[cabmandone]

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.