Are you in the crossroads of picking the excavator to use for your upcoming construction project?
We get it—picking the right excavator can take a lot of mental toil, especially if it’s your first time in the ringer.
From choosing a reputable brand to gathering the finances to cover the cost of purchase, business owners will have to juggle multiple factors to ensure that they’re leading themselves to the right decision.
After all, choosing the right excavator can spell the difference between finishing your construction project smoothly or experiencing a fair amount of hiccups along the way.
While you can technically take a quick peek at the top excavator brands online and decide from there, each construction project is different and may entail different needs. In short, there’s typically no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to choosing the best excavator.
So, what now? Well, if you want to balance everything and choose the best excavator brand for your construction project, this article will help you out.
Let’s uncover the steps you need to take to ensure that you’re picking the right excavator for your upcoming project.
1. Consider The Specifics of Your Project
Before picking a specific excavator brand, consider the nature of the project you’re planning to undertake. Excavators can be used for a wide range of activities, from trenching and digging soil to demolishing existing structures.
Depending on your specific project’s needs, you could find a brand that offers a specific type of excavator built for that exact purpose. For instance, if you’re doing demolition work, you can get a hydraulic excavator with demolition attachments like crushers and shears to tear down structures with more efficiency. A long-reach excavator may be more suitable for deep digging tasks.
If you only need to work around a small and tight space, a mini excavator is highly ideal as it offers more mobility and is even cheaper than your standard, multi-purpose excavator. If you’re planning to use an excavator to perform a wide range of tasks for the long run, you can opt for a standard multi-purpose excavator.
In any case, it’s crucial to consider the range of activities you’ll do with your excavator before choosing one. This way, you can narrow your decision and have a concentrated shortlist of brands offering that specific type of excavator from the get-go—making the vetting process easier later on.
2. Evaluate the Brand’s Reputation
Get to know the experience of other customers who are dealing with the brands you’re eyeing. Don’t just rely on positive reviews on the company’s website—as more often than not they’re skewed to be positive.
Instead, look at the reviews found on third-party websites. You can see reviews of the excavator provider online on Google and Yelp. You can also take a peek at blog posts and video reviews created by customers and see how a specific excavator model fares under certain conditions.
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram can also reveal the performance of certain excavators, which can give you more comprehensive insight into the brand’s quality. Be sure to look at both the positive and the negatives, and the average rating of the particular excavator model.
In doing this, you can gauge a company’s trustworthiness, which can be an important factor for you to decide whether a company is worth dealing with in the long term or not.
3. Look at the Brand’s Model Range
Another important thing to do is to look at what a specific excavator brand offers. Even if you already had a specific model in mind, take a closer look at their product range and scrutinise each model—there may be a better fit hidden amongst the list.
A brand offering multiple types is a good sign that they’re established and have a wide support network. That doesn’t mean a brand focused on only a few types is bad though, as this more specialised brand may be more acutely aware of their product’s ins and outs. However, the latter may suffer from the lack of support from hard-to-reach areas.
Besides the excavator types, also look into whether the brand carries spare parts for their excavators. Compare and contrast the price and accesssibility of these parts across different brands and choose the one that gives you the most value over the long-term.
Alternatively, if excavators allow you to install aftermarket parts like John Deere Aftermarket Parts Australia, this can also help tremendously in the event that a specific excavator part starts to malfunction or becomes inefficient over time.
4. Assess Future Proof Ability
An excavator’s taskload is fairly streamlined. However, there are some functions of the vehicle that can be enhanced with technological integration, such as GPS services, telematics, and automated controls.
If you find that these features can help you or your team in the worksite, then consider choosing this brand over others—even if the cost may be slightly higher at the start.
This may end up paying off in the long run as more excavators transition to newer technologies over time, thus failing to keep your excavator from becoming obsolete in the not-so-distant future.
5. Look into After-Sales Service
An excavator is a bulky and highly complicated piece of machinery. It has thousands of moving parts—and given the nature of its worksite, even sturdy and top-quality excavators can face damage and scratches after prolonged use.
As such, be sure to partner up with a brand that’s willing to provide support long after you’ve signed the purchase agreement. This doesn’t just mean warranty or exceptional customer service. It also means they need to ideally conduct regular maintenance, spare part lead finding, and prompt technical assistance whenever needed.
Of course, an excavator with a comprehensive warranty program is also a huge plus. Get one that offers at least a year of coverage so that you’ll be protected if the product breaks down or needs extensive repair.
Some excavator companies may only offer these benefits to customers of certain regions, so be sure that you’re eligible before buying one.
6. Factor in Budget and Financing Options
It’s no secret that excavators can be quite pricey. A lot of companies don’t even buy them outright and instead choose to enter a leasing agreement with a lender instead for a set amount of time.
If you do intend to buy an excavator though, be sure that it fits nicely with your business’s (or personal) cash flow system. If you don’t have immediate cash-on-hand, you should find brands that offer flexible payment terms with a reasonable interest rate. Compare and contrast your shortlist of excavator options and consider the one that has the least outrageous terms.
You should also consider the resale value of the item. If you intend to sell the excavator after your project, then ideally, you’d want it to be liquid and still retain a good chunk of its initial value. This way, you can get your money’s worth and still enjoy the benefits of owning an excavator.
7. Look at Operator Safety Measures
Operator safety should be a top priority when you’re in the market to select an excavator brand. It’s essential to pick one that’s equipped with advanced safety features, such as rollover protection systems (ROPS) and fall protection systems (FOPS).
You should also look into choosing an excavator with a comfortable cabin. Having additional features such as back cameras and visibility enhancements can also be a big help. This way, the operator won’t need to constantly multitask and exhaust their brain while driving the excavator; and instead perform their job under the most optimal conditions.
Having a safe working environment ensures that your site and its workers are safe. This not only promotes a pleasant working environment, but it also significantly reduces the chance of potential liability on your end.
8. Consider Part Replaceability and Warranty Terms
Most excavators are built in-house. This also means that a lot of the replacement mechanisms and parts are also provided for by the company.
In some cases, another company can also provide a totally viable replacement part that may substitute a worn-out original manufacturer part. This third-party replacement is called an aftermarket part. These parts are often far cheaper than original replacements, making them cost-effective and usable substitutes to their original counterparts.
Some companies have excavators that can be equipped with certain aftermarket parts. Others do not. It’s important to do your research beforehand to see which parts can be replaced with excavator parts on a specific excavator you’re eyeing, if any.
