[su_box title=”The Caterpillar D8 series exhibits a substantial brand premium across the entire 20 year spectrum when compared to the top series produced by other crawler dozer manufacturers.” box_color=”#ddd” title_color=”#000000″ style=”height: 100%;” ][/su_box]
Key Takeaways for Decision Makers
RENTER/SELLER/EQUIPMENT MANAGER: The Caterpillar D8 series tends to hold a higher asking price than top competitors across all model ages, and Caterpillar models are much more common on resale markets than any other manufacturer.
Crawler dozers are some of the most iconic pieces of construction equipment found on modern work sites. As a result, we like to keep our eyes on how resale markets for these models vary over time. To do so, we recently examined all retail sales records from our EquipmentWatch Values data on standard crawler dozers over the last twelve months. We limited the analysis to the top four manufacturers by used market activity, and then aggregated each manufacturer’s most prevalent series of models, with a final dataset just shy of 68,000 records. EquipmentWatch customers can access the full breakdown of models in each series here with our EQW Values product.
We found that the Caterpillar D8 series maintains a significant brand premium over competitors, even though it decreases significantly over time. For newer models, the D8 series is on average between $150,000 and $200,000 higher than other models. the Deere 850, Case 1650, and Komatsu D61 series are all relatively similar in pricing, with the Deere 850 slightly edging out the competition in all but one model age. It is worth noting that all four of these series vary significantly in size, ranging from 60-74 horsepower machines all the way up to massive dozers with over 520 horsepower.
[su_box title=”Resale markets for used crawler dozers have been densest in the 2-4 and 7-10 years old range, and dominated by Caterpillar models.” box_color=”#ddd” title_color=”#000000″ style=”height: 100%;” ][/su_box]
Caterpillar’s high price premium may be due to its product diversity and market share. As can be seen in the chart above, Caterpillar models made up the majority of the resale market for standard crawler dozers over the last 12 months. It is also very interesting to see the bimodal peaks in total resale activity by model year, as market activity tends to center around equipment that is three years old and equipment that is 7-9 years old. One could speculate that the large amount of activity in the early range is the result of higher numbers of new equipment coming into the market after leases, while the severe drop in models aged 4-6 years old corresponds pretty neatly to the drops in equipment production caused by the Great Recession (2009-2011). If you’re interested in further examinations of this distribution for other used equipment market activity, check out this article we published in February.
If the trends continue in the resale market for standard crawler dozers, then, we should see Caterpillar’s D8 trumping the competition in terms of retail prices, while Deere, Case, and Komatsu provide more competitive pricing. Additionally, although Caterpillar models make up the majority of the resale market, Deere, Komatsu, and Case are all experiencing market share growth among new models.
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