# Buying a new chipper, need input. Morbark m12r?



## bassman215 (Dec 17, 2011)

Been using the old chuck & duck for the last few years and it has served us well, but it's time to upgrade.

We do a pretty good mix of pruning & removals. Maybe 70% pruning and 30% +/- removals. We typically run a chip truck and bucket to each job. Logs go on a trailer behind bucket truck when doing removals.

I am not really interested in a huge chipper that weighs too much. A 15" would be great but I think a little more than we need. 

We demoed a vermeer bc1000xl for a week and it was a decent chipper, but I didn't like the single feed wheel design. The local vermeer sales people etc didn't impress me much. 

I have some close friends/family with a lot of Morbark experience and nothing but good things to say about them. I have been looking at the M12R with the 84hp kubota. I am not sure if it is worth 5k diff in price to step up to the 114hp cat motor?

I live in an area where vermeer is the only chipper dealer. I will have to purchase a new chipper from a dealer 5-6hrs away unless I go vermeer which I don't think I will do. 

As far as price, after taxes etc... I would like to put down $7500-$10000k and finance around $25k. 

I am pretty decided on a drum style chipper after doing a bunch of research.

Any input as to why I should or should not buy the Morbark m12r or any other chippers to seriously consider in the same price range would be welcome.

This is a big decision for me. Out side of my house I have never spent this much money on anything so I am doing my homework best I can. Thanks so much for the input. We are looking to purchase after the first of the year.


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## lacky (Dec 17, 2011)

The chipper you describe is what I have. Bought a 2011 demo unit with 75 hrs. It has taken everything I have given it. I am very pleased with it. This is my first Morbark, previously had Brush Bandit. 

I was happy with the Brush Bandit but it was a 9" machine and I wanted to step up to 12". The main reason I went with Morbark over BB was there was a local dealer near me. I also had the Vermeer option, but their machine was to electronic for me, I like the more mechanical machines, gives me more I can do myself.

Chris


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## bassman215 (Dec 17, 2011)

lacky said:


> The chipper you describe is what I have. Bought a 2011 demo unit with 75 hrs. It has taken everything I have given it. I am very pleased with it. This is my first Morbark, previously had Brush Bandit.
> 
> I was happy with the Brush Bandit but it was a 9" machine and I wanted to step up to 12". The main reason I went with Morbark over BB was there was a local dealer near me. I also had the Vermeer option, but their machine was to electronic for me, I like the more mechanical machines, gives me more I can do myself.
> 
> Chris



Is yours the 84hp model? 

Do you mind saying what you ended up paying for it?

Thanks for the input.


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## lacky (Dec 18, 2011)

Yes, mine is the 84hp Kubota. I paid $30,500 for the machine. The decision was really easy when the dealer offered me what I originally paid for my brush bandit for trade in!

They also threw in 2 sets of extra knives, new air filters, and oil filters. 

Chris


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## bassman215 (Dec 18, 2011)

Nice! Can't beat that. I've been quoted 33,300 by my closest dealer for that 84hp model but that seemed a little high. Had another dealer up north quote $30k but I would have some shipping involved at that point. Hopefully the closer guy would be willing to deal a little.


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## no tree to big (Dec 18, 2011)

definatly go morbark the couple vermeers I have run seemed like complete crap when you run a morbark everyday we run a 12" a pair of 15" and a 17" we beat the chit out of them almost everyday and we only had a couple issues water in the fuel for one 15" (not the chippers fault) and the other 15" burned up a computer and I think we lost one of the feed roller bearings do to no grease (not so bright chipper operator) other then those things never had a break down!


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## Mowingman (Dec 18, 2011)

I only have a small amount of experience with chippers. however, I would go with the Morbark, and run from the Vermeer. We had a Vermeer chipper on a big clearing job, and it was not much of a machine. Fairly new mchine, but seemed to stay broken all the time. Vermeer dealer NEVER had the parts we needed to fix it. morebark gets my vote.
I am surprised you need a chipper. I did not know you had trees in Lubbock. I can not remember ever seeing a tree out there.:biggrin:
Jeff


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## VA-Sawyer (Dec 18, 2011)

If you don't remember seeing any trees, then I would have to say that Bassman215 has been busy keeping them all cut down.


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## bassman215 (Dec 18, 2011)

VA-Sawyer said:


> If you don't remember seeing any trees, then I would have to say that Bassman215 has been busy keeping them all cut down.



Lol!!!

Plenty of job security around good old west Texas!


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## VA-Sawyer (Dec 19, 2011)

Actually, while flying around the US in my small plane, I noticed an interesting relationship between towns and trees. In places like Northern Michigan or Wisconsin where trees cover the land for miles and miles, you first spot the clearing in the trees and notice the buildings only as you get closer. In places like Kansas or Nebraska you first spot the towns by the clumps of trees. Trees also outline all the streams and rivers in the dry zones as well. When trying to find a river in the plains that is marked on the map, you look for the line of trees, not water!
Rick


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## bassman215 (Dec 19, 2011)

Been talking with a Bandit guy today about the 990xp model as a possibility for us too. Pretty nice looking unit. The warranty they are offering on the bandit is much better than what is on the morbark. This is a tough decision. 

