Devon Plant Services hold XCMG Open Day

The latest dealer to take on Chinese built XCMG machines, Devon Plant Services held an open day’s event last Friday and Saturday at their premises on the old airfield site at Winkleigh in Devon.

We were delighted to be invited along to Devon Plant take a look at the machines in person and popped along on the first day. It was great to catch up with Chris who is a legend in the South West plant and machinery game after so long and to meet his team at the family run business.

Chris has been selling and hiring out machines for many years and its great to see this new opportunity come to fruition. Chris told us that although its early days with the XCMG dealership, the machines have so far been well received by local customers, and they have already sold a number of machines, some of which I plan to feature in Earthmovers Magazine in due course.

There was a good selection of machines from the XCMG range on display ranging from the 1.8-tonne XE18E zero tailswing model, right up to the 22-tonne class XE220E which was gaining a lot of attention from the steady stream of visitors who attended, which included a business man who was keen to take a look at XCMG, who flew in from Northampton in his own helicopter which was very impressive!

Also attracting a lot of interest was the 8-tonne class offering the XE80E midi excavator. The 8-tonne sector is massive and the machines have become a staple choice for groundworks contractors, especially in the housebuilding sector. There can be no doubt about it, such machines are extremely capable of turning out a lot of work, and its not hard to see why they have become so popular.

I took the time to spend a bit of time in the 22-tonne machine, and I have to say, it was very impressive, totally smooth in operation and plenty of speed and power. The cab had all the toys you could possibly need in a machine, and from what I was told the price is incredibly competitive. My initial visual reaction was that it reminded me of the styling we see on a well-known American brand, but I wouldn’t hold that against them.

It wasn’t all excavators though; we also saw an example from XCMG’s compaction equipment range in the form of the XD120E which competes in the popular 2700kg weight range.

Yorkshire based Robustrack were also present presenting a range of products from their portfolio including MB Crushers, examples of which were being demonstrated to visitors.

It was a great event and I’m quite confident it was something of an eye opener as to the quality of these machines, which from conversations I had at the event, surprised many.