Mini Excavator from Alibaba - 10 Problems after 50 Hours 

How much did you pay after shipping, tax, etc. If i may ask? I may be interested in purchasing one also.

I loved your idea that the factory has quality control.

So as an operator and an equipment mechanic i can answer all three of your thumb issues.. it doesnt have the protruding grease nipples because they are prone to getting broken off and allowing dirt into the joints as they are directly in in the path of dirt and rocks from the bucket... the big manufacturers have solved that with moving the zerks to the other side or (more commonly in the pin end rather than the hydraulic cylinder... The pressure bleed of is most likely caused by oil getting past the piston in cylinder to the other side of the piston thus allowing it to relieve pressure on whatever your holding... now that could be the thumb cylinder OR the bucket cylinder doing it. Best to test the bucket bleed off with substantial pressure on it b4 you just rebuild the thumb cylinder. And last but most definitely not least... that bent pin is a manufacturers defect and definitely not caused by you.... a quality pin wouldve held straight and the log wouldve just slipped in the thumbs grip when you hit the tree or whatever it was you hit. Thanks for the most comprehensive series ive seen so far on buying and running one of theese machines. I was looking at this exact machine and found your first video when i searched for the hidden import costs, i now know its considerably out of my price range and that for me im better off with a used cat or deer machine

10 problems after 50 hours is far better than 50 problems after 10 hours.

Good review 👍🏼 You are helping a lot of people to find out the real world differences between cheap Chinese copies and more expensive 'name brand' machines. In regards to your hydraulic thumb losing pressure, they can develop internal pressure/fluid leaks, with everything looking fine on the outside. I suspect that is the problem with yours. Similar story to your other hydraulic leaks, probably a very cheap O ring or seal to replace, but this time a lot of work to replace it. Keep up the good work 👍🏼

Nice to see that you've been able to get lots of work done with it! Hopefully it holds up for many years to come.

Thank you for your review Einar!

Another very good presentation which seems surprisingly absent with the thousands of other reviews. Really appreciate the honest and open perspective.

I hope problems won't start now I write it, but I have a Bobcat 2,7t Excavator purchased new. 140 hours now and zero issues 😉 But I guess the price difference is remarkable as well. I didn't get a Chinese machine since I wanted something that simply works.

On the bright side in the winter you have a nice cosy warm cab..

great details, love this video

Thank you for posting this

I used to be a heavy equipment mechanic, my company sold Terex equipment. They all had the same quality control issues

Great video!

Minor issues my man, I'd be quite happy if those were all I had after 50 hours. The great nipples on the thumb are different because standard zerk fittings would get broken off in that location, it's normal practice.

Man, thanks for showing.

The thumb fitting is different because what your grabbing would just sheer of any extended grease fitting. What your describing on the hydraulic issues is internal bypassing of fluid. A cab with no A/C would not work well in the south west in the summer time. Very good video. The main question is are you satisfied with the product? You answered that question. Bring up all the flaws helps the manufacturer know how to make the product better, Thanks for the video.

Nice review. The thumb circuit relief valve is probably set very very low and won't hold pressure. Follow the thumb circuit back to the valve tree and locate its valve layer. Look on line for how to set the relief valve - generally loosen a jam nut and back out or drive in the relief valve spring screw. You should use a pressure gauge in the thumb circuit to see what the peak pressure is - it is generally set lower than the bucket relief pressure setting - so that the bucket can overdrive the thumb if it needs to and nothing breaks.

I think you have a good buy, many of the big name machines have lots of problems too, but are a lot more costly to fix.

Good follow up video

Nice machine.. thanks for sharing your experience. What is the digging depth.

Kind of concerned about the oil you pictured at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="59">0:59</a> - Mobil does have a Delvac brand hydraulic fluid, but what you pictured is engine oil. Is that what the manufacturer specified?

It’s normal that you can’t keep pressure on the bucket/thumb. On all excavators it’s similar. It’s because the oil is not compressible and to keep the pressure is a matter of few ml. And with conjonction with the cylinder seals, that are not supposed to be super sealing, because they are heavy duty sealing, they are not rubber but metallic rings, similar than the ones on piston motors. This technology is super durable but it does have a slight leak. The light duty cylinders have rubber seals and can keep pressure a long time. About the tracks and bucket/arm/boom plumbing disorder : it’s not a disorder, it’s a matter of oil sharing in the system and all excavators are similar. But complex excavators does have very complex priorities systems that makes the problem much less obvious. A tracking excavator normally have 2 pumps, one for each track, and from those 2 pumps the other functions are also plumbed. Usually the boom is not plumbed on the same pump than stick so they can move 100% independently. But normally boom is plumbed with bucket so if you want to use both the same time you’ve got to learn how to manage, the one with less pressure will move first !! If you want the pressure to be kept you have to install an accumulator on the pressure side of thumb. Choose one that can withstand the max pressure of your machine. But I think it’s not necessary, for short time holding time the small amount of accumulation provided by the flexible hoses during pressure build is enough.

