The Chinese toy excavator thread.

[MG84]

No you aren't the only one.

However, I'm 34 years old, the offshoring of domestic manufacturing began way before I was born. The brand name equipment that does exist has priced me out for new equipment and I have been shopping and trying to make the logistics of buying a used brand name mini excavator work for about 6 years now.

My budget options for buying something vaguely reliable with a brand name without going into serious debt with no immediate revenue stream for this excavator puts me in burned out or clapped out machine territory.

While I do pride myself on my mechanical abilities I do know my limitations, I have no garage, very small machine tools for fabrication or repair work and only a 10x12 flat cement slab on my property, pulling a high hour engine out and doing a complete overhaul is unrealistic with my current circumstances, line boring I would have to pay someone for. Most of the brand name machines I have looked at over the years needed significant repair costs, engine rebuilds, sloppy bores, torn up worn out undercarriages, unbelievably expensive or flat out unavailable spare parts, questionable histories and signs of rental abuse.

What's at stake is outside my control. I didn't vote or have the choice put to vote that made brand name equipment so far outside my budget that I'd be looking at putting my home equity up as collateral for a loan.

I would have much rather bought a better non Chinese machine, but the decisions my parents generation made are the consequences I have to live with, and I would argue they weren't given a seat at the negotiating table when the offshoring and profit driven choices started either.

A mini excavator is not a complicated machine either so I do place some blame on big companies for getting rightfully undercut in this free market they have lobbied our government so hard for to extract as much profit as possible to make their stock price go up.

You can't convince me there isn't a coordinated effort among manufacturers either to have some price stability along tonnage of equipment, they could have made a 10 thousand dollar "2 ton" machine with the same features as mine, they just chose not to, because it would make people question why the larger machines are more expensive too. It's a game and I'm playing it too.

So now I'm giving money to a communist government instead of a soulless publicly traded corporation with no allegiance to any nation only to the most favorable trade conditions as demonstrated by the offshoring of their manufacturing.

Let me start by saying I don't mean to be badgering you personally, it's just these are all things that need to be put out there, things that most people don't even think about or consider.

I understand why people buy these, I just wish they would reconsider. I think there is a big misconception in this country on wants vs needs. Everyone used to get by just fine with a whole lot less, 20-30yrs ago it would be unheard of for most homeowners, small land owners, etc to have the equipment they do now. Unfortunately most is either low end Chinese stuff or purchased on credit. I don't know everyone's personal and financial situation so I'll leave how you spend your money up to you, but I'd just like people to realize when you make a purchase you are 100% voting with your wallet. In a free market like ours ultimately the consumer has the final say, many don't realize or exercise their power, but en masse we do. You may or may not be voting against the high end brands, but you most certainly are voting for the cheap, low end, Chinese equipment, which in many ways brings the entire market down to their level.

As for quality, generally speaking I do believe you get what you pay for. There is a reason the Kubota U17, Tak TB216, Cat 301.8 etc cost 2-4x as much. Run one back to back vs a Chinese machine for a few hours and it's very obvious. Better yet, own one for 5-10-15yr, deal with the company on a regular basis for parts, service, accessories/attachments, technical support and resale value, and it becomes even more apparent.

 

[sewer bill]

Let me start by saying I don't mean to be badgering you personally, it's just these are all things that need to be put out there, things that most people don't even think about or consider.

I understand why people buy these, I just wish they would reconsider. I think there is a big misconception in this country on wants vs needs. Everyone used to get by just fine with a whole lot less, 20-30yrs ago it would be unheard of for most homeowners, small land owners, etc to have the equipment they do now. Unfortunately most is either low end Chinese stuff or purchased on credit. I don't know everyone's personal and financial situation so I'll leave how you spend your money up to you, but I'd just like people to realize when you make a purchase you are 100% voting with your wallet. In a free market like ours ultimately the consumer has the final say, many don't realize or exercise their power, but en masse we do. You may or may not be voting against the high end brands, but you most certainly are voting for the cheap, low end, Chinese equipment, which in many ways brings the entire market down to their level.

