Category Archives: construction equipment

Things to Consider while Buying Heavy Equipment

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Heavy equipment is one of the most important or most essential elements in the current era of construction. If you too run a small to medium construction business, it is a must that you either own or rent the heavy construction equipment. The large scale construction business owners mostly own their own equipment. This helps them in cutting down the budget.

But, in case you are a small to medium scale construction business owner, it is a must that you consider these things before buying the heavy construction equipment.

  • Equipment that you need:

 

Depending on the type of construction work that you offer or are prepared to offer, you need to purchase the heavy equipment. The equipment needs to suit the type of business that you do. Many construction businesses only offer construction service for buildings. Many, on the other hand, offer services for dam construction, road construction as well as deforesting services. Your equipment should be compatible with your work or service.

  • Your budget:

 

The next thing that you need to keep in mind or take into consideration is that you should decide on a budget. Budget is the most important thing when it comes to buying the heavy construction equipment. This is because the heavy construction equipment do not come for an easy price. They are indeed expensive and you cannot afford to waste or engage money on something that you do not need. Make a list of the equipment and machines that you need and then decide your budget.

  • Used or New:

 

Since the heavy construction equipment comes for an expensive price, the small to medium scale business owners often think of renting the equipment. However, if your business is a well-settled one and you have quite a number of projects in hand, think of owning or purchasing the equipment.

While you decide on buying the equipment, you will get options like used or second hand equipment as well as the brand new ones. The prices differ drastically. There is nothing to worry about buying the used heavy equipment, provided you buy from a trusted source. Make sure it has all the documents and is sold buy a legal owner. Since the price of the heavy equipment is quite high, there are often illegal financial transactions taking place regarding the purchase and sale of the heavy equipment. Avoid any of that to make sure that you do not fall into trouble.

Also, check for the condition of the heavy equipment. The few things that are important are –

  • How old the equipment is
  • The condition of the engine
  • Whether the equipment is injured or not
  • If there is anti-theft software or tools installed.

If all these factors seem convincing to you, you can decide on buying the heavy equipment. You can check for the trusted online as well as offline sellers, who can offer you various options of these machines. The experts will certainly guide you regarding the choice of the right heavy equipment that you should spend on.

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Where can I look for parts for heavy equipment?

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When your car shows up some problem and your mechanic tells you to change a part of it, it makes every sense to go ahead and change just that part that has gone fault and not the entire car. Similarly, when it comes to heavy equipment you got to fix the problem by changing a particular part of the machine (only if the mechanic asks you to) and not ponder into the idea of buying a whole new brand of machine. We all understand how important heavy equipment is to the construction work and what amount of loss a company may incur if they fail to get the machine work when it is really needed.

Therefore, the first rule should be to take assistance of a mechanic whenever you see a problem developing in your machine and if the mechanic detect the problem is due to a part of the machine that has gone faulty, you should waste no time and get it replaced. Now the question is where you can look for parts of heavy equipment. Well, that should not be a problem as you have plenty of options available from where you can procure heavy machinery parts.

Look for it at your local dealer store:-

Once you know what exact part you want, you need to reach out to your local heavy equipment dealer store and check if they have it available with them. Most of the time, you may find the parts but at times you got to inform them about it so that they can get it ordered and shipped at their place from the company’s inventory. Now most of these heavy equipment stores that you see are local dealers and they tend to deal with selling heavy equipment and its parts for almost all major heavy equipment companies. So there may be a possibility that they may run out of stock for the part that you are looking for or may have it of some other brand that will not go well with your machine. This is when they get it ordered directly from the store. This process may take some time which is they it is imperative that you consult with your mechanic as soon as you see the heavy equipment developing issues so that if at all the delivery of the part takes some time, you still have the machine running and do not have to sit tight doing nothing.

Buy the part online:-

Just in case you do not get the part of the heavy equipment at your local store or you get to know that they will take long to ship it, you can very well shop it online. While you are shopping for the part online, you get more options that you may not find with your local dealer. So before you place the order or buy the item, please make sure the time the seller will take to ship the item and when it will reach you. You may even be able to compare the price of the part with the dealer’s quotation and may take the best call.

