Hitachi ZX350-5G Excavator

What this machine is

A Hitachi ZX350-5G, a 35-tonne crawler excavator from Hitachi’s ZAXIS range, running on diesel at 184 kW (251 hp). It digs to between 6.84 m and 7.43 m and reaches out to between 10.57 m and 11.11 m, depending on the arm.

It stands in our yard. The hour meter, the build year and the undercarriage condition are read from the machine itself, and we send them on request with photographs of each.

What it is used for

Bulk excavation. Road cuttings, dam cores, large foundations and the overburden on top of a pit. Work measured in thousands of cubic metres a day.

Loading haul trucks. Paired with a wide-body mining truck or an 8×4 tipper, a 35-tonne excavator is the loading tool the whole circuit is timed around.

Quarry and pit faces. Pulling blasted rock off the face and sorting it, where a lighter machine spends its day rocking on its tracks.

Heavy pipeline and drainage. Large-diameter pipe and deep box culverts, where the machine has to lift the section as well as dig the trench.

Why the 35-tonne class

Most contractors start with a 20-tonne machine. The move to 35 happens when the excavator becomes the bottleneck: trucks queue, the bucket is too small for the material, and the machine stalls on the hard layer.

A 35-tonne excavator solves all three. It swings a far bigger bucket than our 22-tonne excavator, it has the weight to hold still while it tears into compacted or rocky ground, and it reaches over a higher truck body without climbing a ramp to do it.

The trade is mobility. This machine does not move between sites casually, and on a tight urban job it is simply too big. For a mine, a quarry, or a long road contract where it stays on one spread for months, that trade is the right one.

Why Hitachi. Hitachi hydraulics are the reason operators ask for the brand by name: smooth, precise, and forgiving of the long shifts a production machine works. The ZX350 is a familiar machine to African mechanics, which matters more over five years than any figure on this page.

Condition, and what we do before it ships

Through our own workshop before it loads. On a machine this size, three things decide its value.

The undercarriage. Chains, rollers, idlers and sprockets. On a 35-tonne excavator these are the most expensive wear parts on the machine.

The main pump and the swing. Ask for a video of the machine lifting a full bucket at full reach and slewing under load. Weakness in either shows there and nowhere else.

The boom and arm. Cracks and weld repairs at the boom foot and the arm cylinder mounts tell you what kind of life the machine has had.

What to tell us

The material, the depth, the trucks you load and the hours you plan to work each day. The road from your port to site. Your destination port and the quantity.