As for quality, generally speaking I do believe you get what you pay for. There is a reason the Kubota U17, Tak TB216, Cat 301.8 etc cost 2-4x as much. Run one back to back vs a Chinese machine for a few hours and it's very obvious. Better yet, own one for 5-10-15yr, deal with the company on a regular basis for parts, service, accessories/attachments, technical support and resale value, and it becomes even more apparent.

Hey it's not personal and I completely agree with you. I wanted a better excavator but could not find one that wasn't setting off alarm bells for needing a huge overhaul or financing way above my budget. I could not find anything in between.

I sincerely doubt this thing will last 10 years hopefully long before that I will have made enough money with this one to buy a better brand name one.

I really could not stomach the risk with the used brand name machines I looked at before deciding to get this Chinese Frankenstein machine. I felt better buying new off brand crap than buying absolutely worn out brand name stuff.

My local equipment dealers could not fathom that I wasn't interested in financing. Maybe I'm too risk averse but this is side work until it isn't, until then I'm operating at a loss while keeping my full time job, I'm just not going to commit 20+ thousand to something I don't have a known revenue stream for.

 

[MG84]

The whole country hates us? Are you sure they view us as an enemy vs adversary or more benign term like competitor? Do you personally know anyone from China or are you basing this on propaganda?

Treats their workforce like crap? Once again, have you any first hand experience or just hearsay? Is our workforce treated that much better?

They treat their buyers like crap? Any first hand experience with this? Have you been treated like a king with every person/company you have dealt with that is US based? I was satisfied with my dealings with the company I did business with: 2loader.com or https://cncougar.en.made-in-china.com/

I also did not find my equipment to be of 'abhorrent quality'. Shall we discuss US made cars in the 70's and 80's? K cars ring a bell?

You may not like their government and its policies. They may not like ours. Does that mean we should hate the individuals trapped in the system? It was the Soviet Union when I was a kid. We were taught that they hated us and if you ever met a Russian they would try to kill you. I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now. They are likely just a bunch of INDIVIDUALS trying to make their way thought life as best they can, JUST LIKE US.

So, I do not think it is morally wrong to buy from China.

When I refer to China I'm referring to the Chinese government, not the people. The CCP most definitely views the US as an adversary, at the very least. They don't like us, they only like our money. They have little to no respect for international law, intellectual property, etc. You are 100% correct that the general public in China is trapped and many/most do not share the views of their government, but in a dictatorship their economy is run through their government. My views of the CCP are shaped directly through experiences my immediate family has/had working in the US military, scientific fields, and academia amongst others. I won't go into any further details as this is a publicly viewable forum.

As for the US, of course not everything we have made has been the best. Just like you can't unequivocally say that everything made in China is junk. But I prefer to do business with countries and companies that are friends and allies. As I've mentioned in other threads, while I do buy made in USA whenever possible, I'll gladly purchase items made in Japan, Germany, Canada, UK, etc. And I will say by and large most of those companies have treated me very well.

 

[laidback01]

I tend to agree with MG84 in the sense that it's better to repair a domestic branded product (even if it's mostly Japanese or Korean made) than to buy a new Chinese product. There's pros and cons to all of it - no matter which brand you buy.

I can say without a doubt, if I wanted a job done and was paying someone else to do it, and they pulled up with one of these rigs, I'd ask them to leave and hire someone else. Mostly the people buying these are DIY mentality people who really can't take care of much. I don't know how many "Do it yourself" types I've come across who take their vehicles to GreaseMonkey for oil changes. Because they 'only' paid $80 at Grease Monkey and not $300 at their dealer... lol, they feel like they got a deal.

People will buy these items, and if they don't have a machine shop handy, these will sit dormant after their first major failure. Where do you get all the parts to fix these - drive sprockets, final drives, pins, bushings, etc? Is it all on eBay? Now, what about 10-20 years from now... Chinese products are VERY well known for becoming obsolete in a short time and have no recourse to getting parts after that time period is up.