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Blog are helpful to pick the heavy equipment of your choice

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We often get advices for free but expert advice comes with a price and moreover if the advice that you need is about heavy equipment. No wonder it is a complex subject and many heads have a lot of things to say about it but rather than getting confused hearing all those voices, you should take them and make necessary analysis. The analysis that you make will eventually be useful for you to take a call on taking the right decision and to pick the right heavy equipment. Now the question is do you have to make a blog to ask a question or can do it in someone else’s. It can be either ways. You have the liberty to create your own blog and put questions there but the chance of someone answering will be seldom. It depends upon who visits your site and checks out your questions. You may get a lot of response if the question is a common one and people know how to deal with it or may even end up getting hardly any.

Now moving to the blog that has been created by an expert. These blogs are visited often by people who have keen interest on heavy equipment and subjects related to construction. They may not necessarily have a question to ask but want to gain some information by reading some out of the box questions. You get to see a lot of thoughts out there. People come out with some real good answers that have not been contemplated by the best of the minds in the industry. Blogs are in fact a wonderful place where people come and share their excellent ideas on any given topic. So a complex subject like heavy equipments may look simple when you have people explaining it to you in the simplest manner.

Many have found blogs as a problem solving tool. People do not want to call a mechanic to fix small issues as they will charge him a bomb and therefore try their level best to fix up things. Now they put their issue on the blog of an expert and wait for the responses. Accordingly he tries out things and let others know if it worked. Just in case, if it fails to work and some other issue crops up, he can post that too on the blog and can expect some workaround.

Who uses blogs to put their issues? Are they only used by guys who are amateurs or even by veterans? Blogs are used by all those who know a bit about the topic and wants to contribute by sharing their views on the given topic. Well nobody is paid for giving the right answers though. You are only helping people and enhancing your knowledge by knowing if your suggestion worked. Alternatively, you also get to learn things that were never known to you. People at times can also give some business tips but that is very rare to happen. However it is still a possibility.

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Concept heavy equipment

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Change is a part of life as we can’t stay stuck to one thing. We want to change anything and everything that is materialistic in nature. The reason is quite obvious. Each time we want something better and in order to get that better in our lives, we start demanding for it and there is someone who meets those demands. Perhaps this is how the concept of business has evolved. The same concept is also applicable in terms of heavy equipment where with every passing month and every passing year, we will see a new type of heavy equipment replacing its predecessors. It does not mean that the earlier one has gone obsolete. It is perhaps used by someone who may not afford the newer version but you will always get people who are looking for something new and something better in life.

We will be talking in brief about how heavy equipment makers get the idea to manufacture new kinds of heavy equipment.

 Knowing the pulse of the end-user:-

The first and the most important part in conceptualizing the structure of heavy equipment and the kind of features that should be added in it is by reading the minds of the end-user. The business of heavy equipment makers largely depends upon these sections of people who expect something exceptional from them. So before you start thinking about a new concept, firstly you should throw a random survey asking few basic questions and then move to its depth by asking some technical questions. Put out the survey on your website or on the website of any heavy equipment site that is most visited by people. People will fill out the survey and will also mention what new they are looking for. From there you will have a basic idea about their wants and will try to proceed in that direction.

Hire competent designers and engineers:-

Intelligence in today’s world has become a virtue. Getting someone who can really think out of the box and bring the same concept to life is a hard task. This is why you got to keep your hunt on and employ designers and engineers who can dare to think out of the box. Your men should have the ability to understand what others have produced and see the drawbacks in the product and accordingly make a stuff that is better. Branded companies like CAT, Volvo, Komatsu, JCB etc. have really competent engineers and designers who are passionate about their job and love to do things that has not been thought of or hear about. They are the ones who have brought the concept of modern heavy equipment live in front of us.

Competition should not apprehend your thoughts but should garnish it:-

The fear of competition is never good for the growth of an industry. On the contrary, it should encourage you to develop something better for the mass. Market your product before it is even produced. Since you know the concept and how unique it is, you should be able to market it well and generate the curiosity amongst people. Once the product is there is the market, it will become an easy sale then.

