Hi Traxs!
Very nice pictures, and a big worksite with plenty of room.
What do you think of the Cat 735, compared to the A40?
And why did your firm exchange the machines?
I haven't been able to compaire Cat to Volvo, because Cat is to expencive for us...
And ceep the fine picture's coming, we all enjoy them
Yeah but it's not all our land... What do I think of the 735 and the A40? Well, they're both great machines to start with. They both have their goods and bads. Both have plenty of power, and the fuel consumption of both is pretty good.
The retarder on both trucks does the job pretty good. While you can barely hear the one on the volvo, it's crazy loud on the cat. I like loud. In the volvo you have a pedal for retarding, and it can be put on automatic too. Only automatic in the cat.
The cat is a little more productive due to the box raise/lower time. As soon as you put the lever on float you have all your gears. The volvo stays in second gear until the box is down. The 735 box is sooo fast, BUT I've had some issues where the front end is too heavy(wet pitrun) and the box won't raise. You have to brake hard reversing to give it a swing for it to go up. And that happened on an '03 & '06 truck.
I like the cat cab better but the volvo is pretty close. The volvo has good innovations, like the load/dump brake. It puts the trailer brakes on and trans. in neutral; just put it in gear to go. It was great until the parking brake started to come on at the same time (????). The volvo has stupid options. Like the seat, our truck had no headrest or armrests. But a heated seat! The seat in the cat so much better because of that. The steering in the A40 is much stiffer than the 735. But I feel that the volvo is a little more precise. The steering wheel on the cat has more adjustments. I'm more comfortable in the cat. You sit in the middle in the volvo and a bit to the right on the cat. Not much difference. The mirrors on the 735 are the best, in '06 they're much higher that before(look at the 740 and the 735 in the pics), you can see inside your box.
At around 400hrs, on the volvo, I started to get an ECM error code from time to time (for a few seconds). Also, when I was lowering the box and turning at the same time, sometimes I'd get a steering pressure low alert.
So far nothing wrong with the 735 @ 350hrs.
The 735 has 8 foward gears and one reverse. (and a 730 or 740 has 7F and 2R, why? I dunno) But it sucks!! Backs up pretty slow. The volvo has 6 forward and 2 reverse. Both transmissions are very different. You hardly feel the volvo shift(on most gears), nice and smooth transition, engine is smooth through the shift. Totally the opposite on the cat! It's just violent! The engine just cuts and it shifts, but its done very fast! But it has a tendency to "gear hunt" more than the volvo. That's where the gear lock button(on the shifter) on the cat comes very handy. Never had to use it in the volvo.
The volvo is a very "user friendly" machine, but if I had to buy one today, I'd buy a 735 with a tailgate.
Sorry for the wait!! Had a busy week!