So buy one, have fun! But... it's a money pit long term, or a lawn ornament if you don't pay to fix it. YMMV of course. I'm one of those people that will take on projects well outside of my scope and work on it to the point of repair and full operation. I've been lucky so far. Pretty sure that even stuff like TYM or Kioti will give me a very difficult time in time. Everything you buy now will have good support for 5 or 10 years. But MY newest gear is from 2001. So I have to look at it like that. I highly doubt the Chinese gear, even if it lasts that long, will have any viable parts no matter how successful a product it was. you'll be buying other people's complete machines as parts rigs, or you'll be selling your complete machine for parts.

Just my opinion.

 

[sewer bill]

I can say without a doubt, if I wanted a job done and was paying someone else to do it, and they pulled up with one of these rigs, I'd ask them to leave and hire someone else.

This dynamic did cross my mind but having shown a couple buddies with landscaping businesses my toy excavator I already have had a cold call from one of their customers asking about pricing for drilling a couple hundred fence post holes.

I think the homeowner types don't care as long as it gets done.

 

[laidback01]

that's funny. I have a plate compactor on my 2001 JD 50 ZTS. I am building a spike and cup - so that I can preset a hole, place the post in it, and the cup will grab the top of the post and then vibrate the post in. Without the cup to hold, I can push a 10' (cut length) drill stem 2' into the ground, leaving 8' for fencing, in less than 30 seconds. the other 5 minutes are me trundling over to the location, and getting everything lined up. I put in 10 posts spaced 16' apart, and taking my time with my wife holding the posts at the start... it took about 15-20 minutes.

My Dad has hydraulic post auger, and it's meant for a single person to operate, has wheels, long neck, huge leverage, easy to use. it would have take 5-10 minutes per post with that. So, if you can swing it, get yourself a post pounder or plate compactor for that little rig, it might make life easier for that kind of work.

if you are going to be doing that kind of work, get some magnetic levels you can attach to your auger so you can see your state of level as you bore the hole.

 

[sewer bill]

that's funny. I have a plate compactor on my 2001 JD 50 ZTS. I am building a spike and cup - so that I can preset a hole, place the post in it, and the cup will grab the top of the post and then vibrate the post in. Without the cup to hold, I can push a 10' (cut length) drill stem 2' into the ground, leaving 8' for fencing, in less than 30 seconds. the other 5 minutes are me trundling over to the location, and getting everything lined up. I put in 10 posts spaced 16' apart, and taking my time with my wife holding the posts at the start... it took about 15-20 minutes.

My Dad has hydraulic post auger, and it's meant for a single person to operate, has wheels, long neck, huge leverage, easy to use. it would have take 5-10 minutes per post with that. So, if you can swing it, get yourself a post pounder or plate compactor for that little rig, it might make life easier for that kind of work.

if you are going to be doing that kind of work, get some magnetic levels you can attach to your auger so you can see your state of level as you bore the hole.

Good tip definitely want plumb holes. I was going to send a couple holes in my rocky yard first to see if the Chinese auger will rip the fleets off or if i need to add some weld in any spots.

Will look into a post pounder, in my area the ground can be horribly rocky so I'm not sure how well that would work.

 

[laidback01]

pounders work really well in rocky ground in the Spring and early Summer. Depends on their power I think. Right now, my plate compactor is just slamming stuff into the ground, and I have very rocky soil. mostly potato sized rocks, lots of crush, but I pull engine-block sized rocks out of the ground about 3-4 times a month. In the high Summer and early Fall, nothing except the ripper and smaller buckets with high pressure will make much of a dent. we have a clay mix that contractors call "Hardpan" around here which is something like a weak concrete. very tough stuff, makes gooey mud in the spring.

 

[CM1995]

Treats their workforce like crap? Once again, have you any first hand experience or just hearsay? Is our workforce treated that much better?

I have been to China twice back in the mid-late 2000's and went to several electronic based factories.

Most factories had a barracks in the back 3-4 stories with small quarters as they were not big enough to be called an apartment by any standard. They worked 30 days on average then get to go home for 2-3 days, rinse and repeat. One particular barracks when you flushed the toilet it ran out and down the wall in a PVC pipe and dumped out in a gutter that ran along the back of the barracks. Same plumbing as the 4 story factory. This particular factory was making CNC machines.

