Excavator 22 t, CAT-C9 280

What this machine is

A 22-tonne crawler excavator with a CAT-C9 engine at 280 hp. Overall 9.65 m long, 2.98 m wide and 3.25 m tall, with a machine weight of 22 tonnes. It occupies 94 m³ on the vessel.

Our catalogue prints the engine, the weight and the dimensions for this machine and does not print a build year, an attachment list or an hour reading. Those rows are absent from the specification table rather than filled in, and we will confirm each of them against the actual machine when you ask.

What it is used for

Construction and mining, and it is the most generally useful machine in this catalogue.

Bulk excavation. Foundations, basements, site levelling, borrow pits.

Trenching. Drainage, water mains, cable and pipeline routes. A 22-tonne machine reaches the depths most utility work needs.

Loading. Filling road tippers and, on a short pit circuit, wide-body haulers. On many sites this is what the excavator does most of the time.

Demolition and clearance. With the right attachment, which is a specification conversation rather than something to assume.

Why 22 tonnes

Excavators are bought by weight class and the class is the decision.

Below 22 tonnes, machines are easier to move, cheaper to run and gentler on finished ground, and they are slow on bulk work. A 13-tonne machine filling a 30-tonne tipper takes an uncomfortable number of passes and the truck waits.

Above 22 tonnes, you gain reach, breakout force and bucket size, and you lose the ability to move the machine simply. A 35-tonne excavator needs a bigger low-bed and more permits, and on many sites it cannot get in at all. When the job is volume rather than access, that trade is worth making, and we hold two machines in that class: the Hitachi ZX350-5G and the SANY SY365H-9.

Twenty-two is the class that does the most jobs without becoming a logistics problem, which is why it is the size most contractors own and the size most rental fleets are built around. It fills our 6×4 tipper in a sensible number of passes, it digs deep enough for utility work, and it travels on one trailer.

Condition, and what we do before it ships

Through our own workshop before it loads: inspected, put right, and photographed at each stage.

On an excavator, three things decide the purchase and none of them is the paint. The undercarriage, meaning tracks, rollers, idlers and sprockets, which is the largest wear item on any tracked machine and the most expensive to put right. The hydraulics, meaning the pumps, the rams and every hose and seal, where wear shows as leaks and as a machine that is slow under load. The pins and bushes at the boom, stick and bucket joints, where play tells you how many hours the machine has really done.

Ask for those three and we will send them. Ask also for the hour meter, and for the engine plate, because the specification names a CAT-C9 and you should see it.

Shipping it

94 m³, calculated from the overall dimensions. A tracked machine is a large box and sea freight is charged on it. It sits well above the wheel loader at 55 m³ and below the wide-body haulers at 125.

Loaded at our yard in Tangshan, shipped through Tianjin Port.

What to tell us

The work, the depth you need to reach, and the trucks you will be loading. What attachments you need. Whether you also need a low-bed to move it. Your destination port and the quantity.