10 Questions You Should to Know about chinese mini excavator attachments

I've owned a Deere R TLB for the past few years and the idea of a mini-ex has been gnawing at me for the past couple months. Close to pulling the trigger, but would love to hear some more feedback from those who've been there done that before I light 10-15 grand on fire. Mostly interested in hearing from people who own or have laid their hands on one of these machines for more than 5 minutes versus people just telling me "don't buy Chinese junk" or whatever*.

I started out writing a -word essay about my site/projects/etc. but thinking about it, I really have a few specific questions/concerns:

1. Am I a dupe for considering Kymron and Groundhog versus buying a machine right off the boat? I don't mind paying a few grand more for a slightly upgraded machine (better hydraulics, cooling, controls), with maybe a bit more QC, and somebody in the US to call when I need a part. I don't want to pay a few grand more just for somebody to paint their name on the boom, though.

2. Am I stupid to think a gas machine (such as YH14 | Kymron) is enough? My Deere 260B hoe has generally been strong enough for what I want to do, it's just slow if you're doing more than digging one smallish hole in one place. I am assuming these gas machines have about the same digging ability. As a homeowner with a small (~3 acre) site, I would expect to put *at most* 50hrs/year on a machine (my tractor is at 105 after 3.5 years), and that maintenance on the little Briggs would be simpler for a DIY guy than the small diesels.

3. Stability: These small machines look a bit tippy to me, and my site is not crazy steep but very much not pancake flat either. I don't need or expect to carry 800-pound logs across a 30% grade, but I don't want to feel like I'm going to die going down a 10-20° incline either. I can drive my tractor just about everywhere on my site, but there are parts where I have to be careful, especially if I'm carrying something heavy. I looked at an Agrotek FF12 locally the other day, and it seemed really top-heavy to me though part of that may have been the hydraulics being super twitchy.

The Kymron/Groundhog machines I'm looking at have retractable tracks so I'd get a little better lateral stability that way, but I'm also concerned about being able to safely transit up and down slopes. I'm also open to running on steel tracks if that made a critical difference, since almost all of my work would be off turf or pavement out in the field/woods. On the smallest machines they add about 600 pounds right at the bottom which seems like it would add a lot of stability.

4. Floatation/ground pressure: A lot of my site gets very wet/inundated in the spring and sometimes mid-late fall when there's a lot of rain or snow melt and not enough sun and heat to dry it out, and my tractor can't cross these areas without digging in and getting stuck. Am I correct to think that the mini-ex would perform better since the ground pressure would be much lower, or would it just dig a bigger hole? My one good thing here is that the steeper spots generally drain well so I'm less concerned about sliding down a muddy hill.

* And yes, I *have* considered buying used and renting. Out here I almost never see used machines under ~$25-30k, and I'm not looking to buy a machine, use it for a year and sell it when I'm done. Renting is an option, but I'm not retired and if I'm lucky I get 1-3 days a week to work if the weather is good, and I don't have a big truck and trailer so it costs $300 just for delivery and pickup plus $400/day so it adds up fast.

Thanks again! Well as it turns out I had some time free today and took a trip to check these guys out. They seem to have started out importing Chinese machines to Australia and then a couple outlets in Canada, and opened up here in the northeast US back in April. The GM has been in the machinery business for 20 years and said they are working on building up a full US presence with local support and parts.

I looked at both the 1-ton diesel mini and the 2-ton.

UHI Machinery UME12P Mini Excavator 2,660lbs. Kubota Engine

* Kubota 13.8HP Engine * Swing boom; Expandable track * Manual quick hitch for easy changing attachments Package price $13,950including 8” Trenching bucket, 15’’ Digging bucket, 31” Grading bucket, Rake, 8" Auger, Manual quick hitch, Hydraulic thumb plus 3 year peace-of-mind warranty! *...

UHI Machinery UME18 Mini Excavator 4,330lbs. Kubota Engine

* Kubota D902 15.8HP Engine * Swing boom; high/low travel speed; Expandable track * Hydraulic quick hitch for easy changing attachments Package price $23,600 including 8” Trenching bucket, 16” Digging bucket, 39” Grading bucket, Ripper, Hydraulic quick hitch, Hydraulic thumb and 3 year...
The 1-ton retails for $14K with a pretty good set of attachments and the 2-ton goes for 24k with a similar attachment package. Both have side swing booms, retractable tracks, and pilot controls.

