around here as development is maxing out in the valleys and moving into the mountains. Several companies that run 100% CAT equipment are purchasing Hitachi 1100's, and Komatsu PC1800's. Not to mention numerous companies running 385's where they admit they should be running a larger machine; they just don't want to have to go with Komatsu or Hitachi to get a larger (new) machine. Many of these aforementioned companies will only purchase new machines (some Union deal) which precludes them from getting a used 5110 or 5130. There would be a strong market for 5110's and 5130's around here, so I'm curious what CAT's reasons were for discontinuing the line?
http://sec.edgar-online.com/2003/07/01/0000018230-03-000274/Section2.asp Cat bought the electric drive truck division from Terex and Terex bought the 5000 series excavators from Cat.
Thank you very much, that's what I was looking for.
Every picture tells a story Komatsu truck driver pulled ahead too quickly maybe?
Ah yes, but what about this? http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3095/is_7_96/ai_112655061 As I understand it, the deal fell through -- this isn't really entirely substantiated, but I know none of the dealers I've worked with sell O&K shovels (in the States, anyhow). I think there's also a business reason Cat wanted to exit the business. Designing the largest forgings -- those that went on the 5230B -- must have been absolutely expensive, so needless to say, deciding that it wasn't even worth a look must have had some additional consequences that made it a better move than continuing to stay on.
I heard that Caterpillar had some relationship with Terex/O&K to market the O&K shovels through the Caterpillar distribution network: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2004_August_16/ai_n6162872 So wouldn't this mean that Cat dealers still have a big shovel line?
I hadn't heard about the deal breaking up. I guess the only certainty is that Cat was looking to get rid of the shovels. Whether or not they were able to exchange them for something else of value, I have no idea now.
The market for those machines would have to be very small. Considering that Komatsu and Hitachi are also well represented in that market it may not have penciled out for CAT. I don't think that the 5000 series was their best excavator based on what I have read.
5000 Series are Junk Cat did not trade Terex for their line of electric drive trucks. Cat's new line of electric drive trucks is powered by a Mitsubishi electric drive system. Cat and Mitsubishi have had a relationship for a long time as all Cat Construction Size Excavators use Mitsubishi engines. The 5000 series of shovels was probably the biggest diaster Cat ever had on their hands. Those shovels were very unreliable and the picture shown in the thread above in no way was caused by the truck leaving too soon. First the truck is not even loaded so why would he pull away. The biggest problem with those shovel was as shown in the picture the upper structure would pull away from the undercarriage. Also if you want a very reliable mining class machine you should go with Hitachi. Hitachi is the worldwide leader in market share in mining excavator size of equipment. If you talk to anyone who knows anything about mining they will tell you Hitachi makes the most productive and cost effective machine.
Is Terex/O&K still in the mining shovel picture? I don't know much about the mining scene, but from what I've read it sounds like Hitachi builds a nice shovel.
Terex/O&K is definitely still in the mining picture and they make an ok shovel. I would say Komatsu and Hitachi make the best mining shovel and then Terex/O&K would be a couple tiers below that. They will definitely be in a better position now as more Cat dealers are starting to pick up the O&K shovel line. I know Finning is the first Cat dealer to get the contract.
Sorry that was an attempt at humor and just to poke a bit of fun at the Cat lovers here... I have to agree with you on the big Hitachis, they are certainly built to survive by being over-engineered in many ways.
My favorite is Komatsu. Although I have never driven one so I only go by looks.
ripped track body I 100% agree, i worked for a southern california contactor with a 5130 where the turn table ripped, not cracked ripped. That machine never ran for more than 2 weeks without a break down of 1 full day or more, and about 2 months between major break downs, i think our mechanics spent more time in it than the operators. Also a flawed hydraulic system is a problem, for some reason if you blow a hydraulic line below the tank the whole tank drains out, and at 300 + gals thats a epa issue.:usa
when we had our 345 delivered to us last year i was talking with the head of sales for cat down here and we got on to the topic of the 5000 series shovels,he was telling me that there going to drop the line of shovel dew to the high cost and fabrication of the shovels and just the enginerring going into these hovels were a nghtmare,they had some seriuos problems with these big shovels he also told me,so he pointed out that cat would propably stay away from this altogther its better to build what you know and can handle,
Cat Sales person told me, that Cat could not compete with Hitachi and Komatsu in this size machine. Cats per cent of sales was not large enough. Cat machines were not as reliable as the others and Mines/Contractors just were not buying them like Cat wanted. Also cost of production, research was larger than Cat wanted for per cent of sales.
