Well, I love my little backhoe on my little machine. I don't use it a lot, but it's great to have available on short notice for various projects around my property. I use it less now that I've gotten my property pretty well set up the way I want it, but it's been great to have on both of my 30hp machines. No where near as good as a mini ex for backhoe work, but most of my backhoe tasks just don't justify renting a mini ex.
I did a big job a number of years ago of picking away at a decomposed granite hillside, starting with a full size New Holland TLB rental while I was waiting for my new
B3030 to arrive, and at the end of the weekend, decided it was a big waste of money as it just was taking too long to get through the rock. I hit the rest of the area with my
B3030, and found it to do just as well with the smaller bucket getting through the rock (the bucket on the TLB was just too big to be all that effective). It took some time with the
B3030, but I made some impressive progress on every long weekend I'd work on it. I moved a LOT of rock with that little machine, and a mini ex rental with all the proper equipment, including a hyd jackhammer, would have cost at least 1/2 of what the little backhoe cost me to buy, for just that one project. That project is long done, and I'm on my second small machine with a backhoe, and it is paid for. When the time comes to sell the machine some day, obviously the backhoe will add a significant amount to the sales price.
Something I never thought of when purchasing, but the little backhoe has been a great tool to have to be able to bury our retired sled dogs in our little dog graveyard on our property. The kids & wife like having a private place on the property to go to the grave sites every so often. I had to bury 3 dogs this winter over the span of 2 months, something that would NOT have happened if I had to do it by hand. I have also used the backhoe to bury a neighbor's horse on their property, something they were VERY grateful for. Being able to do the little things like that make a big difference in being able to keep a family pet close by, something you wouldn't do by hand on the rocky properties we live on. Sure, we all could bury little boxes of ashes, but that can get fairly expensive too, especially when you are talking about something as big as a horse. I've even been asked by the owner of a small private cemetery nearby if he could hire me to dig there.
So, no, my backhoe is nowhere near as efficient as a mini ex (boy, those are nice to dig with), but it's nice having my own backhoe to use as needed. I have no regrets buying either tractor mounted backhoe, and even with the more limited use nowadays, have no plans to sell the backhoe. I know there will be plenty of small jobs in years to come that will call for my little backhoe, and hey, even though I'm 50 now, I'm just a bigger version of the little kid that used to dig all day long with my Tonka toys in my huge childhood sandbox during my summer breaks.