The 1-ton seems like a very good deal as it's priced similar to the gas minis but has a Kubota diesel. I didn't go over the machine with a fine tooth comb but overall layout and fit and finish seemed good and comparable to my Deere R. Operation was definitely a lot smoother than the FF12-type machine I looked at earlier in the week. It is also a ~lb machine so a little heavier than the small gas powered ones.

The 2-ton felt like a significantly bigger machine but didn't feel as much smoother as I expected it to, particularly the track controls. I don't know if the valves needed some adjusting but the control levers had a lot of throw to them, but they went from fully closed to fully open in a very small amount of the movement so the machine felt a bit jerky, in some ways more so than the smaller machine. One of the mechanics said that he felt the 2-ton was a much more stable and smooth machine overall and would be his choice if he was buying one for general use.

I think where I'm at is I'm going to spend some time digging with my little backhoe and see what I think and whether I really want/need a bigger machine. This whole shebang started with me seeing the 1-ton machines for like 10k, and now I'm considering spending over 2x that and that's starting to feel like too much money to buy on an impulse.

Actually, now that I think about it, if you had a full bucket, say 5-600lbs, as 2-300 lb operator and a full tank of diesel, you might be damn close.


I've never actually paid attention to how the big companies actually rate their machines either. I've been in the civil construction field for 20 or so years, rented hundreds of machines but never cared enough to get in to that level of detail! I have a feeling I'm about to fall in to a rabbit hole!

My 3.5 ton Takeuchi weighed lbs, my 4 ton Kubota weighs 10k pounds. These chinese copycats build a business on minimum hardware and overrated claims at the lowest price, so its no surprise to me that their numbers are off by a lot. Update on the mini review.

HOURS TO DATE: 28

The GOOD- using the mini ex,

I've loaded and taken to the dump/recycler
3-trailer loads of steel from sheet metal to heavy iron and steel frames etc.
4 loads of scrap wood from outbuildings and hog pens etc.
Removed 1 -70+' dead pine next to the home with the help of the mini.
Opened up a 15-20' wide swath through the woods for a new road to a new homesite. It's about 250yds long and I'm 3/4 of the way through at this point.
The mini is smoother than I expected in operation.
It's strong enough to pick up some impressive weight.

The NOT SO GOOD,

I've been having an issue with a small coolant leak at the upper radiator hose at thermo housing. Nothing worked for a while. I finally found that the thermo had a raised rib on the hose connection. I sanded it down and stopped the leak. After a day or two leak free I started smelling that sweet smell of coolant. Now I got a pinhole spraying everywhere from the side of the Chinese upper radiator hose.
I tried to order a kubota hose but wrong configuration . Turns out that the Chinese company uses the Kubota engine but their own welded aluminum tank. I tried calls and emails to seller for support...crickets. Hmmm? Hope I don't need a cylinder repair kit or anything else...ever.
I'm going to try and track down the actual company that builds these. I imagine with all these minis coming from China....supply and interchange of parts is not too difficult.

Other than the cheap hose and no after purchase support it's been working and running like a champ. I've been keeping up with the chores I'm accomplishing and so far Its saved me about 2k if I was.paying rental fees. Another point is I can use it as time allows. An hour today then 5 tomorrow etc. With a rental its 8 hrs straight per day to get the most out of the cost.

I'm adding things to the to do list daily. Hopefully, this purchase will pay for itself in short order.

Ive got a u17 and that appears to be decently close copy but definitely looks different when you open the hood, I don't imagine a lot of the parts are the same.

Also excavators are rated in tonnes as in metric tonnes which are lb. Technically a 1.5t mini should weigh lb but on a machine that tiny even a bucket change can make a large difference so who cares as long as the lift and reach specs are correct.

Yeah they are similar. This one has the Kubota 902 3 cylinder diesel. I think it has. Eaton drive motors and a Crystal pump but not sure. It's definitely not powerful as far as busting roots bigger than 2" but I plan to get a ripper attachment which should help.

@hunterdan for any seals or packing kits, check out Hercules Sealing Products. Place I used to work, we got all our seals and packing kits from them. You can use measurements off your equipment to order what you need.

Thanks.