I guess we will most likely demo each one and decide which is the best fit. They both have their selling points.


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## VA-Sawyer (Dec 19, 2011)

I used to take care of a Mobark 2100D. Thing was very used when my friend bought it. Looked like someone had tried to chip bricks with it. I put on new blades and flipped the anvil then put it to work. After a few months it developed a clicking noise in the clutch. I rebuilt the TwinDisk unit and it has been chipping ever since. That thing was built like a Brick S---House, very heavy duty. I had another friend that owned a Bandit, I don't remember the model, that he bought brand new. He had to baby the ####ens out of it or it would need a trip to the dealer. The Bandit was one step down in size from the Mobark, but it was a giant step down in toughness.
Rick


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## bassman215 (Dec 20, 2011)

I havent met anyone that had really anything bad to say about the morbark machines at all. I think that is why I have been partial towards buying one. Plus I like the red color. 

A couple things that caught my eye with the bandit 990xp was a slightly larger drum (with a 5yr warranty on it!), and the drum has 4 blades instead of 2 on the morbark. I don't know how much diff drum size and number of blades would make? 

The bandit salesman said the 990xp has the Perkins diesel and comes with a 5yr full warranty on it, not just internal parts. The chipper frame would have a 3yr warranty and 1yr on hydraulics. 

The morbark dealer told me 2yr warranty on Kubota diesel and 1yr machine warranty. 

The bandit warranty and slightly lower price caught my attention, but those points don't neccesarily make it the better a machine. 

Decisions, decisions...


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## 2treeornot2tree (Dec 21, 2011)

I have a old morkbark 200. I want to upgrade to a model 15 with a winch. I had to take my chipper 3 hrs away to get it worked on last month. The clutch was 12 notches out of adjustment. I got to check out a model 12 and a 15 next to each other. The 15 has a much bigger infeed tray. I know when i buy a new or slightly used chipper, its gonna be a model 15 with the biggest engine I can get. It has to be better for the engine to not be working as hard all the time when chipping big stuff.


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## no tree to big (Dec 21, 2011)

2treeornot2tree said:


> I have a old morkbark 200. I want to upgrade to a model 15 with a winch. I had to take my chipper 3 hrs away to get it worked on last month. The clutch was 12 notches out of adjustment. I got to check out a model 12 and a 15 next to each other. The 15 has a much bigger infeed tray. I know when i buy a new or slightly used chipper, its gonna be a model 15 with the biggest engine I can get. It has to be better for the engine to not be working as hard all the time when chipping big stuff.



hey how you like that 200 what motor you got on it? I just bought one... guy didn't know what it was and thought it was a 4" chipper and I was like sure buddy I'll take it:hmm3grin2orange:


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## bassman215 (Dec 23, 2011)

After speaking with the corporate morbark sales guy it looks like the morbark has about the same warranty that the bandit has. Evens things up in regards to that side of things.

We are going to demo the morbark next week. Looking forward to trying it out. Maybe the next week we can demo the bandit and make a decision.

The morbark has two blades on the drum and the bandit has 4 blades... I wonder if this makes much of a difference in the way they chip?

It costs roughly $4k to upgrade from the 84hp motor to 114hp on each machine. That's a lot of cash for an extra 30hp. Is it really worth it?


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## Mowingman (Dec 23, 2011)

What dealers are you working with on the Morebark and the Bandit?
Jeff


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## racnruss (Dec 28, 2011)

*Horsepower!*

84 hp is not enough.

I've owned a few chippers and more power is always better. Had 2 vermeer 1250s one had about 84 hp and the other had over 100 hp, both Perkins diesels. The 84 struggled and couldn't recover very fast when auto feed cycled. The 100+ on the same machine seemed twice as powerful.

Now I have a Woodsman 12x with John Deere 115 hp and wish I had the 125 hp. Because more is never enough. I've seen Woodsman 12x's for sale with the 84hp Kabota and I always think to myself that would never work good. 

Because: The infeed opening on my 12x is 13" x 24" max, and somedays we will use its capacity. You will too.

Get the big motor if you can. My .02


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## StumpAway MS (Dec 28, 2011)

*Chipper*

Go with the Vermeer BC1500 125hp!!! my uncle Big John just bought one and loves it.


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## bassman215 (Feb 28, 2012)

*Update on chipper purchase*

Just wanted to offer an update on what we decided to do about our chipper purchase.

Our closest Morbark dealer (5 hours away) originally brought us out a 84hp unit that they left with us for several days to demo. We liked that machine but thought maybe more horsepower would be needed for chipping larger diameter wood (8-12"). Most of the time we don't chip wood that size but wanted to make sure we had the power if needed. So we swapped out the 84hp M12R for a 114hp unit and demo'd that unit for several more days. 

