Hi everyone, first time buyer.
I'm considering to buy a small excavator (under 2 tons) for some small works near my house: trenches for water and sewers, ditches, edges maintainance and, once or twice in it's life, put a hammer on it to break some concrete.
I would like to be able to use a small mulcher to keep the edges (around 1 km total) clean.
I don't need fancy cabin with AC, a simple canopy is enough.
I have some kobelko, wacker-neuson and takeuchi dealers near me.
Today I've visited a couple of them and they gave me these offers (new, + VAT 22%):
Kobelko sk17sr ( I think 3rd generation) 25.000 + VAT
Wacker-newsom EZ17 21.000+VAT
Wacker-Newsom ET18 28.000 + VAT
The wacker seller was more convincing, but after some research I've seen there are some "problems", like the piston position on the back instead on the front. The ET18 has a VOS system to keep it orizontal, but I don't think I'll ever need this feature and I'm also concerned that this extra component will need extra maintainance (and eventually need to be replaced, one day).
The Kobelko guy talked less. The machine was new, but looked "older" than WS models. The boom cylinder was in the right positions and the machine looked sturdier.
I did not visited takeuchi dealer yet, but I have seen that many of their machines have the boom cylinder on the cabin side. I've seen onlyne that this is sub optimal, especially for small and not so powerful mini excavators.
Kobelko offers a subscription maintainance plan for 1000 euros/year that includes oil and filter changes, and extend warranty up to 4000 hours.
WN has a standard warranty.
Any suggestion? Any other brand I should look for?
Thank you in advance!