How can they make it so cheap??
 

A good friend called me yesterday to tell me about a stand on skid steer a friend of his had bought from China. I rattled off the "usual suspects" of cheap stand on machines from China and he said "none of them". He told me he'd give me his impression of the machine once he got it uncrated and could operate it.

He called me after operating the machine and told me it "blows away" the machine he stocks and that I operated on demo. That was really surprising to me since the machine I demo'd was a very nice, and I thought operated better than Bobcat and other brands I've owned and sold.

The machine comes with a Kubota diesel engine, the same model as several US brands have. I don't know about pumps, drive motors etc. From the pictures I saw, it looks well built. The package includes the machine, a brush cutter, a grapple bucket, and a regular bucket. All in, with shipping, it was a tick under $16,000.

I was looking at becoming a dealer for a manufacturer who brought a machine to me to demo. Their machine was designed here but manufactured in China. My cost for that machine, while about 6K less than US made machines, would have been nearly 10K more than the one designed and built in China. That machine had a Yanmar engine, name brand pumps and drive motors and was overall very well built.

I've looked at adding other brands of stand on machines but the dealer net for the US designed and manufactured machines is nearly double the first I mentioned and about 6K more than the US designed made in China machine. And none come with the attachments this one did. The attachments alone would have added more than 6K to the machine price. The issue I can see is, if the machine has issues, the owner won't be able to get parts since there is no dealer network that stocks parts.

I understand that labor, regulations and raw materials, advertising for brand recognition, etc, come into play but to be that much less??? It seems like there's no way they're making money, or making a very small margin to produce and sell for that kind of number. It seems like there has to be a corner cut somewhere.

Part of it is no marketing and distribution. Another part of it is no development/engineering, they reverse engineer everything. Those $150 "clone" Husky and Sthil chainsaws? The real parts fit.

A real Prince pto hydraulic pump from the USA is like $700 or more. The Vevor clone? $150. I took mine apart just because, and its very nicely machined with plain bearings in all the right places. If I don't run it dry it'll likely outlive me.

IDK about parts availability for these little machines. I suspect that the drive motors and pumps are generic. It might take a day of snooping around the internet, but if your determined I bet you could find them.

The little mini ex's are cool. You see a fair number used for 3k or so that folks have bought to do one project and then move on, I've been tempted.

FHM etc have done well selling Chinese farm implements here. I have their tiller. Its rudimentary but robust, and they have parts in stock. Half the price of even a County Line.

Borderline slave labor and cheap materials can save a lot. Give it six months of heavy use and I bet you’d have cracked welds and leaking hydraulics. I’ll buy disposable stuff from China but have a hard time with anything that I need to depend on.

There is another factor: reduced cost per unit through volume production.
I found it hard to get my head around until a number of years ago I had a conversation with a Dutchman who represented a manufacturing company who wanted to sell a Chinese firm a factory to make stainless steel flatware . The firm was anticipating the westernization of trends in eating. When the pitch was made for a factory which could produce a million place settings annually, it was accepted, with the stipulation they would build four plants.
When you consider Chinese markets products globally, the unit cost, already low from factors such as cheap labor and government support, drops substantially.

Best
Les

To Greg's point about parts; That's something I'm looking into. I want to know more about the pumps, valves, drive motors which is easily discoverable. Those mini X's that sell cheap generally have a Briggs or other twin cylinder gas engine if I'm not mistaken. You can look at them and tell they're a cheap unit. This thing looks like a quality piece of equipment which blows my mind.

To Matt's point on longevity; I'm tempted to buy one and work it the way I'd work any other stand on I've operated just to see how it holds up. At 16K we've entered an entirely different level of disposable. Retail on Bobcat, Kubota, Vermeer, Ditch Witch, Case, Wacker Neuson and Scag ( I think that about covers it) is 35-39K. A new Viper runs around 32K retail. That's with just a bucket. This thing at just under 16K with attachments means a person could buy two and keep one for parts or as a spare if the first one breaks.


To Les's point on global marketing, I believe Bobcat and Case are global. The reason I point to these two, Deere and Cat don't make a stand on but rather they rely on Toro and Ditch Witch to fill that void. Wacker Neuson produces a stand on but I don't know where that product is marketed. After them you have the "fill in" producers like Scag. But they all run near the same price point.


To provide a little perspective on just how cheap this is, a used Bobcat MT85 with around 600 hours of use will bring around 21K. I haven't looked into it but I think this machine goes head to head with the 1000 pound lift capacity machines.

Much of the Chinese products have government subsidies to make them cheap, and put the competition out of business. They want to corner the market on most every product. The Chinese cars have not taken a foothold in the US yet, but I bet they are coming. I will never buy one.

I have a rk74. Front axle differential blew up at 20 hrs and within the first month of use. Tractor comes with a “84 month warranty” however they don’t have parts to fix it. Evidently, the S Koreans use Chinese steel and is a known issue.

That’s my experience with chinese bs…

No info about stand ons, but generically:
- China manufacturing is very efficient, high automation/robot usage, high volume. Some EV manufacturing is getting close to lights-out.
- Inputs from raw material to labor to components are domestically sourced and low priced.
- Chinese companies work with low margins in very competitive markets. No big stock buybacks, giant CEO comp.

I would worry about spares and support.

That's a big machine to have down...

Especially with no aspect of it being fixed and being blown off by rural king…

I've posted before of my Son being head of cyber security for a global port/shipping container business.

I had discussed with him the hacking of navigation systems for the huge cargo ships transporting these containers around the globe. I always thought that was the biggest cyber threat to our supply chain.

His work travel for over a year has been to go to major port cities (Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Antwerp, New Jersey, Savannah, Long Beach, etc) and go up into the cranes and loading equipment with a 5G scanner and uncovering all of the Chinese chips used in the manufacture of this equipment that does surveillance and also has the ability to be "neutralized" at any time.

