Why we list hours on every unit
Most yards make you ask. Publishing the number costs us some conversations we would have preferred to have in person.
Go looking for used iron and you will notice how often the hours are missing. Not hidden exactly. Just not there, with a phone number where the number should be.
What "call for details" is doing
It is getting you on the phone. That is not sinister — a yard that gets you talking gets to explain the machine, and some machines genuinely need explaining. A high-hour unit that has been serviced properly is often a better buy than a low-hour one that sat outside, and that is a hard case to make in a table cell.
But it also means the number you most want is the one you have to work for. And when a number is only available on request, you learn something about it before you hear it.
What we do instead
We list hours on every unit that has them. On the unit page, in the specs, before you have spoken to anyone. If a unit has no hours listed, it is because we do not have a figure we trust — not because we would rather discuss it.
The same rule runs through the rest of the site. Rates are published. Where a figure is uncertain it is marked indicative or representative rather than quietly rounded. Where we have matched a machine against its plate, it carries a serial-verified stamp.
What it costs us
Some people see a number, decide, and never call. Occasionally that is a sale we would have made if we had got to explain the machine first. We think that is a fair price for you being able to compare our yard against anyone else's without an appointment.
What hours are not
They are not the machine's age and they are not its condition. We wrote a whole post about that in April. An hour idling at a gate and an hour loading rock are the same hour on the meter and nothing alike in the machine.
So use the number for what it is: the start of the conversation, published up front, so the conversation can be about the thing that actually matters.
Ask for the rest
- The plate photo. Serial, model, the stamped figures. We send it.
- The condition notes. What was checked, what was found.
- What the machine did for a living, if we know.
- What has been replaced and when.
None of that requires a negotiation. It is just what we would want to know if we were buying it.
