Old for New as KW Bell fleet renewal continues

A regular contributor to this blog and a good friend Kenneth Hatcher, has recently received another new machine at work and naturally, he was keen to share some photos of his new mount with us here on the Digger Man Blog.

Kenneth works for the KW Bell Group who are based in Cinderford in Gloucestershire. Bell Plant runs in excess of 250 items of equipment with an estimated value in the region of £4m, to £5m, consisting of 90 x excavators of varying sizes, 70 x dumpers, 22 of which are now cabbed, 25 x rollers, 7 x telehandlers and numerous smaller pieces of equipment.

The company is continually upgrading its fleet of machines, with the latest arrivals coming from the Doosan stable, and it’s one of these in the form of a DX85R-3, which has been despatched to Ken to replace an outgoing machine.

It was only just over a year ago that Kenneth took delivery of a brand new 6-tonne class DX63-3 which due to him being very particular about the condition and care of the machines in his charge, was in immaculate condition. But due to the logistics of the company Ken had to leave his pride and joy on a site and move to another job close to Cardiff where he had to take on a DX85R-3 which had clearly had a hard life.

He had done his best to try and tidy up the old girl, but now he has been rewarded with a shiny brand-new model which has been supplied by local dealer Kellands Plant Sales, and which arrived on site last Friday.

The DX85R-3 has an operating weight of between 8.540 – 8.600kgs depending on specification and is powered by a Stage V emissions compliant 4-cylinder Yanmar 4TNV98 diesel engine which offers a rated power output of 44.3 kW (59.4 hp) @2100 rpm.

This machine has been supplied with a Geith fully automatic hydraulic quick coupler with a full set of buckets coming from Scottish manufacturer Euro-Fab, including 450mm and 600mm digging buckets with factory fitted cutting edges and fillers for nice clean trench work.

Ken reports that the cab layout is typical Doosan and those who know the brand would feel instantly at home in this well-appointed workplace, all the toys that you would expect are in there, with aircon/climate control, and a radio all in place. The large monitor at the right-hand front of the cab relays the machines status to the operator and as per the norm these days, the operator can adjust the settings via the various menus.  

Its probably fair comment to say that this model has been around for some time now and must be long overdue a revamp, but the Doosan faithful still find these machines to be very reliable, nice to operate and represent great value for money.

For Ken who previously spent 30-years operating backhoe loaders, this and the 6-tonne class midi excavators in particular are now his favourites to operate. It’s nice to see that he now has another new machine to care for as he does all the machines he runs. It looks like the polish has been out already judging by the photo below. 

Ken is one of the really nice and genuine guys in the industry and we wish him all the best with this machine.