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Equipment Sales Tips and Advice

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Selling heavy equipment can give you great dividends. If you are in the profession of selling heavy equipment and if you are good at it then you are indeed sitting on a gold mine. You have the chance to earn lot of money through commission. A lot of men/women selling heavy equipment are successful in their profession have made enough wealth for themselves and are also loving every bit of their work. It is not only a source of earning lot of money but it also gives you respect and great sense of job satisfaction. But there is a bitter truth that lies at the core of this profession and it is the level of difficulty and hardship that one has to go through to find his place in the industry. Why would anyone buy heavy equipment from you is the most important question that you need to first search an answer to? Apart from that, knowing about heavy equipment is also crucial. In order to sell a commodity, you need to first know about it and then only you can pitch it to people.

How well you can communicate:-

You can’t make a career in sales if you are not a good communicator. A good communicator is the one who’s thought process is quick and who speaks sense therefore not sounding like a computer generated audio. While speaking at a length you should also give the chance to the listener to understand what you are saying and if required ask you questions. Do not try to confuse the person by speaking rapidly because if you do so the person might simply lose interest and you lose the deal. You may have excellent product knowledge but if you do not know how to put it forth then you need to develop that skill.

Lack of knowledge of machines and construction business:-

You not only have to know about heavy equipment but also need to possess some information about the industry where the machines will be used. The construction business is always in need to heavy machines but every construction business has varying needs and the salesman needs to understand this very need of the construction business. For instance, if the salesman approaches a person who is into grading work and therefore it makes no sense for the salesman to sell him a dozer or an excavator. He needs graders and appliances that are used in a grader. To sell the right heavy equipment you need to know the business well or else you will never see yourself successful.

List items on website:-

This is perhaps one of the simplest ways to sell heavy equipment. Here you do not have to go to people to convince people to buy the machines. All you need to do is list the heavy machines on websites that deals with buying and selling of construction machines online. Interested prospects will reach out to you and then it will be your convincing skill that will get you the customer.

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Instill the habit of referring to user manual

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You buy an item from a shop and you get a free guide book along with it. The reason they provide you with the guide book is so that it can help you understand the product in a broader way and also guide you to how to use it. It has been witnessed that people learn things by trying and testing the item and any sort of reference given about the item can only prove to be very helpful. Therefore it makes ample sense to refer to a guide book time and again you put yourself in a difficult situation and do not the way out. Off-late, it has also been seen that people are increasingly making use of videos to work things out. This is of course a nicer and simpler way to know your product but at times can prove to be risky and you may spoil the entire thing.

The guide book which is also known as user manual in the world of heavy equipment play a crucial role in upgrading the knowledge of beginners who are using the machine for the first time. This is why heavy equipment makers try their level best to make the user manual as simple as they can for the readers to comprehend the complexities involved in the machine. As a matter of fact, heavy equipment as a subject is quite complex and it requires months of dedication and hard work to understand and ultimately work on one. Therefore, it is bigger challenge for the heavy equipment makers to frame the diagrams and sketches in such a way that the end user does not find it complex to grasp. Also the language they used in the manual should be simple and easy to understand which means fewer jargons to be used.

Training videos not a substitute to user manual:-

A very dangerous trend has come to notice where people are using training videos as a substitute for user manual. Well, a training video has its own importance but it can’t ever be used as a substitute for anything. It helps people to get a better understanding of the subject they are dealing with and can teach them many important stuffs but just in case if the machine breaks down and the person tries to fix it by checking the training videos, he may land up in a bigger mess. In situations like these, reference of the user manual is most advisable. Even many training videos suggest of using user manuals in case they get stuck on something and are not able to find a way out.

It saves money on calling mechanic:-

You end up paying lot of money to the mechanic every time you experience a problem with your machine. The most viable solution is to try and fix things by reading the user manual. In most cases, the issues pertaining to the machine can be fixed if one follows the user manual properly. You do not need to call the mechanic to help you and in turn pay him your hard earned money.

