[Bill Schwab]

Look first at hours on the clock, and how many scratches dings and dents are on the belly pans, loader boom, check the hinge bushings to see how tight they are, and look at the grease zirts to see if they take grease. You might even want to bring a gun with you and pump some in. If they don't take it, that is a sign of not being greased enough.

If a machine is a few years old, has been repainted and has new decals, and you can see scrapes into the steel in places, that is a good chance you are getting an old whore with a new dress. I would stay away unless you are looking for something to run as a back up. We are looking at a 5 year old Cat right now, and all that machine will do is sit in the yard and load materials before the trucks pull out. Even if it smokes alot, it's a moot point.

With any deisel engines, while it is running, remove the oil fill cap. If you see alot of smoke comming from the hole, that is a sign of blow by, or, weak compression. Ideally, if you can pull the injectors and take a compression test, anything between 350 to 420 lbs is acceptable, and you need to make sure each cylinder is evenly matched to the next. In other words, you should not have a significant difference on your numbers. If one is say 350, and all the rest are 420, you have a problem starting to cook.

How do all the safety switches perform? Do the guages work?

You can get oil tests done pretty cheap, and they will tell what is if anything, beginning to decompose prior to breaking all the way.

Tire wear is another thing to consider. We found skid steer tires to wear out around 500 hours. If you have a machine with 250 hours and the tires have been trashed, that's a sign of a beating.