I'm planning in the next future to buy a small excavator.
Can you guys give me a couple of advice?
I would like to mention that I'm looking for cheap alternatives, under $10.000

That is going to require some looking. The under 10K will limit what you may find for a deal. I'm sure you have a purpose in mind but what do you plan to do with the machine If I may ask? The parts availability would be a concern, don't buy something grey market or with no dealer in your area. Finding a machine with under 3K hours would be my advice too, I'm told most of these mini's are built with a 10K life cycle in mind, meaning at 10K hours they are no longer rebuildable from an economic stand point, so buying a machine cheap with 7 or 8K hours on it is risky. If you have not run one much, try to find someone who has and make sure they operate it before you buy. An experienced operator will notice right away if the machine is sluggish or weak, this indicates wear in the pump, which is the heart of these beasts. If you haven't the background to discern this it can slip by your judgement and cause you problems later.

I own a Bobcat 331 with a full cab and hydraulic thumb. I work it more in the winter so I wanted a full cab, keeps the weather off of me. I use it to handle logs a fair amount so the thumb is awesome to have. It has the Bobcat X-change quick connect for buckets, requires bobcat only buckets, might be the only downside to it really, it works good in my opinion though. Hope that helps.

"JoeG" wrote:

That is going to require some looking. The under 10K will limit what you may find for a deal. I'm sure you have a purpose in mind but what do you plan to do with the machine If I may ask? The parts availability would be a concern, don't buy something grey market or with no dealer in your area. Finding a machine with under 3K hours would be my advice too, I'm told most of these mini's are built with a 10K life cycle in mind, meaning at 10K hours they are no longer rebuildable from an economic stand point, so buying a machine cheap with 7 or 8K hours on it is risky. If you have not run one much, try to find someone who has and make sure they operate it before you buy. An experienced operator will notice right away if the machine is sluggish or weak, this indicates wear in the pump, which is the heart of these beasts. If you haven't the background to discern this it can slip by your judgement and cause you problems later.

I own a Bobcat 331 with a full cab and hydraulic thumb. I work it more in the winter so I wanted a full cab, keeps the weather off of me. I use it to handle logs a fair amount so the thumb is awesome to have. It has the Bobcat X-change quick connect for buckets, requires bobcat only buckets, might be the only downside to it really, it works good in my opinion though. Hope that helps.

Thank you for the idea. I will keep in my mind.