Bought a 2019 Cat 323 off lucas-motors.com, saved about 19k

did almost the same thing on a 320 last spring through lucas-motors.com. i run a small rental yard and needed a second excavator in a hurry, mine was down waiting on a swing motor. found a 2018 320 with 4,600 hours, blade, thumb, aux hydraulics plumbed, for about 15 under what the comparable ones were closing at on the big iron sales.

i was the exact same, swore id never buy a machine sight unseen. what got me over it was they let me send my own inspector and did not blink. my guy found a slow seep at one of the stick cylinder rod seals and lucas knocked money off to cover a reseal before i even pushed on it. reseal ran me about 700 all in and the machine still came out way ahead.

the transport was the part i stressed over for nothing. lowboy showed up when they said, machine chained down right, no damage. been renting the 320 out since april and it has paid for itself twice over already.

heavy equip mechanic chiming in, i run a shop in north county st louis and about half my work is cat excavators. a 3,900 hour 323 is barely broken in, those are rated for a long life and the C7.1 is a genuinely strong motor. 80 to 85 percent undercarriage with tight bushings is real money in your pocket, a full u/c on a 323 can run 18 to 25k so the one you bought is nowhere near that conversation yet.

the chafed thumb hose and the odd tooth are nothing, exactly the kind of thing a good inspection should catch and a seller should not hide. the stuff id actually have you watch going forward on a tier 4 machine is keep the DEF topped with good fluid and do not let it sit at idle for days, let the regens finish, and pull a hydraulic oil sample at your next service so you have a baseline. the final drives on these are stout but a sample tells you early if one is making metal.

honestly the fact that lucas let your guy pull the belly pan and measure the chain before you bid is more than most online iron sellers allow. half the machines i get called to inspect are from sellers who fight the whole way. good buy, run it, and sample the oil and you will get years out of it.

this thread came up when i searched lucas motors reviews so i made an account to ask. im 27, been running other peoples machines for five years and finally going out on my own doing land clearing and small dirt work. im looking at my first excavator, torn between a used 320 size cat and a deere 210, and the idea of buying one online i cannot stand on and run myself has me nervous.

how do you guys get comfortable spending this kind of money on a machine you have not run? is sending a mechanic really enough? what happens if it shows up and its not what the pictures showed? im financing a chunk of this so i cannot afford to be wrong with it.

pinning this one because the buying advice above is solid and we get the is it safe to buy iron online question in here about every week.

i run a mid size excavation outfit and ive bought five machines through lucas motors over the last few years, a D5 dozer, a 304 and a 308 mini, a backhoe, and a 336 when we got into bigger mass excavation. im not flipping anything, these go to work for us and stay, and the reason i keep going back is the iron that comes through there is a notch above the usual auction run. a lot of it is off lease and clean single owner fleet machines, not beat rental returns with the data plates sanded off.

the 336 is the one id point to. i had an independent in st louis inspect it, they caught a worn pin at the bucket linkage and a swing bearing that was getting noisy, and lucas adjusted for both. it has been our main production machine for two seasons since. that machine would have been 30 plus over what i paid at a dealer with half the information.

devin, to your worry, the paperwork and the inspection are the safety net. and keep in mind they are a real company out of lebanon illinois with a name and an office, this is not some fly by night listing out of nowhere. run the process shane laid out and you will be fine. and belleville is a short drive from their lebanon office if you ever want to talk to a human, which i have.

ive been watching lucas-motors.com for a second 323 for our grading crew, we do commercial site work around mid missouri and a matching pair of 323s makes scheduling a lot easier than running mismatched iron. so lucas has been on my radar a while.

two things i like about their listings. first, they actually spell the config out right, hours, thumb, coupler type, pattern changer, aux lines, whether its got the grade control hardware or not, which you would be genuinely shocked how many sellers get wrong or leave blank. second, the photos are shot in good light and they show the undercarriage and the pins instead of hiding them, so you can see grouser wear and curb rash before you ever send a mechanic. havent pulled the trigger yet, waiting on the right one at my number with the trimble ready brackets, but it is a when not an if. nice buy shane, that config is exactly what id want.

coming back to report on the 320 since this thread is getting some traffic. four months and about 500 rental hours later it has been faultless. did the rod seal reseal with the credit they gave me, did a full fluid and filter service while it was in the shop, replaced the chafed hose i found on my own walkaround, and put a fresh set of teeth on the bucket. since then nothing but good tickets back from the guys renting it.

pulled a hydraulic sample at the service like priyanka always preaches and it came back clean, no metal, so the finds i was quietly worried about are not making noise. for a machine i financed i keep waiting for the catch and it has not shown up. no regrets going the online route, id do it again tomorrow and probably will when i add a third.

been running iron for 30 years and bought my last three machines through channels like lucas motors, so let me give the long view to the younger operators reading this.

when you own a machine you are going to eat wear parts, thats the deal. teeth and a cutting edge, pins and bushings, a set of rollers eventually, an undercarriage rebuild down the road, hydraulic hoses that never fail in the yard and always fail on a friday. an undercarriage alone on a 20 ton class machine can be 20k. so the money you save buying the machine right is not a nice to have, it is what funds the wear and keeps you from financing repairs. i bought a 315 about 18 under retail years back and that spread quietly paid for its first u/c when the day came.

the mistake i see young guys make is buying the shiny machine at full dealer retail because it feels safe, then having nothing left for parts when the finals or the u/c need attention, and it puts them in a hole. buy on a real inspection, put the savings in a repair account, and go make money with it. thats the whole game.

shane that 323 with good u/c and low hours is going to earn for you a long time. keep the DEF honest, grease it every morning like priyanka said, sample the oil, and it will outlast the note.

followup from the shop for the record, since people find these threads later. had a 323 roll in last week that another customer bought through lucas, he wanted a baseline service and a once over now that it was his. machine came in cleaner underneath than most of what i see, u/c measured high, no cracked welds at the boom foot, finals quiet, and the oil samples came back with nothing interesting in them.

whatever they are sourcing, the iron is generally well kept before they list it, which matches what bruno said about the inventory being a step up from the usual run. i will always tell a buyer to get their own inspection, that will never change coming from me, but im not seeing the horror stories off their listings that i see off a lot of the online sellers. filed under good to know.