Purchasing a new chipper

[treeslayer666]

Its a 12" model, a BC1000xl and weighs less than the bandit 1090 yet does the same work.

Cape, The Bandit may weigh a little more but the chippers are night and day. Demo a Bandit 1090 side by side with your bc1000xl. I think you will be shocked. There is really no comparison. Check one out.

 

[clearance]

I worked with them and they did not hold up, too many
moving parts to go bad they stayed in the shop weekly.
A whisper is simple runs almost forever; you may have the best
slow feed ever, but talk to me when its thirty and still works
hard every day. To me unless they have a grapple they are too
slow. In ten years my whisper has never had the belts changed;
had blades changed several times. One alternator, and a tune up.

Very true Rope, those old Whispers are the Energizer Bunny. Think about it, guys crying about them Whispers, that are older than them. Yes, I prefer the big self feeders, but the Whispers will keep chipping forever. Maybe after the young pantie wearers have chipped a few hundred loads with a Whisper they will toughen up.
Like my buddy says "they make a weaker and weaker man, every year"

 

[ropensaddle]

Very true Rope, those old Whispers are the Energizer Bunny. Think about it, guys crying about them Whispers, that are older than them. Yes, I prefer the big self feeders, but the Whispers will keep chipping forever. Maybe after the young pantie wearers have chipped a few hundred loads with a Whisper they will toughen up.
Like my buddy says "they make a weaker and weaker man, every year"

Yeah, I just love seeing a tenderfoot after showing him how to feed,
including using a shove stick occasionally. They all cry eventually
until they master the art of chipping and toughen in. I still like
chipping with mine especially when below freezing temps! I am
a glutton for punishment and helps relieve aggravations:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[NORTREE]

My Bandit250XP will be 10 years old this year. I had a LOT of hydraulic problems($$$$) without much help from Bandit and many a day I wished I had a Whisper chipper on hand! The winch on the Bandit is the best option I bought especially for working with the crane.
Hey Rope' ever sat down and dived that out as a per year/per month/per day figure on that....I think you said $1325....investment!! I love seeing someone get an awesome return on a piece of equipment!

 

[tree MDS]

My Bandit250XP will be 10 years old this year. I had a LOT of hydraulic problems($$$$) without much help from Bandit and many a day I wished I had a Whisper chipper on hand! The winch on the Bandit is the best option I bought especially for working with the crane.
Hey Rope' ever sat down and dived that out as a per year/per month/per day figure on that....I think you said $1325....investment!! I love seeing someone get an awesome return on a piece of equipment!

What type of hyd. problems? Bandit gave me a price on a new pump at one point, I think it was around $400, what else does that leave? Hyd. motors? I've never had any problems with mine in 11 years.

 

[NORTREE]

I went through 5 upper feed motors(Bandit covered 1) at $500 a whack, 2 pumps(Bandit covered 1) at $900/ a whack(it has live hydraulics-not sure if that makes a difference on the pump),exploded the oil filter and filter mount and it blew numerous hoses. The dealer worked on it and didn't come up with an answer. It was shearing the drive axle(for a better description) in the feed motors and I found a place to buy the parts rather than complete motors. I finally checked the pressure readings myself and it buried my gauge that went to 1500 PSI over what the pressure was supposed to be!! I reset the pressure relief and no problems since. When I talked to the Bandit people at TCI years ago and started complaining about it with other people around they were going to get a check right out to me to cover my expenses....called the Bandit guy I talked with at TCI numerous times but he was never in and no one could help me out....

 

[tree MDS]

I went through 5 upper feed motors(Bandit covered 1) at $500 a whack, 2 pumps(Bandit covered 1) at $900/ a whack(it has live hydraulics-not sure if that makes a difference on the pump),exploded the oil filter and filter mount and it blew numerous hoses. The dealer worked on it and didn't come up with an answer. It was shearing the drive axle(for a better description) in the feed motors and I found a place to buy the parts rather than complete motors. I finally checked the pressure readings myself and it buried my gauge that went to 1500 PSI over what the pressure was supposed to be!! I reset the pressure relief and no problems since. When I talked to the Bandit people at TCI years ago and started complaining about it with other people around they were going to get a check right out to me to cover my expenses....called the Bandit guy I talked with at TCI numerous times but he was never in and no one could help me out....

