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Anonymous09/28/25, 14:21No.2947531
should I buy a chinese excavator ?
they are so cheap
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Anon09/29/25, 01:07No.2947675
Get a used Chinese excavator. They are even cheaper.
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Anon09/29/25, 01:13No.2947676
govplanet has auctions that have namebrand shit for a few grand. It's gonna be former rental equipment and well used, buyer beware
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Anon09/29/25, 05:39No.2947713
Buy a decent unit at auction do your work and sell it in a few years. Don't buy rotted out bottom of the barrel but mid tier affordable name brand and sell it yourself.
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Anon09/29/25, 07:45No.2947736
No
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Anon10/01/25, 11:27No.2948118
guy on Youtube brought the biggest normal digger that weights 18 tons and requires Wide and Weight special permits just to move on the road, for $7500, and it all worked. 5 gal oil change. Says they are cheap because so hard to move and no one wants them, and big corp, big govt contracts, can't afford to take chance on downtime and bringing in another unit.
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Anon10/05/25, 16:55No.2948926
I bought an ultra-cheap one, 900kg single-stroke diesel, $5k last year. Over a year, in about 70 engine hours, it's paid for itself, since I ended up in a major renovation project, where I did a ton of trenching and also bought a cheap hydraulic hammer attachment and then did a ton of concrete wrecking.
I did a lot of small and some larger mods, notably this model had no thumb attachment point, so I welded one on and then attached a hydraulic thumb (fortunately it at least had the hose), had to also make a /diy/ pedal for it since you couldn't operate the hydraulic hammer otherwise (you need both your hands for guiding it).
Had repeated issues with slew ring bolts coming loose, upgrading to better /Belleville/ washers eventually seems to have resolved the issue. There are a ton of smaller problems on it, but nothing particularly noteworthy. It works really well for the money. If you can somehow get a name-brand one used for the same price, then maybe give it some consideration, but the cheapest name brands here started at twice the price.
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Anon10/05/25, 17:06No.2948928
Equipment auctions (Ritchie Bros etc.) always seem to have a whole horde of Chinese mini excavators going for pennies on the dollar, often brand new or nearly new. Might be worth looking at those if you want one, not only will it probably be cheaper but it also means they're already in the country and you don't have to deal with shipping, tariffs, etc.
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Anon10/19/25, 14:53No.2951722
OP here, I ended up getting an ZX20R
The bucket is tiny but it digs ok
Pretty fun unit