Walk Into Our Yard and You Walk Into Options: A Field Report From Our Used-Excavator Stock
If you have ever tried to buy a used excavator from three different suppliers in three different cities, you already know the pain. One dealer only stocks Cats. Another swears by Komatsu but cannot show you a Hitachi if his life depends on it. A third one sends you photos that were clearly taken in 2019 and a WhatsApp voice note saying “bro, trust me, machine is very good.”
We run our yard differently.
When you arrive at our compound, you do not get a slideshow. You get boots on the ground, diesel smell in the air, and rows of machines parked bumper to track, idling on request, buckets swinging, thumbs cycling, cabs opening. On any given week we hold dozens of units under 10 tons and well past 20 tons, with Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi, and several other mainstream brands sitting side by side so a buyer can literally stand between a CAT 308 and a ZX70 and make a decision with his own hands instead of a spreadsheet.
This article is not a spec dump. It is a walk-through of what we stock, why each brand earns its place in the row, and how a typical loading day looks when a backhoe loader and a Hitachi ZX200 start working the same pile.
The Sub-10-Ton Corner: Where Small Jobs Meet Big Choices
Most people who land on our lot for the first time gravitate to the mini corner. That is where the 1-ton micro diggers, 3.5-ton urbans, 6-ton landscapers, and 8-to-9-ton generalists live. These are the machines that slip through garden gates, dig pool trenches, set septic tanks, tear out old driveways, and still ride on a standard flatbed without permits.
Our current mini inventory usually spans:
- Caterpillar 305 / 307 / 308 – rubber-track or steel-track, auxiliary hydraulics ready, cabs that still feel like a car seat rather than a tractor stool.
- Komatsu PC35 / PC55 / PC78 – famous for tight tail swings and a hydraulic feel that newer budget brands imitate but rarely match.
- Hitachi ZX60 / ZX70 / ZX85 – same DNA as the bigger Zaxis family, so operators who already run a ZX200 on the main site feel at home in ten minutes.
- Plus the occasional Kubota, Bobcat, or JCB micro when a contractor trades one in.
All of them are sub-10-ton. All of them are started in front of you. None of them are “photo only” listings. If the hour meter reads 1,200, you watch it turn. If the thumb is bent, we show you the bend.
For rental fleets, municipal yards, and small earthworks outfits, this corner pays for itself. A 3.5-ton machine with a hydraulic thumb and a 300mm bucket can replace four labourers with shovels and still be loaded onto a 3.5-ton tow truck by lunch.
The Mid-Size Row: 20-Ton Class Is the Heartbeat
Step past the minis and you hit the row that moves fastest: the 20-tonne crawler excavators. This is the class every road contractor, foundation crew, and quarry loader knows by muscle memory.
Here is where the three headline brands show their personalities.
Caterpillar 320 / 320D / 320GC
The CAT 320 series is what most fleet managers picture when someone says “excavator.” Undercarriage parts are everywhere on Earth. The C7.1 and older C6.4 motors are loud, honest, and forgiving. Resale holds. A clean 320D with verified hours and no welding on the boom is still the safest answer for a first-time used buyer who cannot afford a guess.
Komatsu PC200 / PC210-8 / PC220
Komatsu fans do not buy on brand loyalty alone; they buy on cycle time and fuel curve. The PC200-8 is the kind of machine a pipe-layer will quietly prefer because the joystick modulation lets a new operator lay pipe without crushing the bedding gravel. Slightly better fuel numbers than a comparable CAT in light duty, slightly cheaper consumables in some regions, and a closed-center hydraulic system that ages well if the return filter is respected.
Hitachi ZX200 / ZX210
And then the ZX200 — the machine we ran in the loading clip earlier. Hitachi’s strength is hydraulic smoothness and arm-dig authority. The Zaxis pumps are quiet, the swing brake is positive, and the cab ergonomics punch above the price point. On a truck-loading job with a 0.9m³ bucket, a healthy ZX200 will keep a 15-tonne dump waiting, not the other way around.
When a buyer stands between these three, we do not pitch. We hand him the keys to all three across two days. Same bucket, same pile, same operator. The machine picks the buyer.
Beyond the Big Three: What Else Sits in the Row
“Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi, and whatever else” is how we describe it to returning clients, because the yard is never only three nameplates.
Depending on the month, you will also find:
- Volvo EC210 / EC240 – bought by clients who run cold-climate sites and want the cab heating and seat everyone copies.
- Hyundai R215 / R305 – price-performance killers for first-time owners.
- Doosan DX225 – simple electrics, easy diagnostics, good boom steel.
- Kobelco SK200 – deep digging reach, popular with demolition crews running long arms.
- SANY and XCMG 75 / 135 / 215 – for buyers who want a near-new feel at a used price and do not mind a Chinese control layout.
