China-made equipment...

[deniscimafinc]

I've just received an email newsletter from EquipmentWorld that announce CAT will start making compact excavators in China. Although we might get used to see manufacturers sending production overseas, I can't help but feel uneasy about that, even as a manufacturer. That only ads to the army of jobs lost in North America. On the other hands, most business schools would probably teach you that the important thing is to keep the company financially healthy, and that if you don't lower your costs going that way, your competitors will, with your market shares probably going down then...



How do you feel about that?

Does the country where a machine is made has any effect on your purchase decision? Or you don't care at all, as long as you can get the lowest price possible?

 

[JESSE1]

Personally, I go out of my way to buy products made in the USA. Even if it is an American company selling one of their products made in China, I won't buy it if there's an alternative. An example is Red Wing Shoes. They used to have a line of boots and shoes called Worx made in China. Now some of the actual Red Wing boots that always were made in the USA are made in China. I won't buy them. If people would avoid products made in China whenever possible maybe we could bring back some of our lost manufacturing.

 

[ddivinia]

I try to buy all the American made stuff I can even if it costs me more money.

D.

 

[Rhino59]

Unless I"m way off base, CAT excavators are not made in the USA right now......in fact, I think Mitsubishi makes them in Japan for CAT. Look on a CAT mini-ex now and they have the neon blue "Japan export" sticker on them....

 

[ddivinia]

We live in a global economy, but we can all make some choices. Some are really tough. My Dodge 3500 - made in Mexico. Oh well, better there than China.

D.

 

[yellowdogsvc]

We live in a global economy, but we can all make some choices. Some are really tough. My Dodge 3500 - made in Mexico. Oh well, better there than China.

D.

Ah, so it's from Texas? Half of Mexico is up here seasonally. The border is porous. while the workers come over here, the jobs go over there! Go figure!

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Frederic,

Some products I simply refuse to purchase because of country of origin. We were in Wal-Mart some time ago and my wife was looking at towels. I looked at the label and saw that they were made in Pakistan. I told her I don't care if they're free, we are not bringing them home. China is not much above Pakistan on my list.

As far as living in a global economy, we have done so for over a thousand years. It is only in recent history that manufacturing has been sent overseas. And that will thrust this country down to the level of those we sent the manufacturing to.

I have seen the threads in this section about your mulching heads. You have shown that by manufacturing a superior product and providing the support behind it, that you need not send your manufacturing to a third world country to be competitive. Keep up the good work. And, go GSP!

 

[roccon31]

i, for one, would (and have) bought equipment made in JAPAN- hitachi excavators (with and without "deere" stickers) and my john deere tractor is made in japan by yanmar. HOWEVER, if you were trying to sell me an excavator, that i had to depend on every day, in and out, and quickly repair it when it breaks, there is NO WAY i would buy one made in china. especially if i had to pay the premium price to have "CAT" written on the side of it!!!!!

japan and china are totally different, and the chinese DO NOT have the resources to stock parts houses here in the states with the necessary replacement parts to keep the equipment on the job and running, like the japanese do. if i need a part for a hitachi excavator, i can have it in less than 2-3 days. with china, its a long shot to get parts within 2-3 months!!

in my personal opinion, cat needs some corporate restructuring, not chinese made junk. and since i prefer deere equipment anyway, this makes my buying decisions that much easier!

 

[Taylortractornut]

If Im not mistaken the China made excavators are for the asian market. I have a friend that is also an operator that his bosses purchase agent bought a Sany excavator, a grader and a roller. It has cost them dearly in down time. THe hydraulics and the engine are Sun Strand and Cummins but the other things tha break on the hoe is. The bucket pins, crowd arm and stick pin, slew ring and bearing, boom pivot housing cracked. The grader is the same way drawbar fatigue cracked, axle houseings on the walking beam leaking and grinding, linkages on the blade insufficient and a severely mis aligned wheel lean. The roler has no bushings in the articulation joint, bad bearings in the vibrator and poor castings,and also poor vibration dampers. Ive tried to help them after the dealer wont. This winter I ll have the hoe in for a rebuild of the joints with plate reinforcing and send them to the rock pit for hammer work.

 

[roccon31]

i had the perfect example happen to me at the end of last week....(kinda long)

wednesday night, doing a small favor job (spread 10 tons of stone in a driveway) for a friend of mine, because i had no other time to do it and i had a 2.5 day job to be at thursday morning and a half day job somewhere else on saturday afternoon.

9pm wednesay , i was just about done, and my tractor just stopped running, smelled hot like electrical burning and would not restart. tried jumper cables, got it to crank, but no start. finally got it to run, but only for 5 minutes then it died completely. i thought maybe it was the battery was toast so i went to walmart for a new one so i was ready to go thursday AM. thursday came, stuck the battery in, no start. cranked fine, just no start. i yanked the fuel shutoff solenoid, saw it wasnt working and i have burnt fusible links, so off to the dealer i went. my local dealer did not have the link, but the other dealer 15 miles away had it. drove over, got the link, came back and installed it and it popped again. bypassed the fuse link all together and started hunting to root cause. since the fuel solenoid wasnt working, i went and got one (i cant beleive they stocked it) and threw it on. 30 seconds later it blew up!!! seriously frustrated, i went back to the dealer and ordered another, and talked to the service manager. he gave me the pages from the manual to test my fuel control module. i ordered one just incase before i left. went home, checked the module, and yep it was toast. saturday at 815 am, my parts were in. they were ordered 430pm on thursday. by 2 pm saturday afternoon, i had the parts in and she is running fine. i can now get back to work and hopefully get caught up to keep my customers happy. one customer told me if i wasnt there by this week she was going to get someone else, so i said i will be there even if i have to rent a machine.

due to a good dealer and the MASSIVE distribution of JD's parts warehouses, i was only down for 2 days. try that on a chinese machine.

and yes, it sucks that it cost me 800 in parts, but it could have cost me 3000 in lost jobs, and alot more in lost customers and bad word of mouth recommendations!

and a big thumbs up to Detlan Equipment in Silverdale PA for having experienced staff and being willing to help a brother out. lord knows how hard finding this electrical problem would have been without their help!!