ForConstructionPros.com

For the majority of manufacturers, the upperstructures of their wheel and crawler excavators are comparable. "From the swing ring up, both machines are (or should be) practically identical," says Bret Jacobson, product specialist - excavators, Liebherr Construction Equipment Co. "The differences are mostly in the undercarriage."

As such, the owning and operating (O&O) costs between the two configurations should be similar - as long as the machines are properly applied.

"It would be foolish to have a wheel excavator work in hard digging applications with rocky material over long periods of time and expect its O&O costs to be that of a crawler machine," Jacobson elaborates. "This is not what the wheel machine was designed and built for.

"On the other hand, it would not be very efficient to have a crawler excavator run around on a large jobsite and perform small or emergency jobs all over (e.g., cleaning under a conveyor belt). Its O&O costs would go up drastically," he says. "Applied more or less correctly, the cost of O&O should be comparable."

Metzgar asserts the O&O costs are actually lower with rubber-tire models. "Owning and operating costs over time will be less with a wheel excavator," he says. "There is no undercarriage maintenance, which reduces operating costs."