Most Popular Brands For Excavators

Most popular brands for excavators

While there are plenty of excavator brands available in the UK, most construction companies gravitate towards a handful of the most popular. Below are five of the most popular excavator brands and their benefits and drawbacks.

Caterpillar

Caterpillar is one of the best known and most popular excavator brands in the world. They have been a leading player in the excavator market since the beginning.

Caterpillar excavators are valued for their engine efficiency, quality hydraulics, and their comfortable and spacious cabs.

The main drawback to choosing a Caterpillar excavator is the high price tag. Robust, high-quality machinery is always expensive, but Caterpillar products are significantly more expensive than some of their competitors. Whether the extra cost is justified is a matter of opinion.

Komatsu

Komatsu is another instantly recognisable name throughout the construction industry. Founded in 1921, they have steadily increased the quality of their machinery and are now regarded as one of the best excavator brands on the market.

While the price and quality of Komatsu's' products have increased steadily over time, they start at a relatively low cost compared to competitors like Caterpillar. Komatsu's excavators are also generally considered more reliable than most, thanks to a refined manufacturing process.

While Komatsu excavators are reliable, repairing them can be problematic because most of the replacement parts are manufactured in Japan. This makes them harder to find and more expensive to buy.

Volvo

The name Volvo is mostly associated with cars. However, while Volvo Cars began life as part of AB Volvo, they are now two separate businesses. It is the latter that produces construction equipment, including excavators.

Volvo excavators are favoured for their intuitive and ergonomic interfaces. The engines also share DNA with those used in Volvo cars and are of similar quality and reliability.

Customers value Volvo excavators for their low price, especially when compared to the quality of their construction. However, some people have found fuel consumption problematic. Some models are also quite slow.

Hitachi

Another name from the car world, Hitachi produces a variety of construction machinery.

Customers looking for electric excavators regard Hitachi as one of the best options available; their electric vehicle technology is second to none. Customers also trust them because they manufactured excavators on behalf of John Deere for many years.

The most common complaint about Hitachi excavators is their speed, which some people find too slow.

JCB

JCB is a trusted brand; you will find their machinery on construction sites across the UK.

A huge advantage to JCB excavators is that spare and replacement parts are easy to come by, thanks to the number of dealers located throughout the UK.

But customers regularly cite JCB excavators as among the slowest and most cumbersome on the market. While easy access to spare parts is great, it is also necessary because JCBs excavators are among the most unreliable without regular servicing.