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Heavy Equipment Salvage Yards

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When a part of heavy equipment goes faulty, you try to just get that replaced and not try to change the entire heavy equipment. Buying a brand new heavy equipment will cost you good sum of money and there is absolutely no sanity in buying a new machine just because few of its parts have gone faulty. When you have the option to replace it then there is no point to go for buying a new one. However, there is a challenge when you go shopping for replacement parts and the challenge that you just do not get the parts that you are looking for. In situation like this, the most viable option you can opt is to check for the parts in the heavy equipment salvage yard. There is lots of heavy equipment salvage yards available all across US and they are all interconnected with each other. So if you do not get the part anywhere you are sure to get it here.

What do we basically understand by heavy equipment salvage yard is that it is a place where you can sell your used heavy equipment and the guys out there will dismantle the machine and will remove the vital parts from it so that it can be used in some other machine? Just in case, if they see the part of the heavy equipment is not in order, they will try to repair it or rebuild it and check if it can be made usable. So a buyer who is looking for heavy equipment parts can certainly walk in to a heavy equipment salvage yard and hunt for his stuff.

If we believe that salvage yards are only meant to recover heavy equipment parts of few selected brands then it will be a complete shocker to know that these yards normally deal with every type of heavy equipment of every possible brand under the sun. So if you have a CAT dozer and want to replace its lever or want to buy few of its attachments and you find the original one getting sold by the company is pretty expensive, you can try it out in a salvage yard. You may perhaps get to see many more things which you might have never imagined. Buying a part that’s new will come with a warranty of a year or two but not every salvage yard will offer warranty on used parts. So this needs to be checked with them in advance.

There are even companies who buy the parts from the heavy equipment salvage yards and sell them online. In this way they keep the margin money by selling it slightly higher than the purchase price. This has in a way given rise to a new business and many people are seeing good prospect in this form of business. So the salvage yards are basically flocked by people who want to buy machines for their use and the others want to buy so that they sell it online and thereby make some money out of the transaction.

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Keep your heavy equipment well lubricated

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The assets of a company need to be well maintained so that it functions whenever it is required to. If it is a manufacturing unit that is into production of materials, the maintenance team needs to ensure that they keep good care of the machines that are used on a daily basis so that they do not break down at times when we need them the most. The common problem that has been witnessed in machines in a manufacturing unit is that they break down due to lack of lubrication. Well, all machine needs lubrication to function smoothly. They go through a lot of friction while in use and in order to let things move smoothly different types of lubrications are used. Heavy equipment working in a construction site also need to be well lubricated or else there are higher chances of it breaking down every now and then. Heavy equipment is undoubtedly an important asset for the construction company. They have to invest good sum of money on procuring machines. These machines also play a vital role in the completion of work.

Start with cleaning your machine:-

Before you deal with the lubrication part, it is important that you first clean the heavy equipment nicely. Get the dirt out of the stuff so that when you apply oil on the machine, it flows smoothly without any hindrance. If at all the machine is not cleaned properly and it has dust inside it, there are high chances that the oil will have a tough time reaching to vital parts of the machine. The dirt will act as a clogging agent and will restrict the flow of the oil. This can be really harmful for the heavy equipment. So before you start the lubricating stuff, make sure that you have washed the equipment and allowed it to dry. Only when it is dried up completely, you can go ahead and apply oil on it. You also need to make sure that you replace the filters regularly. It helps to keep the dirt at bay.

Maintain a record of the last time you have lubricated the machine:-

Keeping a record of the activities done on the heavy equipment is very crucial. Even if you have to change a tiny part of the machine, make a record of that. It often comes handy when a major issue crops up and you are asked to stuffs you did with your machine in the last 3 months. This helps the mechanic to understand the actual reason behind a breakdown. You just have to throw the data to the mechanic and leave the rest to him to understand what the problem could be and from where it must have started.

Lubrication of every part is essential:-

When we talk about lubrication of heavy equipment, most of us get the picture of lubricating the engine and its ancillary parts. But heavy equipment has more crucial parts than just its engine. It has the gearbox, brakes, bearings and other important parts that also need to be oiled. Therefore let’s not focus on just one key area and lubricate all the important parts irrespective of how important you feel they are for you. They are nevertheless important for the heavy equipment to function.

