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Stokey’s sustainable choice – Finning rebuilds 15-year-old Cat® dozer
When one of its hardest working Cat® D9 Dozers was coming to the end of its operating life, the team at Stokey Plant Hire commissioned us and our expert team of service engineers to rebuild their dozer to give it a new lease of life.
Stokey has been a customer of Finning for over 15 years. However, a combination of factors led them to making a sustainable – and cost effective – choice as part of their fleet management plan.
Stokey originally purchased the Cat D9 dozer from us in 2007 and it’s been hard at work in quarries across the midlands ever since, clocking up over 22,000 machine hours (around 1500 a year for the last fifteen years). Finning recommended a certified powertrain (CPT) rebuild which includes replacing the transmission, engine, differential, and final drives, instead of buying a new machine.
“It’s well known that Cat machines are ‘built to be rebuilt’,” explains Mike Tudball, Product Manager for rebuilds.
“Rebuilding a machine is by far the most sustainable choice. If we look at the environmental impact of manufacturing a new cylinder head for example, compared with using a remanufactured one, it generates 61% fewer greenhouse gases, requires 85% less energy and uses 86% less water. A remanufactured cylinder head also requires 85% less material than a new manufactured one and means there’s 85% less waste being sent to landfill.
“A large proportion of the parts removed from the original machine during a rebuild are also recovered, restored, and reused as a standard part of the rebuild process. So, when the machine is stripped down a proportion of the components and materials are recycled back into remanufactured components – creating a circular economy of sorts.
“Any new components and parts for the rebuilt machine, such as the engine and hydraulics, are sourced through a combination of remanufactured parts fully certified through Caterpillar®, via the Finning parts service exchange programme, or bought new.
Customers choosing a rebuild machine option will typically save around 55-60% on the cost compared with buying a new machine, which can be significant across an annual CAPEX spend.
On completion, Finning also provided a full five-year warranty on the major powertrain components with the option to tie in additional Customer Value Agreement (CVA) servicing packages.
The team at Stokey have been involved in the rebuild throughout – regularly visiting the service workshop to check on progress at each of the key stages.
Sarah Jones, from Stokey said: “We’ve been delighted with the level of input and communication from the Finning team throughout this entire project. We’ve had weekly calls and visits and have been kept informed and involved at each stage.
“This is the first rebuild that we’ve commissioned Finning to do, and I have to say we’re blown away with the finished result – it looks and sounds better than ever.
“What’s impressed us most is the level of expertise across the Finning team, and professional pride in the work they do – from the project management to the quality of the engineering work, and commitment from all the team throughout.
“This experience has certainly opened our eyes to the prospect of considering more rebuilds – both in terms of the financial gains over replacing with a new machine, but with sustainability in mind as well – we’re giving an old machine a completely new lease of life instead of sending it off for resale or worse still, to be broken down and scrapped. We’ve already booked in another machine to be rebuilt off the back of this.”
