Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[dumper]

48 minutes ago, doobin said:

Not to piss on anyones chips but I beg to differ.

 

Skills to do what Connor is doing (if done well) are £40-50 an hour. Equipment is expensive, parts are horrendous. So how much could he make doing the same or even normal arb work? You like to think it will increase the value of the machine, but the reality is it doesn't. Not be any appreciable amount and certainly not by even 25% of the cost to do it all in my experience. Been there go the T shirt.

 

Brand new 2.7t machines that will be reliable backed by warranty are available on 0% finance currently. Especially as Connor admits he uses the machine hard (beyond it's intended scope ?), I'd be going down that route myself. Decent deposit from the TB125, maybe £200 a month over five years.

 

Howver I've been in his shoes, the experience was enjoyable (at the time- a bit like shagging a rotter), and I learnt a lot (again, like shagging a rotter- don't do it again) Plus skills for life (again, like shagging a dirty bird!)

 

I trust most of you can appreciate the anology....

 

But it’s your machine and you have done the work a great sense of satisfaction,

and benefit if you intend to keep the machine new machines with adblue sensors and computers just won’t last I can see where he is coming from

[doobin]

On 13/09/2020 at 11:35, dumper said:

But it’s your machine and you have done the work a great sense of satisfaction,

and benefit if you intend to keep the machine new machines with adblue sensors and computers just won’t last I can see where he is coming from

That's where a five year warranty comes in, and the residulas are high enough to mean the next brand new machine is peanuts.

 

I just sold my first new machine five years later for 9k- cost me 14k to buy. New machine is 16k. So it's cost me 7k over five years when taking into account higher new machine prices (which most people don't do). Add in some servicing to make it 10k. So that's £2k a year for a brand new machine to the spec I want, or £166 per month to have it sitting there, ready for all my complex attachments (can't do that with a hire machine) Anything goes wrong, the dealer sorts it.

 

Hmm, do I want to pay a days labour a month to have a machine sat there almost risk free 24/7 that can do the work of ten men? Let me just think about that ?

 

That said, I wouldn't be suggesting this if Conor hadn't said he worked the machine hard. Even with new components at horrendous cost, there's still a lot more potential for downtime in a machine of that age (in my hard won experience)

 

 

[dumper]

1 hour ago, doobin said:

That's where a five year warranty comes in, and the residulas are high enough to mean the next brand new machine is peanuts.

 

I just sold my first new machine five years later for 9k- cost me 14k to buy. New machine is 16k. So it's cost me 7k over five years when taking into account higher new machine prices (which most people don't do). Add in some servicing to make it 10k. So that's £2k a year for a brand new machine to the spec I want, or £166 per month to have it sitting there, ready for all my complex attachments (can't do that with a hire machine) Anything goes wrong, the dealer sorts it.

 

Hmm, do I want to pay a days labour a month to have a machine sat there almost risk free 24/7 that can do the work of ten men? Let me just think about that ?

 

That said, I wouldn't be suggesting this if Conor hadn't said he worked the machine hard. Even with new components at horrendous cost, there's still a lot more potential for downtime in a machine of that age (in my hard won experience)

 

 

Every thing you say is correct but to be reliant on a dealers fitter they don’t always turn up and usually can’t fix in one visit, warranty mmmmmm! Bad experiences there!

new machines equal plastic and electrics neither are durable 

I think that the correct course is whatever works for you 

[doobin]

1 hour ago, dumper said:

Every thing you say is correct but to be reliant on a dealers fitter they don’t always turn up and usually can’t fix in one visit, warranty mmmmmm! Bad experiences there!

new machines equal plastic and electrics neither are durable 

I think that the correct course is whatever works for you 

Yup, dealers usually leave a lot to be desired, however for me I always find a new machine to be more reliable than an old one. 
 

although the issue with dealers is not that they drag a warranty repair out- they are usually on a fixed price for a certain repair. Usually it’s that I know more than the mechanic. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by doobin

[openspaceman]

49 minutes ago, doobin said:

Yup, dealers usually leave a lot to be desired, however for me I always find a new machine to be more reliable than an old one. 

I've not bought any new big equipment other than cars but can affirm if you are unlucky enough to require warranty work it tends to be begrudging and shite.

 

Being non specialised in which tree work I did I tended to need a variety of equipment that could sit idle for months, finance on new stuff did not fit well with this.

[Nick Connell]

I've just bought this hedge cutter to go on my Kubota kx-030-4-GL hi spec and you can't trim and track at all which makes it useless for cutting the top of a hedge. Is there any way round it to be able to track and trim?

[Matthew Storrs]

56 minutes ago, Nick Connell said:

I've just bought this hedge cutter to go on my Kubota kx-030-4-GL hi spec and you can't trim and track at all which makes it useless for cutting the top of a hedge. Is there any way round it to be able to track and trim?

I’m fairly sure not I’m afraid. Tracking takes a lot of the hydraulic requirements thus leaving very little available for auxiliaries. 

[richy_B]

5 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

I’m fairly sure not I’m afraid. Tracking takes a lot of the hydraulic requirements thus leaving very little available for auxiliaries. 

Other than running the hedge off an auxiliary unit (beaver power pack or something) I think Matt is right.  

[woody paul]

7 hours ago, Nick Connell said:

I've just bought this hedge cutter to go on my Kubota kx-030-4-GL hi spec and you can't trim and track at all which makes it useless for cutting the top of a hedge. Is there any way round it to be able to track and trim?

Don't track and cut, swing and cut is the answer as it shows in most promo videos of hedge cutters like that. 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, richy_B said:

Other than running the hedge off an auxiliary unit (beaver power pack or something) I think Matt is right.  

This was my first thought too, even though I was not aware you couldn't track and cut. It probably only draws a few hp and a 5hp power pack for my jussi only cost 500 quid IIRC.