While demoing the 114hp Morbark our closest Bandit dealer (also 5 hours away) offered to bring up a 84hp 990xp they had in stock for us to check out. They brought the unit out to a couple different job sites for us to try out over about a 3 hour period. After testing out the Bandit for a few hours we really liked it and asked the salesman to leave the machine with us for a couple days to really get a taste for what it had to offer. At this point in time we had been using a couple different Morbarks for over a period of almost two weeks on a (no charge) demo basis. The Bandit salesman informed us that he wasn't willing to leave the machine with us to try out and hauled it back to his dealership. 

In case you haven't figured it out yet... We bought a Morbark!!!

There was 3 main reasons that we purchased the Morbark (in no particular order).

A. Availability - We decided the 114hp motor option wasn't worth the 5k price tag difference between the 84hp. However we did decide to spend about 2k over the 84hp machine price to purchase the 97hp option. There is a fair amount of difference not just in hp but in the torque rating between the 84hp Kubota motor and the 97hp Perkins. For 2k more we felt the performance was worth the money. If you go from the the 97hp to 114hp Perkins the engine specs aren't that much more impressive for another 3k! I actually spoke to the engine distributor that sells these perkins to Morbark, Bandit etc... and he said that main difference is that the 97hp Perkins is still a mechanically controlled engine vs the 114hp which is all electronic. We liked the simplicity of the mechanical 97hp Perkins. The Morbark dealer had all three hp models in stock to choose from. The Bandit dealer only had the 84hp unit in stock and the approximate wait time to get a 97hp unit was going to be about 6 weeks. Our other old chuck and duck had crapped out so we needed a chipper sooner rather than later.

B. Price - The prices between the Bandit 990xp w/ 97hp perkins and the Morbark M12r 97hp Perkins were close but the Morbark (priced from the two respective dealers) was about $2k cheaper. I asked the Bandit dealer if he could come down a little on price and at that time he said no.

C. Support - The Morbark guys were willing to bring us two different machines to demo at no charge for almost a week at a time (remember, we are 5 hours away from their location). They really allowed us to learn what we liked and didn't like about their machine (no the Morbark isn't perfect). We learned what the Morbark liked and didn't like. Morbark from the corporate level to the local level was there to really let us get to know their machine. They were honest about the advantages and disadvantages of their machine vs. the Bandit. We really thought overall, for the bigger wood, the Bandit was the clear winner for chipping. We can stall our Morbark on some of the larger pieces if not careful. The Bandit 990xp's larger drum and 4 blade design is awesome! It really does a great job even with smaller hp. My guys were very impressed. However, when we asked the dealer to leave the machine for a couple/few days for us to demo and they told us no, that rubbed us the wrong way. One of my guys mentioned that if they really wanted to sell us a Bandit they needed to leave it with us for a few days. The dealer's reply was that they didn't want to sell it that bad. 

This is the largest single purchase my business has made up to this point in time and we wanted to know that we had the dealer's support and trust 100%. We felt that Morbark was there for us 100%.


Overall I think these are both two very awesome machines. If you are chipping larger wood a lot then you might want to look hard at the Bandit. We chip 90% 6" and smaller wood/brush. I feel after our experience that either machine does equally well on the day to day chipping of brush and small diameter logs.

We have been 100% satisfied with our Morbark purchase at this point. The support from the Morbark folks has just been great. I truly feel confident that if we ever have a major problem with our new machine they've got our backs! That was probably the biggest selling point for us. 

The Morbark M12R 97hp Perkins is a great machine and our salesman that sold us the machine is really top of the line!

I have to admit that when I visit the guys on the job site I love watching that Morbark Beever eat wood!!


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## epicklein22 (Feb 28, 2012)

Nice decision. Dealer support is huge, and you can't really go wrong with either company. The morbark being cheaper is nice too, they seem to hold resale value better than an other brand. The perkins motors are builtproof. We have a model 17 at work with a perkins, it's been chipping for 20 years and still going strong. The motor has been rebuilt twice and still runs great. We run 3 other morbark chippers (2 with perkins) and they are just plain tough!

I have a 250xp bandit myself and it looks to be well built and chips strong with the 116hp Cummins. It has over 5k hours, so they must be doing something right in the design department.


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## a_lopa (Feb 29, 2012)

It takes a certain amount of HP to run a chipper BEFORE it chips,thats where bigger HP comes into play.


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## jmfe (Mar 8, 2012)

Bandit 250 xp


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## treeoperations (Mar 9, 2012)

did the bandit with the 4 blades chip smoother then the 2 bladed morbark.

if you want a laugh a mate just repowered his bandit 250 with a 200hp cummins. holy #### it throws chips now and the auto feed doesnt come on at all


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