I had to bring mine to bandit dealer once because the winch/feed rollers had no balls, it turned out some pin or something that slips somewhere in the thing that you adjust to regulate the pressure for the hydraulics. Sorry I cant be more specific, at the time I just wanted to get back to work. Any ways they said they "bumped it up even a little past man. specs, and its been winching better than ever sinse.

 

[pdqdl]

Grapple trucks vs. loaders

... I don't use it too much since buying my grapple truck, as any chipper is laborious and time consuming and I would rather spend big dollars on real equipment ie. crane,skid steer etc. a chipper for me is for little jobs I do now!!

We have several companies in our area that work that way too. Log disposal around here comes at a severe price, unless you have your own log dump. I don't, so chips are only $25 per load, and it is tacitly understood that we will hide a few logs under the chips.

Tandem axle grapple trucks get emptied at $125.00 per load, and that is at the cheapest dump price you can find. That, and they make you cut the logs down to 5' or less so that it will go into their drum chipper.

I wish I had enough business and hard working guys to buy a good grapple truck, but you need a lot of work to justify the additional expense. Bought a decent used unit once, and my idiots kept burning the clutch up. Slow times, had to sell it.

I am currently making payments on our new Bobcat A300, with lots of attachments. In case you are not familiar with them, they have BOTH skid steer, or 4-wheel steering, at the flip of a switch. Once you go 4-wheel, you never want to go back to skid steer. NO turf destruction, with our floatation tires on, we can go to the back yard and come out with 3,000 lb logs and load them on the truck. Not as nice as a grapple truck, but much more versatile, and it can go places a big truck can't.

Bobcat, for some reason, does not market the thing right, in my opinion. Sure, it doesn't tear up the ground, and the tires last longer, but...they don't even mention that it has twice the traction and digging power than the skid steer units. I guess it might make the rest of their product line look bad. I wouldn't be surprised if it couldn't occasionally out-dig a track unit.

 

[pdqdl]

Bad Luck !

I went through 5 upper feed motors(Bandit covered 1) at $500 a whack, 2 pumps(Bandit covered 1) at $... When I talked to the Bandit people ...and no one could help me out....

Sounds like a raw deal.

That's why I suggested a chipper owner needs to be mechanically oriented if he bought a used unit. At least the first couple of repairs were covered.

If you had posted those problems to this forum, somebody would surely have suggested checking the pressure.

 

[NORTREE]

I am sure if you dig through the archives here and in forums long ago dicontinued will find my rants in regards to "Junk Bandit 250's" I put the word out as much as I could on the internet in regards to the problems I had. With that said I think the 250 Bandit is an AWESOME machine and even with the problems I had I WOULD buy another Bandit now that I have some more hydraulic mechanics under my belt. The dealer I bought it from hasn't even replied to my e-mails in regards to buying a second unit and purchasing the upgraded winch mount system(for that matter the main Bandit people e-mailed me back saying they didn't upgrade the winch mount since '98 ???????). I assume the dealer no longer wants my business but I have found a new Bandit dealer closer so I guess they will get my business now.

 

[ropensaddle]

We have several companies in our area that work that way too. Log disposal around here comes at a severe price, unless you have your own log dump. I don't, so chips are only $25 per load, and it is tacitly understood that we will hide a few logs under the chips.

Tandem axle grapple trucks get emptied at $125.00 per load, and that is at the cheapest dump price you can find. That, and they make you cut the logs down to 5' or less so that it will go into their drum chipper.

I wish I had enough business and hard working guys to buy a good grapple truck, but you need a lot of work to justify the additional expense. Bought a decent used unit once, and my idiots kept burning the clutch up. Slow times, had to sell it.

I am currently making payments on our new Bobcat A300, with lots of attachments. In case you are not familiar with them, they have BOTH skid steer, or 4-wheel steering, at the flip of a switch. Once you go 4-wheel, you never want to go back to skid steer. NO turf destruction, with our floatation tires on, we can go to the back yard and come out with 3,000 lb logs and load them on the truck. Not as nice as a grapple truck, but much more versatile, and it can go places a big truck can't.

Bobcat, for some reason, does not market the thing right, in my opinion. Sure, it doesn't tear up the ground, and the tires last longer, but...they don't even mention that it has twice the traction and digging power than the skid steer units. I guess it might make the rest of their product line look bad. I wouldn't be surprised if it couldn't occasionally out-dig a track unit.

I can see that point paying to dump. I have my own and logs are firewood,or timber at least pulpwood so I get paid for them! What a person really needs is good grapple truck and a tub grinder for composting!