Chinese mini excavator purchase/review

bgaidan said:
Actually, now that I think about it, if you had a full bucket, say 5-600lbs, as 2-300 lb operator and a full tank of diesel, you might be damn close.


I've never actually paid attention to how the big companies actually rate their machines either. I've been in the civil construction field for 20 or so years, rented hundreds of machines but never cared enough to get in to that level of detail! I have a feeling I'm about to fall in to a rabbit hole!
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My 3.5 ton Takeuchi weighed 7500lbs, my 4 ton Kubota weighs 10k pounds. These chinese copycats build a business on minimum hardware and overrated claims at the lowest price, so its no surprise to me that their numbers are off by a lot.
 
jeepinmatt said:
My 3.5 ton Takeuchi weighed 7500lbs, my 4 ton Kubota weighs 10k pounds. These chinese copycats build a business on minimum hardware and overrated claims at the lowest price, so its no surprise to me that their numbers are off by a lot.
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does that mean you got the mini sold since you said weighed? lol
 
jeepyjman said:
does that mean you got the mini sold since you said weighed? lol
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A man of the details I see ;)

Yep, sold it yesterday. My youngest son cried his heart out for 15 minutes because that was the one he could climb on. Then I told him I'd leave the new one unlocked and he said OK and stopped crying :laughing:
 
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Update on the mini review.

HOURS TO DATE: 28

The GOOD- using the mini ex,

I've loaded and taken to the dump/recycler
3-trailer loads of steel from sheet metal to heavy iron and steel frames etc.
4 loads of scrap wood from outbuildings and hog pens etc.
Removed 1 -70+' dead pine next to the home with the help of the mini.
Opened up a 15-20' wide swath through the woods for a new road to a new homesite. It's about 250yds long and I'm 3/4 of the way through at this point.
The mini is smoother than I expected in operation.
It's strong enough to pick up some impressive weight.

The NOT SO GOOD,

I've been having an issue with a small coolant leak at the upper radiator hose at thermo housing. Nothing worked for a while. I finally found that the thermo had a raised rib on the hose connection. I sanded it down and stopped the leak. After a day or two leak free I started smelling that sweet smell of coolant. Now I got a pinhole spraying everywhere from the side of the Chinese upper radiator hose.
I tried to order a kubota hose but wrong configuration . Turns out that the Chinese company uses the Kubota engine but their own welded aluminum tank. I tried calls and emails to seller for support...crickets. Hmmm? Hope I don't need a cylinder repair kit or anything else...ever.
I'm going to try and track down the actual company that builds these. I imagine with all these minis coming from China....supply and interchange of parts is not too difficult.

Other than the cheap hose and no after purchase support it's been working and running like a champ. I've been keeping up with the chores I'm accomplishing and so far Its saved me about 2k if I was.paying rental fees. Another point is I can use it as time allows. An hour today then 5 tomorrow etc. With a rental its 8 hrs straight per day to get the most out of the cost.

I'm adding things to the to do list daily. Hopefully, this purchase will pay for itself in short order.
 
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Ive got a u17 and that appears to be decently close copy but definitely looks different when you open the hood, I don't imagine a lot of the parts are the same.

Also excavators are rated in tonnes as in metric tonnes which are 2200lb. Technically a 1.5t mini should weigh 3300lb but on a machine that tiny even a bucket change can make a large difference so who cares as long as the lift and reach specs are correct.
 
@hunterdan for any seals or packing kits, check out Hercules Sealing Products. Place I used to work, we got all our seals and packing kits from them. You can use measurements off your equipment to order what you need.
 
braxton357 said:
Ive got a u17 and that appears to be decently close copy but definitely looks different when you open the hood, I don't imagine a lot of the parts are the same.

Also excavators are rated in tonnes as in metric tonnes which are 2200lb. Technically a 1.5t mini should weigh 3300lb but on a machine that tiny even a bucket change can make a large difference so who cares as long as the lift and reach specs are correct.
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Yeah they are similar. This one has the Kubota 902 3 cylinder diesel. I think it has. Eaton drive motors and a Crystal pump but not sure. It's definitely not powerful as far as busting roots bigger than 2" but I plan to get a ripper attachment which should help.
untchabl said:
@hunterdan for any seals or packing kits, check out Hercules Sealing Products. Place I used to work, we got all our seals and packing kits from them. You can use measurements off your equipment to order what you need.
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Thanks.
 
Now I'm at 38hrs on this chubota mini x
I just broke through to the other end of a 350-400' Rd. I've been making through the woods to a homesite. Now to go back and remove some of the larger stumps. In order to not overwork the hydraulics I'm doing one large stump at a time and then letting it cool off for half a day.
I got my son to finally try out the mini. Within 10 minutes he is using multiple functions at the same time. He's a natural.lol

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hunterdan said:
Now I'm at 38hrs on this chubota mini x
I just broke through to the other end of a 350-400' Rd. I've been making through the woods to a homesite. Now to go back and remove some of the larger stumps. In order to not overwork the hydraulics I'm doing one large stump at a time and then letting it cool off for half a day.
I got my son to finally try out the mini. Within 10 minutes he is using multiple functions at the same time. He's a natural.lol

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Thought I was getting notifications on this thread, but missed some of your updates. Did you get the radiator hose figured out?

I got my load of similar machines a few weeks ago and I'm pretty happy with my "demo" unit so far. I knocked down a bunch of locust trees over the weekend and it performed well. I did manage to bend my thumb a big and taco'd an 8" trenching bucket, but that was 100% a combination of operator error and equipment abuse and I mostly expected it to happen. :laughing: The ripper shank works pretty well for breaking through roots and cutting in around bigger stumps.

I'm pretty confident that yours came of the of the same plant as mine. The chasis looks identical and the engine bays are very similar. Your wiring looks a little cleaner. Mine are 722 your 902, but they still look the same.
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I got these with expanding tracks, which I'm really liking. It IS another component that could fail, but the extra stability is nice, while still being able to suck them in to fit through a gate or fit on a smaller trailer.

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And I labeled mine appropriately...
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Hi, thanks all for sharing your experiences with chinese excavators. I would not believe, they will lie also about the weight. 🙄

I am thinking currently about Hightop HT18. With Kubota D722, 20+40+60cm teeth buckets, 100cm hydr. tilt bucket, quick hitch, hydraulic thumb and ripper, canopy and I qot quote on 8k USD.
I never had an excavator. I have few questions:
1) except of additional weight, what will D902 add against D722?
2) Did you try to check, whether it is real japan Kubota, or some licensed, or directly fake.
3) How about hydraulics on this excavator? Does it work smoothly, not very slow and is it powerful enough? I want this for my garden.
4) Did you try to lift some weight on the arm, how much weight it can lift? I need to do something with concrete rail sleepers, which weights 250kg.
5) Does tracks width (180/230mm) matter?

Except of lack of technical details I am facing problems with shipping. Chinese offers me super cheap CIF, but I was warned, that I have to pay THC (terminal handling charges), which nobody, except seller knows and seller did not tell. FOB+shipping organised from my country costs 2k USD, (big thanks to Yemen's pirates).

Furthermore, my shipping company says, that filled with oils and with battery installed it is dangerous goods. 🙄 If I want to be shipped as general cargo, then it must be empty.
 
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