Add to that the supporting cast: wheel loaders (CAT 950, Komatsu WA320, LiuGong 856), dozers (D6R, D85), motor graders, rollers, and a rotating pair of backhoe loaders — usually JCB 3CX or CASE 580, sometimes a domestic brand with low hours.
That last category matters, because the backhoe loader is the unsung hero of a mixed yard.
A Normal Loading Day: Backhoe Loader Meets Hitachi ZX200
Forget the showroom. The best proof is a working afternoon.
Picture the stockyard lane cleared into a temporary loading lane. A 15-tonne dump pulls in. A JCB 3CX backhoe loader is already there — front bucket loaded with broken concrete, rear hoe cleaning the edge of the pile, reverse alarm beeping, steering tight enough to spin in its own length. The backhoe’s job is the chore work: push the scatter back, trim the berm, load the odd lumpy chunk the big excavator does not want to bother with.
Then the Hitachi ZX200 fires up. The operator drops the blade, squares the tracks, swings the house, and starts peeling the face of the pile in 0.9m³ bites. Every fourth bucket goes into the dump. Every tenth bucket, the backhoe loader darts in, levels the spillage, and backs out before the ZX swings again. No radio chatter needed; they have done this fifty times.
Output? One dump filled in under six minutes. Two machines, one pile, zero standing around. The backhoe loader is not “lesser” than the ZX200 — it is the glue. On a real site it also runs the trench, cleans the ditch, and tows the compressor home. In a stockyard it keeps the loading lane alive between excavator cycles.
That scene is why we keep both classes on hand. A buyer who only wants a 20-tonner misses half the productivity story. A buyer who only runs a backhoe never feels the arm-dig pull of a ZX200. Seeing them work the same pile settles more arguments than any brochure.
How We Hold the Inventory
Stock turns fast, but the process behind it does not move fast at all.
Every machine that enters the yard goes through:
- Hour-meter and serial verification against export docs or previous owner records.
- Cold-start inspection — no pre-warmed engines for guests.
- Undercarriage measurement — chain stretch, roller play, idler seal check.
- Hydraulic leak-down test — boom, arm, bucket, swing.
- Cab function audit — AC, gauges, backup camera, throttle dial, pattern changer.
- Load-and-cycle demo — bucket fill, slew 180°, dump, return, repeat, while the buyer watches the pump sound.
If a machine fails step two or three badly, it goes to the repair bay, not the sales row. If it passes, we tag it with a laminated card: model, year, hours, origin, price bracket, and “test run OK” date. Buyers are welcome to lift the floor plate and look at the pump ourselves — we hand them the torch.
Why Buyers Fly In
We get visitors from Southeast Asia, the Gulf, West Africa, and Latin America. Most of them could buy locally. They fly in because:
- They can compare CAT, Komatsu, and Hitachi in one afternoon instead of three countries.
- They can see sub-10-ton and 20-ton side by side and decide if the small one replaces a labourer or the big one replaces a rented unit.
- They can watch a backhoe loader and a ZX200 load the same truck and time it.
- They leave with container packing photos, third-party inspection option, and a booked slot rather than a “next week maybe” promise.
One Nigerian contractor last season came for a single PC200 and went home with a 308, a ZX200, and a 3CX. His words: “I came to pick a machine, I left with a system.”
What We Tell First-Time Used Buyers
If you have never bought a used excavator across a border, the only rule that matters more than brand is honesty per hour. A CAT with 9,000 hours and straight steel is safer than a Hitachi with 2,000 hours and a repainted boom crack. We would rather lose a sale than hide a weld.
So when you walk our rows:
- Do not ask “which brand is best.” Ask “which machine matches my bucket, my trailer, my operator, my fuel budget.”
- Do not fear the 8-ton class. Fear the one that will not start cold.
- Do not skip the backhoe loader. Fear the site where nobody cleans the spillage and the excavator wastes cycles doing a loader’s job.
- And do not buy off a single photo with no undercarriage shot. If a seller will not show you the chain, he already knows what you would see.
Closing the Walk
Our yard is not a museum. Machines start, buckets dig, thumbs grip, blades grade, trucks fill. The minis wait at one end, the 20-tonners hold the middle, the loaders and backhoes weave the lanes, and somewhere in the row a CAT 320 sits next to a PC210 and a ZX200 like three dialects of the same language.
You do not need to know which one you want before you come. You need to know you want options, you want them running, and you want them in one place where the guy handing you the key also hands you the torque wrench.
That is the whole model. Stock deep, brands mixed, demos loud, paperwork straight. Come for the CAT, stay for the Komatsu, sign for the Hitachi — or the other way around. The machines are here. The yard is open.