5000 series discontinued Cat had lots of trouble with this product line coupled with poor production (cycle times hyd issues and lots of downtime). Most anyone who owned a 5000 series machine can tell a horror story or two....they are like terex scrapers you always need to have two to keep productivity up...one to run while the other is down. Nevertheless, Cat was at a point where the R&D costs to develop a competitive product were too high to justify continuing the line. Besides Hitachi is running at over 60% market share worldwide for mining shovels and excavators....the rest of the pie is shared by O&K/Terex and Komatsu/Demag. Hitachi is definitely ahead of the curve on reliability and durability with very few manufacturers able to keep up....there are a few good machines out there besides Hitachi....but they are one in a hundred. Just my few thoughts:beatsme
Dont know much about the 5000 series Cats but Cat has some arrangement with Terex o&k as the new RH340b has a Cat engine option, I know of an Rh120e that is Cat powred from the factory
CAT in all sales divisions (ie:Excavators,wheel loaders, mini-ex etc.) wants at least a 20% market share. They can usually obtain this by throwing money into the market but with this size of machine and this market size being very small, they could see the writing on the wall.
Anyone have an update on who Cat is teaming up with now that they have confirmed they will be getting into the large shovel business? It seems they will be hunting in the EX8000 / PC8000 range at their biggest pieces.
off topic but, in my eyes, another example of the kind of crap that has let unions ruin this country.
Mainly because 5000 series can't hold a candle to Hitatchi. We have 3 5130's two 2500 Hitachi's and I think they now have two or three I believe 1950 Hitachi's not sure of the last ones they started gettin them after I started treatment and got my bone marrow translplant and won't beable to go back towork for a while. We used to rent an 1200 and 1100 Hitachi from time to time and you could dig just about as much with the 1200's as the 5130's because the hydraulics were so slow on the Cats. Seemed like the Cat's always had a hydraulic pump or something goin to hell on them.
As a general statement, the Cat machines were basically under designed for what they were expected to do. Their competition was so far ahead of them, that they simply couldn't compete unless the customer was the type who would only buy Cat equipment because of the name. Hitachi makes a great machine, Komatsu makes a great machine, as did O&K/Terex and now hopefully Bucyrus will continue the trend. I've also heard the Liebherr machines are good.
I've run the Liebherr machines in the construction size up to 50-55 tonne class and they are pretty nice machines. I wonder if Bucyrus will paint they're hydraulic shovels in the old brown and yellow paint scheme like when they use to produce shovels and hoes in the seventies and early eighties.
Unfortunately they didn't choose the old yellow, maroon and green paint scheme. They had someone come up with a new scheme to represent the new company, and I still don't like it. I thought it would grow on me, but no luck so far.
Yeah I gotta agree purple does not look good on an excavator. They must of hired a fashion designer to come up with that.
I am in a union and I never heard of that. Contractors buy and sell and rent used equipment all the time.
man, i wish the union here pushed a new tractor policy. hell, i would settle for an old machine so long as it ran.
Looks like the old Bucyrus-Erie, maroon to me.
Liebherrs aren't too bad of a thing, we run two 994B's here and a Hitachi EX3600 (-5 I think) and while the liebherrs have there share of painful problems a lot comes down to maintenance, and when they're going they go hard, admittedly the slightly larger Hitachi will out dig them and is definately more reliable, I seen a lot worse diggers than the liebherrs about...
It's not a very good picture to show the colour, but it's more purple than anything from the stuff I have seen.