the lot of these "mechanical" issues could be fixed if they had trained mechanics at their factory. Seems like they might be stretching o-rings to fit. Or just low quality o-rings in general. The thumb losing pressure on squeeze can be fixed if you can find a similar cylinder size and length to install. Or the valve spool allows too much leak by. Only way to know for sure is hook up flow gauges in certain spots to know what is leaking internally where. Im sure there are youtube videos somewhere or online guides if you wanted to know for sure if it was the cylinder or the valve spool. Edit: additionally, if there is a seal kit, you could redo the seals for the cylinder. Also do a visual inspection of the valve body that controls flow to the thumb incase there is no external leaking

You buy cheap you buy 5 times, But I hope you get a good run out of it. I bought a used Yanmar Vio17 with 800 hours on it. Several hundred hours of heavy use later, and zero problems. Kubota and Yanmar every day of the week (in my opinion)

Thanks

In Australia when you are paying 70 - $80,000 for a 2-3tonne mini excavator and you can get the same size out of Chine for $10 - $25,000 ( cheapest to medium ) get it back in your country, put $5 - 10,000 into it to upgrade most of the running gear, you have your self a pretty good machine for $30,000. For $30K in Australia you would get a small machine with about 6- 8,000 hours on it that looks like they just dragged it out of an old army machine graveyard Fromm WW2

15W40 Engine oil is used by many, many heavy equipment dealers in all types of equipment. As to the high temperatures behind the operator's seat, personally I would concern myself with that issue before the others as the manufacturer put a larger engine in your machine and I can only assume it's Not being cooled or vented properly or good enough. Buy a cheap laser temperature tool and see how hot the engine compartment is, the heat is not good for the machine and could even be causing hydraulic oil issues on the machine! I'll also guess the hydraulic fluid cooler is way too small and possibly not vented properly leading to even more issues down the road. I suggest a trained heavy equipment dealer looks it over as they know best, most times! 😊

Do these Chinese mini excavators have good manuals to help you with repairs, finding compatible spare parts?

Does it overheat overall? Can you run it continuously for couple hours?

I sold Terex mining equipment for 3 years and Case equipment for 26 years. One important thing to remember when buying construction equipment, good equipment is not cheap and cheap equipment is not good!

Do u have trouble keeping tracks on? I have nt45 which is 2.5 ton with 9 inch wide tracks. Yachoo tracks. Track about 6.5 ft long.

The grease fittings can be swapped easily, Unbolt them and bolt in the correct fitting.

pressure relief valve may be actuated and cause the thumb to lose it's grip. might need it to be set a little higher pressure before the relief pops off.

This is a standard Chinese built-for the home market machine....The manufacturers' belligerent attitude throughout China is ''Well it worked perfectly well when it left the factory...!!! This is your problem now...!!!'' There's a world of difference between products manufactured for the Chinese home market & for export.

The travel issue is probably because the pump can not supply enough fluid to do multiple actions at once.

so if you do not get the enclosed cab many of these problems will disappear.

Changing grease fittings is an extremely easy job to do yourself

The low pro fittings on thumb are a must... I’m surprised they even put them on there. Standards ones will be broke off in no time

Do theses implement work on other mini

all i find strange about the thumb grease zerks is...why not drill the pin and recess it in there? like all the other pins? "options that i got". its the afterthought sitting on the shelf over there, and we throw it on the orders that asked for it... if we remember to... the hot firewall may be nice in winter. may want a decent auto fan stuck under there for summer? may find its more about heat flow management rather than any insulation... badly placed oil cooler, and yeah... its pretty tight in there...

@ 5.37 when you change direction by curling the bucket. Effectively you starve 1 track motor of oil when you curl the bucket. The digger is built down to a price, and this is 1 area it shows.

The grease fittings are different for range of motion. The thumb would crush the fitting during operation

Don't feel bad about your thumb. Mine was brand new from cat, and it loses pressure over a while. Not really an issue since I just use it to pickup trees and toss them.

You can put in a grease zirc for that thumb that will match the others. Can likely get at Tractor Supply - or that type of store. The thumb hydraulic creep on the thumb is likely leakage inside the hydraulic control valve...that can be difficult to fix.

