Chris Tomblin |
Before we knew it, Ventura was behind the wheel of the loader, filling the bucket and heading for the berm. With some trepidation, and Baudhuin's assurance that he would assume responsibility for anything that might happen to the loader, Ventura drove straight up the berm, turned as tight as the stereo steering would allow, and came straight back down.
Later, again at Baudhuin's urging, Ventura raised a full bucket to the top of the loader's reach and spun the machine quickly in tight circles. He locked the brakes to finish the final turn with a flourish.
“I can't believe the stability of that loader,” says Ventura, noting that even in these tip-defying maneuvers, “it doesn't even get wobbly. Landscapers who are bringing trees up berms or carrying sod pallets — they could really use it.”
“With an articulated loader, when you turn and raise the bucket, it wants to tip over one tire or the other,” says Tomblin. “You don't get that with this little machine. It's stable in any direction you turn. And you can turn on a dime.
“It digs really well, too,” says Tomblin. “I thought it had very good power. To be operator friendly, though, it needs to have some kind of a gauge on it to tell you if that bucket's level or not.”
“Because if you tilt that bucket down she's gonna dig,” Ventura adds. “I dropped the teeth in the ground and blew right across the arena in the high range — no sweat.”
Only Bobcat's A300 all-wheel steer loader offers the same kind of all-wheel steering, which mimics all-wheel steer that has become common on telehandlers and other specialty machines. But the A300 is a skid steer with a static tipping load about 1,000 pounds less than that of the Wacker Neuson 850.
“Our original concept with the loaders was to go after skid steers — not to replace all skid steers, but 10 to 15 percent of applications are better served by wheel loaders,” Baudhuin claims. “One of our key selling features is that, with skid steers, you're always spinning on the tires, so you're going to have tire wear. Tires are expensive. Trying to outfit a skid steer with new tires, you're talking $3,000 or $4,000. We have users of our all-wheel steer loaders in Europe who have gone as long as 3,000 hours on a set of tires.”
Baudhuin points out that steering around corners, rather than skidding, not only saves tire rubber but also does less damage to the surface and uses less fuel. Added ground clearance and tire size also makes the wheel loader more maneuverable in extreme underfoot conditions.
Baudhuin also suggests that the wheel loader is inherently safer than a skid steer, not requiring operators to climb over the attachment to reach the seat, and offering clearer sight lines to the ground all around the machine. The steering wheel and foot throttle also make the loader easier for novices — such as renters — to operate.
In a market replete with able competitors, Wacker Neuson turns to capability, durability, and operator comfort to distinguish its excavators. The 8003 brought to Wilmington — an 8-metric-ton-class excavator (actually 16,810 pounds) in its third generation — exceeds the Association of Equipment Manufacturers' 6-metric-ton cutoff for mini excavators, but is nevertheless considered a mini excavator by the Local 150 instructors and most industry observers.
Baudhuin points to durability features including an X-shaped carbody, like full-sized excavator frames; steel pins and bushings in the boom, stick and bucket joints; hydraulic lines routed out on top of the boom and protected all the way down to the bucket.
“We call our blade a dozer blade, not just a cut-down blade,” says Baudhuin of the excavator's 9-foot-7-inch blade. “And if you look at the welding of it, you can tell the quality.”
Our evaluators had little to say about weld quality, but after backfilling a stretch of trench with the excavator, Cromer said, “it's got a pretty good track base under it — it doesn't rock around much, which is good.”
Wacker Neuson markets another series of excavators with the letter Z in the model designations representing zero-turn-radius machines. But the house on even the non-Z models like the 8003 overhangs the track width only minimally.
“Most of that is because of how we've placed the engine transversely beside the cab,” says Baudhuin. “By doing that we've also maintained a larger operating station.”
“A lot of times you get so cramped in your mini excavators, but this one was actually pretty comfortable,” says Cromer, who values some of the large-excavator comfort features in the 8003. “It surprised me a little that you could adjust the armrests and adjust the seat. A lot of them don't come with those options, or maybe don't have armrests at all.”
“I could see working in there eight hours,” Tomblin adds. “The cab was plenty big.”
The 69.5-horsepower 8003 digs just over 14 feet deep with a 6-foot-1-inch stick. A swing boom allows it to trench parallel to the tracks offset from the machine's centerline, alongside foundations, fences or other barriers.
The Wacker Neuson compact line represented by the 6001 site dumper, 850 loader, and 8003 excavator impressed our panel of operating instructors at Local 150. The site dumper and all-wheel-steer loader stole the show because of their unique capabilities.
Although the Wacker Neuson line of compact earthmovers is new to North America, the machines come with a great deal of field experience. Wacker celebrated its 50th anniversary in the United States in September, but the company was founded 150 years ago in Germany. Neuson is new to North America, but has been making equipment on the other side of the Atlantic for more than 40 years.
“None of these are new,” says Baudhuin of the compact earthmovers. “They're all proven designs that have been running in Europe for years.”
