The First Wheel Loader We Bought — We Checked It for Three Days

In October 2015 we bought our first wheel loader. A five-ton LiuGong, 2010 model, 6,200 hours on the meter.

The seller was a fleet owner in Foshan, surname Feng. He said the machine had nothing wrong with it, just old — the fleet was upgrading. Asking price: 198,000 yuan.

The day it rolled into the Panyu warehouse, Lao Li walked around it three times and said one sentence: don't trust the meter, and don't trust the mouth. We checked for three days.

It was our first loader; before that we'd only bought excavators. Lao Li said loaders are easier to read than excavators — but easy-to-read machines hide things better.

Day one: the transmission

First morning, we dropped the transmission oil pan. I drained the oil myself — a whole basin, clear as a fresh bottle. Fresh oil on an old machine is understandable. But a spotless magnet is not.

A transmission that has honestly run 6,000 hours carries a layer of fine iron powder on the drain-pan magnet, like black sesame paste. This one had none. Either it had just been rebuilt, or just been scrubbed clean.

Lao Li crouched down to look at the case mating surfaces. Factory sealant is machine-applied and even. This was a hand-laid bead, uneven in thickness, with a blob piled at a corner.

Then the bolts: three of them had wrench marks running the opposite way from the rest. Conclusion: the transmission had been apart — and not long ago.

Day two: boom, bucket, tires

Day two, the structural parts. Two repair welds at the boom root — decent welding, but chip the paint and you could trace the old cracks running out from beside the pin bores.

The bucket cutting edge had been replaced — fine, that's a wear part. The problem was the patch plate over the worn-through bucket floor: two millimeters thinner than the original plate, and crudely welded.

Four tires: two replaced the year before last, two worn down to the wear bars. Replacing all four: 12,000 yuan.

We ran the hydraulics through — lift and dump both normal, no cylinder seepage. But the lift cylinder rod carried a few score marks, shallow ones — proof that dirt had gotten in.

The main frame rails weren't cracked. That was the good news. A cracked frame is what a five-ton loader fears most — then the machine is worth scrap price plus twenty thousand.

Day three: test run and questions

Day three, the test. Cold start normal. Warmed up, the shift from second to third hesitated half a second — confirming the transmission call.

Three full buckets of gravel under load; lift time twelve seconds, within range. Steering a bit heavy — the steering pump is old. That went into the report.

I invited Mr. Feng to a cha chaan teng and laid three days of notes on the table. I asked him: has the transmission been rebuilt?

He froze for a few seconds, then said yes — done in Zhaoqing last year for 16,000. He asked: how did you know? I changed the oil.

I said, the magnet was too clean. On a 6,000-hour machine, clean is the problem.

He laughed. Buying machines this way, he said, isn't it exhausting? I said it is — but buying wrong is more exhausting.

That cha chaan teng was in Foshan's south side; we talked until four in the afternoon. When he paid the bill he said, next time I sell a machine I'll come to you — saves me making up stories.

We made 18,000 less

Going by the meter hours and the seller's story, the market price for that machine was 260,000.

Going by actual condition — rebuilt transmission, boom welds, four tires — we quoted the customer 242,000, and closed. Every item was written in the inspection report; the customer signed off on it.

Nor did we pay the asking 198,000. Mr. Feng asked what I'd offer. I said 175,000. He slapped the table — that's 24,000 less. I flipped through three days of photos for him, one by one. When we reached the transmission magnet shot, he sat back down and said: if it can't be hidden, I won't hide it.

On the deal our gross was 18,000 under plan. Eighteen thousand was a month of company rent back then.

What did three days of inspection cost? Lao Li's three days: 1,500. Lift time: 300. Diesel for the test: 200. Two thousand yuan — and the risk it saved was far more than 18,000.

The machine later sold to a customer in Jiangxi, delivered to Nanchang. At handover we gave him the original three-day inspection records and kept copies on file. He read for half an hour and said: inspected like this, I'm at ease.

A colleague called me a fool — the customer would never have known. I said: he can't see it now, but he'll see it when the transmission acts up again. And then it's not Mr. Feng he comes looking for — it's us.

Three places you can check yourself

Buying a used wheel loader, three places you can check on your own.

The transmission drain-pan magnet: too clean and too dirty are both wrong.

Chip the paint at the boom root and read the weld bead: factory welds are an even fish-scale pattern.

Check the date codes on the tire sidewalls: four digits — first two the week, last two the year. Four tires dated far apart usually means they were swapped for uneven wear — go check the frame next.

We tracked that machine for a year. The transmission gave no more trouble; the welded boom never cracked. The customer came back the next year and bought a second machine.

Mr. Feng later sold us two more machines, both with honest condition reports. Hiding things from you people once, he said, is too much work.

If you still have time after these three checks, start the machine and listen to the cold start. Rattling on cold start means valve clearance or bearing trouble.

After these three you'll have a rough picture. If you don't, pay someone who does. An inspection fee is cheaper than a lemon.