Now I'm at 38hrs on this chubota mini x
I just broke through to the other end of a 350-400' Rd. I've been making through the woods to a homesite. Now to go back and remove some of the larger stumps. In order to not overwork the hydraulics I'm doing one large stump at a time and then letting it cool off for half a day.
I got my son to finally try out the mini. Within 10 minutes he is using multiple functions at the same time. He's a natural.lol

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Thought I was getting notifications on this thread, but missed some of your updates. Did you get the radiator hose figured out?

I got my load of similar machines a few weeks ago and I'm pretty happy with my "demo" unit so far. I knocked down a bunch of locust trees over the weekend and it performed well. I did manage to bend my thumb a big and taco'd an 8" trenching bucket, but that was 100% a combination of operator error and equipment abuse and I mostly expected it to happen. The ripper shank works pretty well for breaking through roots and cutting in around bigger stumps.

I'm pretty confident that yours came of the of the same plant as mine. The chasis looks identical and the engine bays are very similar. Your wiring looks a little cleaner. Mine are 722 your 902, but they still look the same.


I got these with expanding tracks, which I'm really liking. It IS another component that could fail, but the extra stability is nice, while still being able to suck them in to fit through a gate or fit on a smaller trailer.




And I labeled mine appropriately...
Hi, thanks all for sharing your experiences with chinese excavators. I would not believe, they will lie also about the weight.

I am thinking currently about Hightop HT18. With Kubota D722, 20+40+60cm teeth buckets, 100cm hydr. tilt bucket, quick hitch, hydraulic thumb and ripper, canopy and I qot quote on 8k USD.
I never had an excavator. I have few questions:
1) except of additional weight, what will D902 add against D722?
2) Did you try to check, whether it is real japan Kubota, or some licensed, or directly fake.
3) How about hydraulics on this excavator? Does it work smoothly, not very slow and is it powerful enough? I want this for my garden.
4) Did you try to lift some weight on the arm, how much weight it can lift? I need to do something with concrete rail sleepers, which weights 250kg.
5) Does tracks width (180/230mm) matter?

Except of lack of technical details I am facing problems with shipping. Chinese offers me super cheap CIF, but I was warned, that I have to pay THC (terminal handling charges), which nobody, except seller knows and seller did not tell. FOB+shipping organised from my country costs 2k USD, (big thanks to Yemen's pirates).

Furthermore, my shipping company says, that filled with oils and with battery installed it is dangerous goods. If I want to be shipped as general cargo, then it must be empty. Bringing this thread back up. I just bought a mini x, not sure I will be able to fit in it, guess we will see. FF13r is the model. R420 engine which I guess is about a 13hp engine, gas, not diesel.

Not sure exactly what I will have in it yet, but should be less than $4k, whether I pick it up myself or pay to have it delivered. If anyone wants one, let me know, might could save us both some money on delivery. Mine is in Lake Butler, FL. More coming up next week, I thought about bidding on one to try and sell, but I am not sure it would sell for enough to justify fooling with another one.

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Bringing this thread back up. I just bought a mini x, not sure I will be able to fit in it, guess we will see. FF13r is the model. R420 engine which I guess is about a 13hp engine, gas, not diesel.

Not sure exactly what I will have in it yet, but should be less than $4k, whether I pick it up myself or pay to have it delivered. If anyone wants one, let me know, might could save us both some money on delivery. Mine is in Lake Butler, FL. More coming up next week, I thought about bidding on one to try and sell, but I am not sure it would sell for enough to justify fooling with another one.

Does it have AC? I feel like the cab is more of a problem than a solution on a machine that small, especially for you taller fellers.

Does it have AC? I feel like the cab is more of a problem than a solution on a machine that small, especially for you taller fellers.

A/C, I wish! I will remove the cab if needed, but for most of the projects I will use this for, I won't be in it long enough to really matter. I have thought about renting it out to people I know for maybe $500/week (with limited use, not like 10hrs a day or anything). I have Hitachi ZX110 up at my land, but it needs the fuel tank cleaned on it to get it back going again.

The cabs definitely do suck on these and I don't know why they put them on so many, the front glass isn't removable and you're sitting right above and engine with no AC in a tight ass cab

Because the chinese imitate, they do not innovate. I have heard the country as a whole is in real trouble, because their schools focus on memorization more than understanding the concepts and fundamentals....which is why we find ourselves with $5k brand new mini-ex's with cabs and no AC....how do you even land that thing stateside at these prices?