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Love your brand but don’t act rigid while picking one

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In today’s world you will find people who are brand conscious and will not use a product that is not associated with some famous brand and rightly so, the brand name does matter a lot. You buy things based on the trust that you have on the brand. So if you have heard a name for the first time, you do not know how the overall product will be in terms of quality, efficiency and if it is worth to pay the price that the seller is quoting. When you dealing with known brands you know for sure that you are buying stuff that is probably the best in the market at a given price. Now in terms of heavy equipment where you are investing chunk of money buying them you just can’t rely on brand that you have never heard of. Just in case if the brand is new in the market, you will probably do all the necessary research work to have the confidence to buy the machine?

There is however something more important than just buying branded heavy equipment and it is to be flexible when it comes to switching over to some other brand. It has been normally seen that people who stick to a particular brand do not wish to switch to a different one; how better the heavy equipment of the other brand be. The rigidity of not moving to another brand can also prove to be costlier to them. The brand that they are using may be expensive or may lack some features that is of immense importance for the business. This is when he should leave his rigidity and become a bit flexible by moving to a different brand. There is a chance that the new brand he moves to may be more expensive but if it gives him what his business wants, it is worth the cost.

To know when to move to another brand:-

There are some construction companies who are wise enough to not have any attachment or bonding with a particular brand and easily move on to a new one whenever they see the need. Such companies are practical in nature and this is how one should be when they are a part of a volatile industry like construction. In this form of a business, things may change overnight and therefore leaving any form of rigidity is advisable. You should know when to move to a different brand. When the existing brand has become expensive and you have better options at a cheaper rate is one such sign that you should switch.

Switching does not mean you’ve stopped loving your brand:-

People who use heavy equipment of Komatsu may switch to CAT if they find something out of the way in the new brand but that does not mean that they are done with the previous brand. If they find something better by Komatsu they can readily go for that rather than assuming CAT as a superior brand.

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How to buy heavy equipment at lower price

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Every company would want to buy raw materials required to make finished goods at a lower price. This will help them to bring down their manufacturing cost and can make more profits in return. However, the challenge here is to know the source that can provide them the raw material at a lower price. The raw material provider does not provide the stuffs at cheap rates to everyone but there is a simultaneous market that deals with the same stuff at a lower rate. The problem is not everybody is aware of this simultaneous market. Similarly, when it comes to the construction industry, they have one such market from where they can buy heavy equipment at a lower price. There are few construction companies who are in the business of buying construction machines at a relatively lesser price and then let it out to other companies or contractors. They make good money in this transaction as well as are also able to retain the machine.

Repo heavy equipment can be bought at a lower price:-

Buyers of heavy equipment who purchases the machines by borrowing loan and if they are unable to repay the money, the machine is repossessed by the lender. Now, the lender does not want to keep it under its possession for too long. The lender is interested to get its money back and therefore it auctions the machine and sells it to the highest bidder. In this particular case, not many people are aware of such auction and therefore not many people turn up. Also, the lender wants to get the money back that it has lent to the borrower and is not looking to make more money by doing this process. This means they keep the price of the heavy equipment much lower than one can think of. Due to low footfall, the price of the machine does not increase exponentially in the auction and the highest bidder can manage to buy it at a lower price.

Shutting down the business:-

The construction sector is quite a challenging and dynamic one and not many people are able to survive the odds of the industry. This is why many people decide to shut down the business and try something else. The people who are in the process of shutting down their business would want to sell off all their belongings so that they can have some money at the end of their entrepreneurial journey. They will be releasing an ad in local newspaper or simply list the item on some website that deals with buying and selling of heavy equipment. Just in case, you manage to get to know the person, you can directly walk up to him/her and check if he/she wants to sell it off to you. You can check the condition of the machine and give him/her a deal that he can’t refuse. They will be happy to get anything reasonable that you can offer him/her and will hand over the machine to you.

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