Bought a 2022 Bobcat T76 off rubiautosales.com, 400 hours later

dealer tech here, i have had my hands in more R-series T76s than i can count. the aux pressure check with his own gauge is the right way to do it. the display will show you a number but a mechanic with a gauge on the pressure side and the case drain is how you catch a tired pump before it ever shows up on the screen. high flow on a T76 should be right around 4,000 psi and 30 plus gpm, and if he got that you are fine.

the fault history on a 2022 display is honest. it logs everything, including operator stuff like seat bar lockouts and low voltage on cold starts. no stored codes at 217 hours tells me it was not abused, and nobody cleared it either, because clearing leaves its own record.

the zerk is nothing, drill it and tap it if you have to, six bucks. the coupler weep is almost always the o-ring on the flat face and not the coupler body. and a right track at 60 with the left better than that is normal on a machine that did a lot of counterclockwise work, the operator probably spun the same direction all day loading a truck. you bought right.

three track loaders in my fleet down here, two T76s and a T66, so here is the undercarriage side. 60 percent on a 217 hour machine is fine and it is also exactly what sand and clay do. do not let anybody tell you that is a sign of abuse. what you want to look at is the sprocket teeth. if they are still rounded off you have time. if they are getting pointed and hooked like a shark tooth then the sprocket goes with the next set of tracks, not before.

2 speed is the thing i would not buy a T76 without. on a long driveway or a pad you are in high most of the day and your fuel and your patience both come out ahead. just know it drops to low on its own under load and that is not a fault, that is the machine doing its job.

budget a set of tracks somewhere around 800 to 1,000 hours on the ones you have now. aftermarket 18 inch tracks for a T76 run about 900 a pair in my area. figure that into what you paid and you are still way under what the georgia dealers wanted.

found this thread looking up rubi auto sales reviews so i figured id ask the people who actually did it. i got my LLC set up in march, doing small landscape installs and a little grading, and i have been renting a track loader from the rental yard at 1,900 a week which is killing me. i have about 45 grand saved up.

honest question, is it dumb to buy a machine sight unseen off an online auction when i have never even owned one? i know a guy who bought a used mini ex online and the hydraulics were shot inside a month. i do not know what i do not know here and i cannot afford a 40k mistake.

hardscape contractor here, patios and retaining walls mostly. the high flow is the part of your spec i would highlight for anyone shopping. a standard flow T76 will run a bucket and forks all day, but the minute you want a cold planer, a big rock saw, a trencher or a mulcher you are stuck. high flow opens up the attachment side of the business and that is where the hourly rate goes up. i put a high flow machine on a job with a rented planer last year and billed more in three days than the previous week of dirt work.

the 7 pin is the other quiet thing. if you buy attachments with electric controls, a grapple or a snow pusher with wings, anything with a diverter on it, you will need it. good buy for a drainage guy who might want to add hardscape work down the road.

the coupler weep, i have chased that one on two machines. pull the flat face coupler, the o-ring on the male side flattens over time and starts leaving a film. fifteen bucks for a pack of them at any hydraulic shop, or about twelve for the whole coupler seal kit. wipe it clean, run it, check it in an hour. if it is still wet after a new o-ring then it is the coupler body and those are about 90 each for the good ones.

on attachments, since liz brought it up. for drainage work a root grapple is the one you will use every single day, cleaning up brush and stumps before you trench. a decent 72 inch root grapple runs 2,200 to 3,000 new and there are used ones on the rubi auction from time to time too. and do yourself a favor and put a set of pallet forks on the truck, they are the cheapest attachment there is and they pay for themselves the first time you unload a pallet of pipe.

i run the office for my husband's excavation company and every purchase goes across my desk, so let me add the paper side because nobody ever talks about it. we bought a T66 and a plate compactor off the same seller this summer. equipment does not get a title the way a truck does in most states. what you get is a bill of sale with the full serial number, the hour meter reading and the price, plus whatever the manufacturer serial number title docs say. we ran the serial through the bobcat dealer and through the NER stolen equipment database before we wired anything. clean both times, and the bill of sale rubi auto sales sent over matched the serial plate to the digit.

insurance, get an inland marine equipment policy set up before the hauler leaves. ours covers theft, transport, on job damage and a rented attachment, and it was about 1,100 a year on the T66. the agent will want the serial and a copy of the bill of sale.

for transport we used a lowboy out of birmingham, about 850 for the T66 with the compactor on the same trailer. the driver sent a photo when it loaded and it was in our yard the next afternoon, tied down right. two for two on the transport side.

different machine, same lot. my 2023 Bobcat E60 came off rubi last winter, about 903 hours, hydraulic thumb, angle blade, right around 64 against the 78 the tulsa dealer wanted for one with more hours. i had my own mechanic look at it and he found a leaking blade cylinder seal and worn bucket pins, both of which they had already told me about on the phone.

a year in i have the full cost table written up in its own thread here for anybody doing drainage who wants the mini ex side of it. darnell, a T76 and an E60 on the same trailer is a pretty complete drainage outfit, just saying.

pinning this one. between darnell, lena and rita we have three machines off the same seller with the inspection, the paperwork and the hauling side written down in one place, and that is more useful to a guy starting out than any dealer review page. darnell, post the summer update when you do the tracks, folks will want the hours and the numbers.