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Machine Matters- Crawler Dozers

machine matters | by Wayne Grayson CRAWLING BACK The market for the 210-horsepower and above class of crawler dozers is rebounding, bolstered by fuelefﬁcient technologies and other advancements. A fter feeling the brunt force of the economic downturn, two manufacturers of crawler dozers with 210 horsepower and up say the market is on the path to recovery. In fact, Jon Gilbeck, crawler dozer global product marketing manager for John Deere calls this market class “very positive.” “As the overall construction equipment industry has been going through the recovery process, dozer sales have grown as well,” Gilbeck told Equipment World. “Sales in 2011 were signiﬁcantly higher than 2010, and 2012 year-to-date sales are forecasted to exceed 2011.” Robert Klima, Liebherr’s product manager for crawler tractors, says though the market for this class of crawler dozer was heavily affected by the downturn – in 2009 the total 28 December 2012 | EquipmentWorld.com market volume was cut back to less than half of its 2008 size – a stabilization is on the horizon. “The larger dozers were affected, but not nearly as much (as smaller “ Costs associated to the undercarriage can be as high as 50 percent of the total maintenance cost. ” class sizes.) I think this situation occurred due to the smaller dozers performing pad work for housing,” Klima said. “The larger dozers were also doing this work, however, they were also working on larger projects where the smaller dozers simply can’t perform efﬁciently.” Helping matters is what Klima called a “diverse” market for crawler dozers sized 210 horsepower and greater. These machines are used in general applications such as earthmoving but also special applications such as landﬁll or stockpiling materials like coal or wood chips. There’s also heavy use in mining applications. Factoring life span The life span of a crawler dozer in this size category depends heavily on two factors: the owner and the undercarriage. Dave Cusac, Caterpillar’s tracktype tractor product application specialist, says Cat dozer’s frame life allow three powertrain rebuilds. Similarly, Komatsu’s crawler dozer

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