Sounds like the thumb is bypassing internally. The seals on the piston are likely not properly installed, since it's new they are likely installed wrong or damaged. You can try and tear it down and replace the seals yourself or take it to a hydraulic shop and get the pros to do it. Some of these seals can be a real pain so they will likely make you bleed, be warned. I bet the hydraulic motor doesn't have enough juice for both tracks and whatever else you try and do at the same time. I think that's something you'll likely have to keep in mind. You'll have to switch out those fitting on your own bud. I bet the thumb isn't even made in the same factory lol. I'm also willing to bet there is HOT HOT engine components behind that back wall and that is why it gets so hot in the cab from it. You could try looking in the engine compartment to see what is in there and attach a fan to blow across the engine compartment.

So, pretty typical for a Chinese assembly. The thumb losing pressure is a major disappointment. Could be a leaky piston seal inside of the ram?

😂😂 hydraulic thumb "....it slowly releases presure...." *walks under boom*. Interesting review series, often wondered at just how bad the cheap offshore stuff is, and if it's possible to do like you are, and just go through it as stuff breaks and falls off to sort it out.... but looking at that thumb... You are a braver man than me.

How loud is your digger? My brother bought 1 and with a diesel single cylinder engine it is LOUD. There is also no room to upgade the exhaust, either.

you replaced the hydraulic fluid with diesel engine oil? am I missing something here?

Grease fitting on the thumb maybe be like that so it doesnt get messed up when grabbing material. Also your cylinder maybe leaking pass the seals on the end of the rod. Wouldn't be surprised if the cut one while assembling it.

Thumb issue could be a few things, bad relief valve for close function, cylinder seals bypassing. The travel issue or it turns when multi function operation is lack of pump oil for all functions so the travel circuit is the one that suffers the most. Better machines with slightly more complex hyd systems ensure travel circuit is priority and it’s the other functions that suffer the loss of speed. Hard to say otherwise without hooking some gauges up to it and seeing what’s going on.

do you have a video with the excavator in action?

I may be mistaken. But the 15w-40 your using for hydraulic oil is actually motor oil. Might want to check on that before you lose your hydro pump

the cylinder for the thumb probably needs a better seal on the inside. if you pull it apart you can usually just measure the old one and find a replacement. You already can see the seals on this machine are junk as you replaced multiple already LOL

Thumb maybe passes by the the orientation valve (not sure how you call it)

The hydraulic issue why you got to keep putting pressure on every so often is because the hydraulic is leaking back inside the hydraulic cylinder the seal is not holding pressure and allowing the hydraulic to leak back

Those two grease fitting are in an area that would possibly be compromised when using the thumb.... I know, they thought this through but missed so many others.....bummer

stupid question, you should a bucket of motor oil, not hydraulic fluid. did it really get recommended to you? i'd be running AW46

Really not bad Id get that thumb checked Sounds like another o ring on your thumb is leaking back Check your cylinder o ring

Hello there. Accidentally saw your video. About the thumb- that's kinda normal to lose pressure (I own multiple brand new kubotas and caterpillars and all of them lose grip tension on the thumb overtime) .it's the solenoid inside losing pressure most likely. About that brush strip I can give you part number from my caterpillar one(which visually looks very similar only longer).I recently bought one at cat and it's 3 ft long with super sticky tape in the back. Paid $6 or 7. How much this machine cost you if not secret?

I checked the price of hydraulic oil in China and found that 16L is priced between $18 and $32 based on different grades

Did you keep the receipt?

Buy a kubota The best part is when you sell the machine. Lol It wont resale for much Interesting video I am so glad I buy kubota 🙂

The thumb probably releases slowly because of air in the hydraulic lines.

So how much was shippìng from china to what state in u.s.? Or was it free shipping? Do they charge extra for attachments and how much? I am looking at buying some with attach.ents.😮

Thumb pressure loss can be internal leaking in the hydraulic cylinder piston, which is an easy enough fix if it's bad seals, which seems to be a repeat offender on this machine. Or worse, it can be that the control valve controlling it has too much internal leakage, in that case you probably need a new valve.

I have a 1ton hightop ht10b. Paid 11,500 after taxes. If i had bought in Kubota in the same size would cost 22,000. So if you buy cheaper unit you will have to fix some thing. As far as the thum blending off. It may be cylinder in side.

as far as you comments related to the tracking while doing another function. - the problem is will all excavators. my CAT304 does this worse then any other. This is due to the mashine having limited ways it can use its 1-2 hydraulic pumps. the same pump that controlls your tracks is shared with something else so you can't spin them in different directions at the same time. also with the thumb bleading off. this is likely a problem with the cylinder it self. the packing/seals on the end of the piston rod (also known as the pistion seal) is bypassing slowly. this problem will get worse over time. i would recomend handling it before it gets worse as damaged seals can cause contact with the rod seals and the inner bore of the cylinder wall making what is likly a sub 50$ fix a 500-1000$ one.

