Bobcat S550. Doosan engine. Hand & Foot controls or SJC ??

[Rental stop]

After attending the Rental Show in Atlanta earlier this week I am planning on buying a Bobcat S550. Talking with the factory reps, I believe they have engine issues figured out. The Doosan has been out for a few years now and they had a few bugs but they are fine. They have a three year, 3000 hour engine warranty. The new Kubota wheel skid steer didn't impress me. (Price was high also). New Deere G series was aggressively priced to me at the Rental Show, but the dealer didn't see eye to eye on the pricing. Guess I could call the factory and get the price. But the 318G that ran was bouncy and the hydraulics shuddered when lowering the lift arms and driving. My only issue now is if I go with standard Bobcat hand & foot controls or pay a little more and get SJC. Switch between Cat and Case styles joysticks. I have ran Bobcat h/f for 20 years. I rent the machines out to customers. No real complaints with the h/f controlled machines in the past. Any thoughts and input would be appreciated.

 

[Bobcatdan]

Do you get lot of demand for SJC? Guys who run only H/F will either be lost or just hate SJC. Flip side is SJC guys can be picky little bitches too when forced to run H/F. What about AHC where you can switch between good and case style hand control?

 

[Rental stop]

Do you get lot of demand for SJC? Guys who run only H/F will either be lost or just hate SJC. Flip side is SJC guys can be picky little bitches too when forced to run H/F. What about AHC where you can switch between good and case style hand control?

Not a lot of demand for SJC. Just see the market heading this way. Most customers are one and done. Would need to learn the operation when they rent anyways. Most have been ok with H/F for the past five years. Recently I have had more requests for ISO. AHC would not get the ISO pattern that more people are switching over to. Too bad Bobcat doesn't make the switch that can run all three patterns. We re-rented a John Deere for another customer that was capable of running all three. It was not the most responsive, but they rented it for six months running ISO and were happy. They were picky little bitches. The new Bobcat T590 we bought in December has H/F controls and feels like it takes a lot of effort to run the sticks. The previous models we had were S160,S175 & S185. All H/F controls but didn't feel as hard to drive.

 

[Bobcatdan]

Not a lot of demand for SJC. Just see the market heading this way. Most customers are one and done. Would need to learn the operation when they rent anyways. Most have been ok with H/F for the past five years. Recently I have had more requests for ISO. AHC would not get the ISO pattern that more people are switching over to. Too bad Bobcat doesn't make the switch that can run all three patterns. We re-rented a John Deere for another customer that was capable of running all three. It was not the most responsive, but they rented it for six months running ISO and were happy. They were picky little bitches. The new Bobcat T590 we bought in December has H/F controls and feels like it takes a lot of effort to run the sticks. The previous models we had were S160,S175 & S185. All H/F controls but didn't feel as hard to drive.

Bobcat could easily make an all in three option by adding the foot pedal system from AHC to SJC. Question thou is how does Deere make the foot throttle work on their system? If it lacks a foot throttle, I'm out as that's one of the biggest reasons I like SJC.