Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Stephen Blair]

On 30/09/2019 at 13:26, Matthew Storrs said:

Is that the yanmar SV26 Stephen? Just had one on a job myself with view to replacement. Did you like it?

Not sure the model number, just like for like for my machine.

  Dealer service is on point so I’m not fussed about machine tbh.

CAT have been useless, salesman working with numbers, without even sitting in a machine, 4 months on a as nd still haven’t had a price for a new machine, offered me £10k for mine and said he’d sell it for £16.5k!!same machine in their websites for £21.5k.

  Jokers!

[monkeybusiness]

 

This week has been an improvement - when I phoned Engcon and Approved on Monday morning they were both rather receptive and assuring (which was good)!

 

Engcon delivered the hitch etc on Tuesday afternoon and it is now nailed on to the digger - all good. They’ve sent a slightly larger grading bucket than ordered as the one I asked for is out of stock but have told me they will swap it for the original size if this one ends up being too big for the machine - told me to use it as normal and if not happy at any point then I can swap (can’t say fairer than that).

 

Approved are still full of bullshit unfortunately - on Monday morning they assured me that they were building up the hitch and fitting it to the mulcher that day, and it would be ready for collection on Tuesday. I told them I’d collect on Wednesday - perfect they said. I didn’t make it on Wednesday, but had to look at a nearby job on Thursday morning so rang (the relevant person was busy and obviously didn’t bother to ring me back) and so I subsequently turned up at 12.30ish.

‘Oh, we haven’t done it, we will fabricate the hitch now!!!’ Twats...

I went and got a butty to give them some space, and hung around with my thumb up my arse for another hour whilst they finished doing what they assured me was being done on Monday. (I have to say that their fabricators are fantastic guys - really nice fellas and very good at what they do). Once loaded, they landed an extra £200 plus vat bill for the hitch (even though it was listed on the pro-forma that I’d already paid in full). I paid it as I’m obviously a total mug. The icing on the cake was that they supplied me with a £7500 hydraulic attachment and didn’t supply it with any hoses - when I queried it they said they could make some up but I’d have to pay extra. At that point I didn’t feel like giving them one more penny so I thanked them and left. But they did offer me a free mug, which I declined...

 

And the digger that I ordered with an extra counterweight still hasn’t got the extra counterweight. And it has peeling paint with rust showing through. So it is still at the dealers...

 

But the mulcher is rather good - I hosed it up and chucked it on the Takeuchi and it runs like a dream! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to give it a shakedown tomorrow.

 

[LeeGray]

Good old fashioned British service! Don’t know why we’re so shit at it, do people lie because they don’t know there arse from there elbow and shouldn’t be in the job or just that no one really cares or takes pride anymore. The service sector is pretty much all we’ve got so you’d think we’d have it nailed by now. 

[Bogoak]

On 28/09/2019 at 09:40, LGP Eddie said:

Blatant advert, but might help someone out?

I’ve got to rig the Felling Head onto a 22 metre Long Reach for a project starting shortly.

If anyone has something they think this could be a solution for, shout up as if you can piggyback on you’ll save ££.

 

 

 

Eddie.

Do you have a camera on the end of that thing? Damn sure I’d need one!

[Stephen Blair]

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

[difflock]

1 hour ago, Stephen Blair said:

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

Dinny ye ken Stephen, the hottest new thing, wireless hydraulics.

[LGP Eddie]

3 hours ago, Stephen Blair said:

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

No hoses is the way that things are normally supplied unless you pay the extra and have a full install.

You simply can’t account for everything on attachments, so the best installs are always made on the machine.

The standard of pipework you see up and down is atrocious, I really wonder if people actually stand back and take a realistic view on installs with regard to working in this type of environment.

 

It’s unreal how much downtime I’ve witnessed from badly setup Shears, Grabs and Flails just in the regard of hoses, when with a little thought most could be eliminated.

 

As for the service issue, I’ve been at this a lot longer than most and I generally know who to use and more importantly who will be there when the s@@t really hits the fan.

No way of getting away from the fact that driving suppliers in the ground for a deal and going elsewhere for a couple of quid saved doesn’t make for the type of long term relationships that can be called upon when you’re up against it.

If there’s no fat left in the deal, there’s generally not much backup either.

 

I’m lucky, only this week I call Wednesday for a specific bracket to be made, quite a task and would be three weeks of a job ringing around getting someone to do it.

It’s now in the back of my van collected direct from the distribution centre this morning and I know the owner of the company was burning the midnight oil on the welder himself for me.

 

Like everything it pays to shop around, but won’t pay if there’s nothing left to go back to.

I won’t buy tyres online for the simple fact I pay a tenner more perhaps at my local tyre place, but the internet won’t help me Saturday morning when yet another tyres blown off the ifor.

 

 

Eddie.

Edited October 5, 2019 by LGP Eddie

[monkeybusiness]

3 hours ago, Stephen Blair said:

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

I thought they’d at least offer - at no point was it even mentioned. Seems odd to me but hey ho.

 

[Stephen Blair]

When I bought the flail the company owner/fitter spent over an hour making and fitting the hoses and wrapping them up, it was a work of art!

  Onsite then he tested the machine.  Proper job!

[doobin]

Personally I buy mainly from the internet, on price. This is because I've learnt the hard way that (around me at least) most dealers, fitters, welders, mechanics etc aren't worth a wank, and I can do a better job myself. The trade off is that I have to carry a lot of steel stock, tools and fittings myself- but there's not many Sundays when I can't get myself out of the shit with what I have in stock.

 

Approved wanted £280 for a headstock for my rotator. Having seen the 'standard' of some of their mini digger headstocks (6mm plate on the cheeks!), I think a good morning in my workshop was time well spent. A pound saved is as good as a pound earned. I also got the angle of the holes spot bollock for my particular digger's crowd angles.

 

Here's a tip for anyone doing similar- if you have to do a complicated bolt circle, plot it out in a CAD program and print it at 1:1 with centremarks. Use spray adhesive to stick it to your plate. Centrepunch, remove template and centre drill. Stick it on the mill and bore the holes. On a ten bolt circle with M10 bolts I drilled the holes at 10.5mm for clearance, and it was spot on.