Stayed in Hong Kong both times with trips into the mainland. Had a day trip from HK to Shenzhen and passed a factory with orange smoke the color of a traffic cone coming out of the stack.

Took a high speed train from HK to Guangzhou crossing the HK and China border. As were were approaching the border you could see the double row of fencing and look out towers crossing the landscape. When we got closer you could see the rolls of barbed wire on top of the fencing was facing inward in order to keep people in, not out.

Another thing about China at that time was everything was fake - coke, Marlboro's, you name the American brand it was 99% chance it was fake.

Now I haven't been back in over 15 years so a lot can change. There is a thread somewhere here on HEF where I posted pics of the trip.

 

[sewer bill]

I must have got a day 29 machine they stripped so many bolts in the sheet metal.

I bet those day 1 and two machines are half decent.

 

[laidback01]

15 minutes of use and he's bent the thumb already.

Poor quality steel be aware. I didn't finish the video, it's possible it has a good ending. Also sounds like this is a Demo machine here to get a review and in testing. Still.. this seems like a rather basic error/flaw.

 

[sewer bill]

15 minutes of use and he's bent the thumb already.

Poor quality steel be aware. I didn't finish the video, it's possible it has a good ending. Also sounds like this is a Demo machine here to get a review and in testing. Still.. this seems like a rather basic error/flaw.

This is actually extremely common with these Chinese machines they either have no relief valve or one with a minimum that's still too high for the thumb and the bucket can tear, crush or bend stuff when curling the bucket into it while holding something. The fix is a relief valve with the 500-1500psi range instead of the 2000+psi one that comes on them. I have a set of gauges and a relief valve on the way to avoid this exact problem.

But yes also Chinese soft steel. Considering the one in the video failed the way it did a harder pin would have probably bent the thumb somewhere else.

Definitely consider these machines unfinished products.

 

[skyking1]

If it does not work out of the box, what is the point? It would not take much effort to do a test and set reliefs properly at manufacturing. The tiny bit of steel from that pee poor design holding the thumb load is an insult too. Look at the failure mode.

 

[sewer bill]

If it does not work out of the box, what is the point? It would not take much effort to do a test and set reliefs properly at manufacturing. The tiny bit of steel from that pee poor design holding the thumb load is an insult too. Look at the failure mode.

The point is its cheap as **** and has brand new engine and hydraulics.

So stuff that a real company would have the foresight to include in a finished product like a relief valve with lower pressure to prevent an operator from tearing the thumb off when curling the bucket isn't part of the deal.

It's like buying an unfinished kit. Finish the kit and it's a half decent excavator shaped thing that does vaguely what an excavator will do at way less of an entry cost with hopefully more reliability of zero hour engine and hydraulics.

Who knows, maybe 6 months from now this thread will turn into me whining about how I wasted nearly 10 grand on a machine that keeps breaking and how I'm a dipshit for not buying a used brand name machine.

 

[laidback01]

It's interesting because China does have the capability to produce good stuff. Sany and XCMG are both top 10 producers. I suppose it's the same thing as people who are fabricators of various things. Some 'business opportunity' comes up and they start fabricating complete machines based on the teardown of something else someone else built. I've seen plenty of crap trailers built by guys in their shop, some have evolved into actual trailer companies, and they produce decent stuff now.

in some ways, I think these crap excavators are the result of a similar entrepreneurial spirit... they are taking a chance and starting a company. Producing stuff that's basically low-end - and unfinished as Bill states. if they sell enough of them, they could be the NEXT Sany or XCMG.

or, it's a fly-by-night just rebranding someone else's junk and making a quick turnaround profit on new labeling.

 

[skyking1]

It is just a lazy ass rush out the door with a crap product. OP, you may think you are saving boatloads of money but when I work I have stuff to do, not fix something so it functions. It is a false savings. You need to put a value on all of your time, unless fixing junk is a happy place for you.

