Used Equipment: Vetting Value
For someone with a stateside presence, the manufacturer or distributor will likely be the first line of assistance. For instance, Kremer says if a would-be buyer is interested in a piece of Park equipment and can provide the company with a serial number, it can offer quite a bit of information about the machine in question.
“We can track down where we sold the machine originally, and determine the options it may have had,” he says. “We can also tell you what parts should be with it, and what tooling should be with it. In short, we can help them determine what they’re buying.”
Park can also provide – for a service fee – a technician to go do an inspection.
“Just about everything is going to be one day to fly out, one or two days at the site, and then a day to fly back,” says Park’s Walerius. “We charge an hourly rate for travel and an hourly rate onsite.”
That assistance isn’t limited to U.S.-based manufacturers. With Monsano, Italy-based Marmo Meccanica S.p.A., for example, the company’s North American sales and service office (www.marmo-na.com) in Rochester Hills, Mich., can conduct onsite inspections of its equipment for a fee, and also repair machines. (Marmo Meccanica’s North American office also offers used equipment.)
There are also independent technicians available for machine inspections. Granite Machine’s O’Connor says the higher the sale price on a piece of used equipment, the more it makes sense to get an evaluation.
“If you spend $1,000 on an inspection and find it’s a piece of garbage, and you’d have to put another $10,000 or $15,000 in it, you’ve saved yourself a lot of money,” he observes. “But, if it’s an $80,000 piece of equipment in great shape and you can get it for $15,000, that inspection was a great investment.”
A technician is also going to be able to judge the environment the machine is in, O’Connor adds. There’s a big difference between buying something from a clean shop where things are obviously maintained, and one that’s not.
In many situations, however, the machine isn’t up and running. It may be available for inspection, but it’s also possible all you’ll be able to see are photos. However, Doug Jackson of the Athens, Tenn.-based Rollin’ Stone says even photos can tell a lot.
“One of the first things you can tell is if there have been electrical problems,” he says. “You can see that in the electrical cabinet, because the wires are unorganized. If the motor or controls have burned up, there can be black marks in the cabinet. That’s always a bad sign.”
Another possible problem that a photo can reveal, says Stone Equipment’s Kruschke, is whether the person who disassembled the machine knew what they were doing.
“When they disconnect it, they don’t bother marking any of the wires,” he says. “When it comes time to install it, you’ll be scratching your head wondering where each wire goes.”