“If you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.” That’s the equipment management philosophy Leo McDaniel, shop foreman for the Bouchier Group, abides by—and with one machine currently exceeding 18,000 hours of operation, it’s clearly working.
The Alberta, Canada-based company purchased a Cat® 160M Motor Grader in 2008, the first year M Series models were introduced. Seven years and nearly 20,000 hours later, it’s still a primary production machine—and its longevity can’t be attributed to easy work.
“This 160 does everything from bush work to highways to site maintenance,” says Bert Borqe, the company’s maintenance manager. “Some of the areas it has to go to work are fairly rough.”
That’s why Borqe was surprised to discover the 160M had accumulated 18,000 hours. Because of its consistent power, performance and uptime, he thought it only had 6,000 or 7,000. “It’ll keep up to any other machine still today,” he says. “It runs very well—no problems with any components.”
McDaniel agrees. “They’re quite easy to maintain and get parts for,” he says of the 160M and the rest of the company’s fleet of Cat Motor Graders. “They’re very reliable.”
The Bouchier Group’s 160M may be a standout in terms of total hours, but long life is something customers have come to expect from the Cat Motor Grader lineup. More than 20,000 M Series models have gone to work since 2008—collectively, they’ve achieved more than 100 million hours of operation.