 

[MG84]

It's interesting because China does have the capability to produce good stuff. Sany and XCMG are both top 10 producers. I suppose it's the same thing as people who are fabricators of various things. Some 'business opportunity' comes up and they start fabricating complete machines based on the teardown of something else someone else built. I've seen plenty of crap trailers built by guys in their shop, some have evolved into actual trailer companies, and they produce decent stuff now.

in some ways, I think these crap excavators are the result of a similar entrepreneurial spirit... they are taking a chance and starting a company. Producing stuff that's basically low-end - and unfinished as Bill states. if they sell enough of them, they could be the NEXT Sany or XCMG.

or, it's a fly-by-night just rebranding someone else's junk and making a quick turnaround profit on new labeling.

I would consider Sany and XCMG to be bottom of the barrel too. Maybe a step above the equipment being discussed in this thread, but not by much. Poor to non-existent dealer network, very little after sale parts/warranty/service support, and resale values so pi$$-poor they'll churn your stomach....

 

[laidback01]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I had the chance to buy a brand new Sany 50U or 60 whatever size excavator for 80k with 0% apr for 5 years. Good financing, etc. Also had the chance to buy a used 2016 or so Sany 50U for about $30k. They have rotten resale comparatively speaking, so you can get them pretty inexpensively. I passed on both and waited another few months for 'my deal' to show up, which was a beat to heal 2001 Deere 50 ZTS. I spent $20k on it and put $10k in parts and a full Summer's worth of work into it. it's a simple fantastic machine now, and I'm very happy with it.

The machine, when I bought it, would EASILY have fit in to most people's definition of junk. But because it is a Deere, most parts would be easily sourced (even if they were Hitachi branded). It's now something I'm positive I could sell for $35-$45 k depending on market. Will take the right buyer because most construction guys won't want something from 2001! Doesn't matter anyway, I'm not selling it for years to come. Point being, I doubt you'll get more than a few hundred from anyone one on these Chinese machines. the only things of value will be the engine and the pump, mabye the rotring. but they won't hold their value, they are being made out of inferior materials. My deere had 3000 pretty hard hours - running a plate compactor for flattenting septic tank excavations. All I needed to do was press and replace pins and bushings. None of the metal in the frame was cracked, the boom needs a line bore, but... you *CAN* do that, so its' worth doing. Getting a machine you cannot do heavy maintenance on later in it's life, yeah... that's no fun!

We each have our hills to die on. I LOVE reconditioning old equipment to use. I have NO tolerance for modifying/fixing brand new equipment so I can use it. If I buy it 'new' I expect it to work for a few thousand hours and not need me to do anything other than basic maintenance.

 

[sewer bill]

It is just a lazy ass rush out the door with a crap product. OP, you may think you are saving boatloads of money but when I work I have stuff to do, not fix something so it functions. It is a false savings. You need to put a value on all of your time, unless fixing junk is a happy place for you.

I have a full time job managing equipment.

Fixing junk in my spare time is actually something I do find some enjoyment in. I have a bobcat t136 trencher I just woke up from the dead from a junkyard. Also a rammax trench roller that I'm rebuilding the hatz 2 cylinder diesel in.

If I wanted to start a construction company I would just do what everyone else does and go into massive debt. I'm just trying to do some side work and see if it picks up enough to justify buying better stuff.

 

[skyking1]

I have a full time job managing equipment.

Fixing junk in my spare time is actually something I do find some enjoyment in. I have a bobcat t136 trencher I just woke up from the dead from a junkyard. Also a rammax trench roller that I'm rebuilding the hatz 2 cylinder diesel in.

If I wanted to start a construction company I would just do what everyone else does and go into massive debt. I'm just trying to do some side work and see if it picks up enough to justify buying better stuff.

I did mean that literally.
My happy places are inventing and fabbing up fun things, and doing woodwork and building cabinets.
I look at that thumb picture and see several problems that I am not geared up to do. My friend Ben has a lathe and CNC mill and I pay him to do those things. That is HIS happy place.
On that stick, anywhere they are pivoting a bolt in a hole is going to hammer out over time. It needs a machined thicker boss welded on in a jig at the manufacturing stage of the game. For me to come back and beef those bores after the fact would be an unhappy place, LOL.