430 Excavator Cuts Costs

Mark Bottorff

When a fire destroyed his tractorloader-backhoe (TLB), concrete contractor and long-time Bobcat® equipment owner Mark Bottorff replaced it with a new 430 zero house swing (ZHS) excavator. “Speed is everything in this business,” he says. His company, Bottorff Construction, Inc., Atchison, Kan., installs concrete footings and flatwork mostly for commercial jobs, including big box retail and warehouse projects.

Thanks to its revolutionary FastTrack™ drive system, the 430 is nearly twice as fast as the nearest competitive brand of excavator. What’s more, Bottorff reports, the machine outworks a TLB in his applications.

The FastTrack drive features dedicated axial piston pumps that power the travel motors. The result is smooth, precise turns, maximum torque control and fast travel speeds. That, says Bottorff, saves time, money and effort several ways:

• By reducing travel time around jobsites as large as 20 acres.

• When grading sites for small slabs and digging footings for grade beams. “Unlike a TLB, the 430 can dig 90-degree corners not only quickly but accurately, reducing the amount of concrete needed,” says Bottorff. “Any over-digging adds extra concrete costs to the project.”

• Placing spoil and loading trucks. “On some projects we dig offsets and 90-degree corners every 10 ft. or so,” says Bottorff. “With the limited boom swing of a TLB we ended up dumping material too close to the ditch. However, the 430 allows us to place spoil out of our way.”

Bottorff notes other benefits of the 430:

• Easy to transport. The four-ton 430 can be pulled on a trailer by a pickup truck eliminating the expense and hassle of using larger trucks and trailers.

• Less chance of damaging the rear of the machine when slewing because of its ZHS design.

• An optional enclosed, air conditioned cab. “When the temperature hit 106 degrees last August, all that cool air felt really good.”

• The Bobcat name. Bottorff, who bought his first Bobcat skid-steer loader in 1985, now has ten of them, including the new S250, and the Bobcat 334 long-arm excavator. “All of our Bobcat equipment has been reliable and dependable,” he says. “Our dealer, KC Bobcat, Olathe, backs them up with good service and readily available parts.”

• Happy employees. “All our operators really like the 430.”