I’ve worked around 5000’s, and just like many of you, I have my own opinions on each model in the series. I’m not asking how they compare to competitors machines. What I would like to know is the reasoning behind the decision to discontinue the series. If someone were to get a straight answer from the individuals at CAT who made the decision to discontinue the 5000's, what was it? Did R&D costs exceed the foreseen manufacturing costs on improving the machines? Did CAT feel there was a lack of long-term market depth? Did getting the machines improperly pass-matched on some customers sites, and the poor job CAT/dealers did at getting knowledgeable maintenance staff to work on the machines play very much of a role? Was CAT's lack of maintenance training to customers part of the reasoning? Did CAT's issues with parts availability have a bearing? Did CAT want to pull their cards on improving/expanding a line-up of shovels with the intent of developing a relationship with a partner to go into designing/manufacturing the machines? I’ve heard plenty lot of opinions, but would like to hear from some of the guys who work for CAT/dealers or someone with firsthand knowledge of why CAT made the decision. It took CAT six years to make a full turnaround on this class of machines, how many years of that has P&H been in the picture?
I think the general opinion is that the 5000 series were crap, everyone knew it, from production, maintenance and Cat. They had so many problems Cat would've had to start from scratch. I'm definitely not anti Cat, I reckon they make the best dozers, graders and mechanical dump trucks in the business, but when it came to these things... well. When it comes to big hydraulic diggers (200t +), if you want build quality you can't go past Liebherr, O&K (i know.. Terex, and now Bucyrus), and Komatsu, which is a Demag anyway. But they're more expensive to both purchase and to maintain. Hitachi's are cheap and reliable, but they fall apart pretty quick in hard digging. We have a few Hitachi's at this site (Indonesian Borneo) 7 x 2500's, 7 x 3600's and 3 x 5500's. The booms on the 3600's crack up so bad that we have a spare rotable boom so that we can swap booms out for repair. Old one comes off, repaired boom goes on and then that one is repaired. As soon as it's repaired we change the next one that is the worst. We just had to remove the sticks from 2 of the 5500's so we could repair cracks in the end of the boom 2 feet long. And then the 2500's just like to crack all over. They'll definitely keep boilermakers/welders in jobs. We average 90% availability for the hitachi's and a little higher for the 2 x Liebherr 996's, around 91 -92 %. We also have 2 old RH120E's, the shovel is actually serial # 120001, the first production 120E.
Did you guys buy the shovel new? We still run an old RH200, s/n 40036, 16 years old with 104,000 hours on her.
Does this mean you work at Grasberg/Ertsberg? I would think all those boom cracks would put the Liebherr's a little more than 2% ahead in availability. Do the Hitachi's never go down except welding?
I have never heard that either. You would have a hard time convincing me that a labor union would care about what kind of equipment the contractor buys.
I work for a mining contractor at KPC (Kaltim Prima Coal) mine which is in Indonesian Borneo, Grasberg (called Freeport in these parts) is on the island Indonesia shares with Papua New Guinea. That mine is huge. This place is pretty big too, KPC put out 45 million tonnes of coal per year. We mine the wetern section of the pit and put out 12 Mt of coal and move 105 million BCM of OB per year. We usually scope our shutdowns on the 3600's to include boom repairs so it doesn't affect MA but out MTTR (mean time to repair) is higher on the Hitachi's for some reason. MTTR on the Liebherr's usually runs at 2-3 hours but the Hitachi's are around 6. Alco, the Oka's came here very secondhand and have been parked up most of the time, we just put them back into service after a 8 month sleep as we had to send 2 2500's to another site south of here. The local mechanics are calling them the zombies, i asked why and they said because they don't want to wake up from their sleep!
Thanks for the info Zed, I was wondering about that.
Ya its probably best for everyone the cat stopped the 5000 series. I just finished a cat excavator course and was talking to the instructor about this subject. Nothing is ever 100% but the instructor (who talks to cat reps weekly) said the deal between O&K and cat was 99% done when it fell through. A major battle was branding the machines (Cat wanted them yellow and O&K didn't like that) and it fell through. O&K then merged with Bucyrus. Cat IS and WILL be entering back into the large shovel world again and field follow units are expected around the end of 2012 or early 2013. Cat is more focused on mining than ever. Lets hope this round of machines turns out a little better....
any CAT digger bigger than a 45ton is a DOG we ran a new 365CL and it as always been not quite right, Hitachi and Komatsu's have their number on the bigger diggers thats for sure, shame they didnt get ahold of O&K CAT seem to be running at of Leihbers at most of their MARC mine sites over here