I'm not saying this tech is dwelling in your Chinese manufactured backhoe but it should give some people pause when making equipment purchases.

Sounds like John Deere.

I posted something about that in the tariff thread.

The welds look pretty clean so I'm betting on robotic welding. Most of the attachments I've seen for skid steer loaders that come from China have sloppy welds. The lone exception is one particular brand that I'm convinced has copied Bobcat's designs on buckets and a few other pieces. The major difference between them and Bobcat's attachments is the sloppy quick attach plate that allows the quick attach on the machine to move up and down in the attachment.

It's a safe bet that support is non existent and parts will be tough to source if there is a failure.

I got a chance to do some more digging into the machine. They cost $13,000. There are a few videos on youtube where a guy works it pretty hard. Seems fairly durable except he did have an auxiliary pump issue.

Let’s see how they do in the real world, over a period of months and years.

At this price point it'll be more of a homeowner piece than a "professional" owned piece of equipment. One thing I noticed in a repair video I watched was the person mentioned "no name pump" which was touched on earlier. The replacement pump, not sure if it was provided by the manufacturer since it wasn't mentioned, was a brand name pump that was identical in shape to the no name pump.

I'm intrigued by these things. If I can get my hands on one I might have to buy one just to see how they'll do. I'd really like to put it up against a Bobcat MT100, Kubota SCL1000 or similar machine just to see how it performs in an apples to apples (horsepower and lift) comparison.

After two months.... I'm about to find out! I contacted the guy that imported the machine and bought it off of him. My plan is to work it and see how it does. I figure for the price, I can't go too far wrong. I'll post a pic when it lands here.

its public investment in manufacturing.

like there is no secret here. everyone beating us in the manufacturing game isnt doing it based on free markets, they are doing it based on massive public investment in manufacturing. Korea, Vietnam, china, etc etc.

if we want to make american manufacturing more competitive world wide, thats the same thing we need to do.

When you say "public investment" you mean via the government, corruption, and exploitation, right?

Bingo!

How do they make it so cheap? They can’t and they aren’t. Massive Chinese government subsidies are killing manufacturing everywhere else.

They are playing the long game here and sadly they are winning.

The tariffs are the only way to keep them honest.

That an zero design and development costs. Just duplicate the machines some American Company built in China, and rip that design off. Bam, a new machine for dirt cheap that works.

There's still a labor cost issue that no amount of "public investment" will overcome. Literally every country that is beating us in manufacturing is doing so with low wages, no benefits and virtually no environmental protections in place.

That's probably the most interesting thing about this machine! It's not some knockoff of a US built piece. It doesn't resemble Bobcat, Kubota, Case, Vermeer, Wacker Neuson, Scag or Toro. I'm looking forward to landing this thing and seeing how it functions.

When I was was engineering manager at a API licensed facility, we could not buy the material to make an API 6A flange for what your could buy an identical monogrammed API 6A flange made in China.

Materials were equal, the design was the same (standard parts), everything equal.

It costs the same to run a CNC machine in North America as it does in China.

They were losing money on their flanges. Why?

Low wages only move the needle on items that are labour intensive to create. Items with little to no labour should be cost neutral but are not.

I’m not sure if this has been touched upon but when you buy no name you’re not paying for bricks n mortar dealer stores or their overhead.

A HS friend of mine somehow ended up in Vietnam and is working in a furniture factory. People in there make a living on salary of $300/month. Different economy.

There are a lot of interesting things about this machine. Apparently Shangdong Derette has been manufacturing equipment for several years now. They allow branding of the equipment so I could have it stickered with "Mighty Mini" if I wanted to. I've found other dealers in the USA who have rebranded these machines.

My biggest concern is parts. My friend and I discussed the issue of parts and decided that if we order a container load, we'll order a second container with attachments and parts. I think advertising that we stock parts will be a big help if we decide to go forward with this.

Well! Not gonna get to use it. My friend had it advertised and had a few buyers pop up so I told him to sell it. But now we're serious about getting our hands on a container of them.

I got to operate one. It's definitely not in the same class as Bobcat, Kubota, Vermeer, Toro.

The steering joystick controls the machine smoothly but the lift/tilt function is problematic from a power distribution standpoint. When traveling with the engine at full rpm, if you try to feather the boom up or down slowly, it causes the engine to bog down heavily. If bring the boom joystick to full up or full down quickly it doesn't bog the engine down but any attempt to feather control causes the engine to bog. When lifting the boom and tilting or curling the bucket, it will only do one function or the other. So If I want to adjust the bucket angle while lifting, it won't do it. The machine seems well built but the finish isn't close to the same as the big boys nor should anyone expect it to be for the price point.

My concern is that this is definitely a higher end homeowner unit and not really a machine that a small to medium size landscaping business would consider due to the functional issues. I'm probably still going to buy one to see how things go but I was disappointed in it after operating it.

I ended up ordering what appears to be a more "professional grade" machine from a different manufacturer. I also bought one of the machines I operated at post #30 but this one had a Perkins engine. It was like the Perkins machine had 10 more HP and way more torque than the Kubota machine. I figure if I'm gonna sell against it, I have to know it.

One thing that has caught my eye, Chinese manufacturers seem to use steel the way we use lumber in crating. The machine I bought has a welded steel frame as crating with wood screwed to the outside. I've seen attachments crated the same way. It's like their steel is cheaper to use than wood.

No question about that. I did a few projects with "steel " I got for free from a friend who used to import ATVs from China. All the crates were welded and bolted frames. No wood at all.

Steel doesn’t have bugs in it so it can be shipped to any country.

Many countries require pressure treated wood or osb for crates. Steel would have no such requirements.