Saw your post and thought I would share my journey of buying my JD Skidsteer. First the man who cleared all our cedar on our hill country ranch swore by Case. He used a tree shear and grapple on it. He had a business doing it called "Texas Tree Shear". He was also my neighbor. He went through 3 Case's in around 10 years. He was a CASE guy. The first two machines were great but the third one was down constantly and he eventually sold it. I gave Case a shot but they would not even take the time to return my phone calls so marked them off my list.
Went to TAM with a Ewald that owns Ewald Tractor who is a Kubota dealer so I demoed one of their cab track machines. Nice machine but my mom's cousin uses a Kubota for his paving company in the area and I figured he would shoot straight with me on his evaluation of his machine. He bought the machine brand new. He had lots of issues with the cab door sealing correctly on it and he had continuing mechanical issues with the fold up door and AC/ issues. Maybe they have improved on that as this was three years ago.
I liked the machine I demoed but the AC just did not get very cold and the door did leak a lot of dust around it so I marked it off the list.
Good Aggie friend at church owned a Bobcat dealership, and also one of my close promotional team fisherman was also an Aggie that worked as the store manager at RDO JD dealer in SA. They both gave me new machines to demo at the ranch for a week. Both cab machines and both wheel machines.
I did not like the Bobcat because the air intake for the AC was down low between the two wheels and it picked up dust badly. The AC also was not very cold…. Again because the door seal was not real positive. I also did not like that the engine was turned sideways and a belt drove all the pumps and the chain drive for the wheels was horrendous to service. Marked them off the list.
The JD was conventional direct drive and the cab was the easiest to raise for service and it allowed total access to service of everything under the cab. Also hands down the JD had the best cold AC and best sealing door and no dust found its way into the cab for the most part. The JD also had some cool software features that really allowed customization of how you use your particular machine that no other brands had at the time.
I did not consider CAT as the dealer in my area had the reputation as being very hard to work with and that CAT parts seemed very expensive due to the name.
I also demoed a New Holland but again the dealer acted like he could care less about selling me a machine and did not even give me a quote.
I ended up getting the JD. Have had it for three years and not one issue ever. Even the original battery is still good. AC stays extremely cold and the cab stays dust free for the most part. RDO and Dogett machinery are great dealers and were a pleasure to work with.
My go too road and brush guy in the Ozarks has a CAT track cab machine that he uses really hard. He likes it but works on it a lot….. he bought it new. He does use it hard though. His real dislike of it is the AC system. It just never has really cooled the machine on hot days. He has used my JD and says there is no comparison between it and the CAT as far as AC.
He has lots of equipment and has Kubota for his small excavators but CAT for his big Excavator and Skidsteer and bulldozer and JD for his large track loader. He feels that each company excels in certain pieces of equipment that they are good at but that no company builds every piece of equipment perfectly.
Personally I think they all have positives and negatives… just depends which one has the best local dealer and which machine checks the most boxes for things that YOU think are important.
Well that's my nickels worth. Now watch, my JD will blow up tomorrow!
