Mini Skids

[Wes84]

A manufacturer/distributor that will sell to the public at dealer cost has an abhorred business model... think about it, what's the point of being a dealer and spending literally hours on the phone, forums, social media, etc if your supplier will sell direct for the same price you pay? Where is the incentive to offer support on the product?


Part of my falling out with the former party involved my being a dealer for their product and finding out they were selling "$40k" machines that cost me $36k for $31k to end users. They accused me of being greedy and only caring about money. They went out of their way to remove me as their competition on an articulated loader line that I was a dealer for directly. There were loads of other issues like randomly being billed $18k for a gaggle of invoices that had already been paid but the payment(s) were misapplied... ironically turns out that the secretary/office manager/book keeper was fired for embezzling a few months back.


I've found another avenue of business outside of trees or equipment that attracts my time and capital for a multitude of reasons; although I still do tree work and Compact Equipment Store still sells Nifty Lifts.

Yeah. I totally see where you're coming from. To be fair I'm pretty sure that they don't have any dealers yet. A few long time employees of Thomas Equipment bought the business out of bankruptcy about 4 years ago, consolidated it and now all they do is manufacture mini skids and provide parts for their discontinued equipment. He told me that most of their machines go to Australia because the Australians can buy from the U.S. and Canada cheaper than they can buy their own stuff. I'm just wondering. If you have an SK 800 at $25,000 from the dealer and its a little bit more machine. What kind of price should I expect from his factory roughly. Even if his machine is as well built as the Ditch Witch it doesn't seem to me that he should charge, pound for pound, the same price as a top tier brand. Especially seeing as how he is relying on paying someone in my area to do warranty work being that he's doesnt have his own network yet.

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[Lumberjack]

How does Ditch Witch's price factor in to what Thomas would sell them to dealers for? That's comparing apples to fish.

I talked to Thomas a couple years ago about becoming a dealer, they said they would be in touch but I never heard from them.

He doesn't have much in the way of retail sales in North America.... why do you want to lead the way? Obviously cost isn't a benefit if it's similar to the Ditch Witch, which has an established brand, network, and history?

 

[Wes84]

How does Ditch Witch's price factor in to what Thomas would sell them to dealers for? That's comparing apples to fish.

I talked to Thomas a couple years ago about becoming a dealer, they said they would be in touch but I never heard from them.

He doesn't have much in the way of retail sales in North America.... why do you want to lead the way? Obviously cost isn't a benefit if it's similar to the Ditch Witch, which has an established brand, network, and history?

Perhaps I'm asking the question the wrong way. If the 800 is $25,000 and he wants $23,000 and the average dealer profits around $2000. Then he's charging me the same as the Ditch Witch and I'm obviously not going to go that route but if the average dealer profits around $4000-$5000 on a machine I'm calling BS and insisting on around $20,000 or a little less. I just want to be informed before I suggest that

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[Wes84]

And what would I be leading the way in? I'm not following. Maybe we're misunderstanding one another. I have no interest in being a dealer. I was hoping that I had found a good price on a reliable new machine. I'm just trying to gain some pertinent information as its almost impossible to get that from the companies that sell them

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[Lumberjack]

Why would you want to lead the retail buyers in North America paying roughly the same price as you could for a machine that comes from a much stronger company with a known reputation?

 

[Wes84]

Why would you want to lead the retail buyers in North America paying roughly the same price as you could for a machine that comes from a much stronger company with a known reputation?

I wouldn't. Read the comment above that one. I'm trying to figure out how cheap of a price that he's going to have to settle on to make it worth buying in this market. He's going to get back with me this week and I'd like to have some knowledge to negotiate with. I don't want to come across as someone thats going to low ball no matter what but I'm also not going to pay top dollar considering the situation.

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[Lumberjack]

I understand you're wanting to get a cheap machine for a cheap price... my question is, why do you want a cheap machine to start with?

A Thomas was my first mini... it was a good machine and a money maker. 10.5 years ago it also cost me $12k with two buckets, trencher, auger, leveler, pallet forks, and a trailer. I sold everything but the two buckets and had $6-7k in the mini and buckets.


I haven't seen the new Thomas's, but I'm betting they're similar to the machines of the past.

 

[Wes84]

I understand you're wanting to get a cheap machine for a cheap price... my question is, why do you want a cheap machine to start with?

A Thomas was my first mini... it was a good machine and a money maker. 10.5 years ago it also cost me $12k with two buckets, trencher, auger, leveler, pallet forks, and a trailer. I sold everything but the two buckets and had $6-7k in the mini and buckets.


I haven't seen the new Thomas's, but I'm betting they're similar to the machines of the past.