Moving and using boom or stick... there is two hydraulic pumps, when tracking each motor uses a pump each, boom and stick use pump each, so when tracking/ moving then use any other hydraulics your taking power from motor using same pump.

how much was it all in out the door price in usa dollars thanks

The thumb doesn’t have a zerk fitting because it would get broken off by debris where they are located.

Thank you for making this, not sure why you would recommend it though. I got the impression that Chinese build things like they build their buildings…

Is there aircondishoner in this cabin？

Do you think this excavator would last 1000 hours 🤔 without major issues?

The central hydraulic pump is not strong enough to run all the hydraulic motors at one time.

It's normal for the travel motors to slow down and cause you to veer right or left if you use the bucket or some other function while moving. ,y takeuchi Wil do that. It's a symptom of some ofmthe hydraulic flow being robbed from the travel function to do another task. My machine has 2 pumps, one works the right track, boom, swing.....the other works left track, blade, bucket etc. So the right side will slow down if I swing the machine while moving since that side pump is running 2 functions while the other side is simply travelling

i would check up with your walmart or the person who recommended the 15w-40 engine oil as hydraulic oil cause my guess would be that that stuff is way to thick to run properly seeing regular hydraulic oil is alot less viscose than 15w-40 which is normally a engine oil for engines with some wear or big diesels hell it even says it on the can you showed "heavy duty diesel engine oil" which is a very different application than hydraulics

I wonder how many kids it took to put this thing together? In all seriousness, the cheap stuff like this is perfect for those of us who don't have 100,000 to spend on a new or used name brand machine. But with the cost savings comes a bit of diy repair and tlc. There's no quality control in the factories, the quality control is you! The end user.

how much did excavator cost you? hope you dont mind. 👍

As a factory in China specializing in the production of excavators, we do not manufacture excavators of such poor quality. Hence, our excavators are priced much higher than those of other factories.

engine oil as hydro fluid??

Not gonna lie, your observations are minor gripes. I'd buy it and give it a good torque, before use. *The creeping is a check valve, oring, more than likely. *The dual comtrol, is a flow by issue, that would be a nuisance, but it still work. * The heat is because of the design, look at Fire Wall Material and thatd take the heat off the cab. But being CHY-NAH, have a fire extinguisher mounted on it, for quick grab. Should see the condition of full size equipment, after use.

Your thumb is bypassing hydraulic oil in the cylinder of at the control valve.

The thumb is bleeding off internally on a valve, and you are correct the hydraulic system isn’t strong enough to do multiple things

I want 3 of them with attachments.

You will find that while tracking and move the boom at same time it will affect the direction of travel I find it’s more of a problem with smaller machines the thumb might be losing pressure internally in the ram good luck with it personally I would never buy anything but a Kubota

You are loosing griping power on the thumb is because the seal for the hidraulic piston is worn out. Thats one of the causes i wod start there(rebuild kit for the hidraulic cylinder.

Your thumb cylinder is bleeding pressure internally. A new one should NOT do this, but it is not uncommon as they age. Almost all of my cylinders on my tractor do it to some degree, but it is VERY slow and does not affect anything I have speared or raised while under power. Sounds to me like the cylinder needs to be refurbished... ugh. Especially "ugh" if new.

9. and 10. thats a problem with hydro pump . its weak so cant do it all, you need go one by one

Sounds like hydraulic actuator causing all your hydraulic problems. Orings have been trash so far and probably holds true throughout. Actuator orings probly letting fluid slowly drain back. That grease fitting can be replaced in 30 seconds long as you don't break it.

If you change greasing nipples on the thumb to regular ones, it will for sure break at some point, cause it is pointing out and will catch on someting...

At 37 seconds in looking at track drive, was that a snake???🐍

What is the weight?

Who advised you to use that oil as Hydraulic oil? Because that is not Hydraulic oil. Thats a lube oil for Diesel engines. Its gonna wreck the Hydraulic pump if you keep running on that. It slowly eats the hoses en rubber seals from the inside contaminating the system .

the hydraulic cylinder is bypassing internally , its a small cylinder it would be easy and cheap to reseal

#10 is normal don't worry, I drive many makes of diggers and they all so what you stated, it's annoying but you get used to it.

#10 your hydraulic pump isnt strong enough, i would consider this normal, just do one thing at a time, even my CAT wont let me operate all the hydraulics at once, you get used to it

If quality control is added the price will go up . The machine will be the same as any other machines .

probably flush hydraulic system because of the reservoir seal might have let contaminates in