Rent or Buy a 2nd Hand?

[KingClimber425]

Spider lifts are quiet expensive equipment. Do you suggest in doing rentals or purchasing second hand is a smart choice?

[doobin]

Totally depends upon how much you'll use it. I don't run MEWPS but I have three pretty new diggers. One might sit in the shed most of the month but so long as I do one job with it that's the finance for the month covered. Yes it would sometimes be cheaper to hire (particularly the micro which I don't use much) but as soon as you start adding in the hassle factor of arranging hires and paying for delivery/collection (or worse, the hassle of collecting and returning it yourself to tricky to find sites) then owning on finance starts to look very attractive to me at least.

 

Just today looking at a new tracked dumper. £15k and I might use it for three weeks of the year. But they are expensive to hire, and if it's wet on site then all the hire ones will be out anyway! So fuck it.

 

With a MEWP if you own it you will start using it rather than climbing a lot of the time. Same as I use a machine rather than dig by hand, even for tiny jobs. Why have a dog and bark? The time savings all add up, and with both climbing vs MEWP and spade vs digger it's not just time, it's wear and tear on your body saved.

[Chipperclown]

I hire MEWP's when required. Its costs me nothing as the cost for the hire is included within the quotation. Why get in debt when you can hire for free??

[monkeybusiness]

I’d tread very carefully with second hand MEWPs - I bought a couple of older Teupens and the UK service agent was useless/not interested in the slightest (even though I spent thousands with them), but was the only firm set up to deal with circuit-board issues (of which there were plenty)...

If you can make it work financially then buy something that complex new with warranty - if not then I’d steer clear of ownership and hire when you need to. 

Whatever you do, avoid second hand Teupens!!!