Because I have only a specific niche that I need it for. I do residential and small scale commercial underbrushing and the machine is just an upgrade to run a mini brush mower and at some point get a brush grapple to move light material around. I don't need the latest greatest machine I just need something that's reliable, fairly stable, with fairly decent hydraulic power. I do this part time so I'm also trying to find a machine that I can afford payments on in case I have slow month as well.

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[Wes84]

In my kanga i can drive, tilt/lift arms and grab or release grapple all at the same time.. With t1000 i would have to take the hands off the bucket control in order to operate the grapple. I felt i was going backwards not upgrading.. Kanga makes the 8 series for 32k i think i will be going that way soon. Especially since next year there supposedly going to start building here locally.

Can you get Kangas in the U.S.? Can't find anything myself online

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[islandedge]

There's a guy in Arizona that's a dealer for them they also have a dealer in California

 

[Wes84]

There's a guy in Arizona that's a dealer for them they also have a dealer in California

Yeah I saw that on the Australian Kanga site but I couldn't find any contact info for either. Maybe I didn't look close enough. Have you ran other machines that you could compare the Kanga to. Also are they expensive?

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[southsoundtree]

Lots of good choices that are prominent in the US market.

Mini's aren't expensive. Not have a mini is expensive.

 

[Wes84]

Lots of good choices that are prominent in the US market.

Mini's aren't expensive. Not have a mini is expensive.

That's true.

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[TopNotchEquipment]

Just looked it up and the giant d254sw tele is only 2300 lbs. I think that's the one top notch carries.



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Yes we do..

 

[monkeylove]

Just added an angling dozer blade to the mix today. Used but not in bad shape, blade is flippable so it has one clean side still and one that could use a little grinder work. Thinking about mounting plow rubber on one side keeping the other side steel. Or turning the whole thing into a 4ft snow box pusher. Can't see it real well in the pic but it is the one still on the Dingo. The rest is just the growing arsenal. Bucket, Grapple bucket, BMG, Dozer blade.

 

[monkeylove]

So since I am going to do work on it anyway I decided to go see what the typical lawn in my area would take and how easy I might screw one up after some rain yesterday. Our area is primarily clay with very short rooter grass. I still have stock bar tires on the Dingo for reference. Took me about 15 seconds to waste the lawn and clog all the tires so bad they were just spinning holes. Layed some wood down so I could get out and do some PM on the dingo. Gave it a quick wash down and filed the results into my memory. Answer was "Don't even think about it", always lay mats down. Now all I have to do is blame it on the dog and I am good, lol.

 

[southsoundtree]

Depending on your machine, you might be able to stack your plywood on top of the machine/ grapple. This allow you to drive out all the plywood, offloading a sheet, driving over it, offloading the next...

I've also put a sheet on top of my machine (loader arms and grapple), loaded a bunch of gear on top, then driven the gear to the tree.

 

[colb]

Depending on your machine, you might be able to stack your plywood on top of the machine/ grapple. This allow you to drive out all the plywood, offloading a sheet, driving over it, offloading the next...

I've also put a sheet on top of my machine (loader arms and grapple), loaded a bunch of gear on top, then driven the gear to the tree.

My plywood sort of rests on my bmg/sk650. The bmg bollard termination rod sticks up and tilts my plywood though.

 

[treeandland]

2015 Ditch Witch SK 750: Starting Problem
On Friday my machine had been running and starting fine all day. At 2:30 I go to restart and just a click sound. The battery never acted tired. I had it tested and it was fine, but I got a fresh one just to rule that out.
Yesterday morning we wire brushed the contacts on the fuses, relays, battery wires, battery terminals. Two of the relays are identical, so we swapped one for the other. Still, it didn't start.
Then, we disconnected the thin red wire that connects to the positive battery terminal, next to the main positive wire. It started. We reconnected the thin red wire and it restarted again. Very mysterious. Does anyone know why it restarted and what happened?

 

[flyingsquirrel25]

2015 Ditch Witch SK 750: Starting Problem
On Friday my machine had been running and starting fine all day. At 2:30 I go to restart and just a click sound. The battery never acted tired. I had it tested and it was fine, but I got a fresh one just to rule that out.
Yesterday morning we wire brushed the contacts on the fuses, relays, battery wires, battery terminals. Two of the relays are identical, so we swapped one for the other. Still, it didn't start.
Then, we disconnected the thin red wire that connects to the positive battery terminal, next to the main positive wire. It started. We reconnected the thin red wire and it restarted again. Very mysterious. Does anyone know why it restarted and what happened?

Corrosion or non conductivity on the solenoid post where you disconnected the small red wire? Maybe mess with that post a bit trying to restart it a few times. Maybe worth a shot... a long one.