Volvo’s EC220E impresses operator

by Nick Drew | Mon 14 Mar 2016

Volvo’s EC220E impresses operator

Last week I was out and about taking photos for a prominent civil engineering company in the South West to use on their new website, during the assignment I came across Coles Plant’s latest Volvo addition which was in action in Exeter.

North Devon based Coles Plant have traditionally been long term Caterpillar end users and indeed the vast majority of the fleet is still dominated by Cat yellow. But more recently the company has been investing in excavators from Swedish manufacturer Volvo. Keen readers of Earthmovers may recall I reported in the October 2014 issue about what was one of the first EC380E’s to be delivered into the UK which had been purchased by Coles on the recommendation of their operator Dave Pratley. Coles also run an EC220D and this new E series 220 which was delivered in July last year. Operator Jamie Barber was keen to give us his thoughts on the machine.

Jamie said “I’ve had this machine since the middle of last year now and for me personally I wouldn’t want to operate anything else now, I love the cab layout, ergonomically everything is just perfect, everything I need is to hand which makes my job so much easier, the seat is also a lot better than the one fitted in my old Cat 320D”.

Jamie continued, “This machine is a lot faster, smoother, quieter and a lot more stable than my old mount, but I suppose that goes with the extra weight she has as the machine is plated at 25,100kgs. It just makes all aspects of work a lot easier and is generally a nice place to be for 10 to 12 hours a day”.

“If I had to find a fault it would have to be the Volvo grey paint, you can’t even rag it off without it leaving slight scratch marks which for someone who likes to take pride in my machine can be a bit annoying. I was a bit apprehensive about the AdBlue initially but it does 25 litres to around 4 tanks of fuel so it’s not too much of an issue really”.

Jamie has run a lot of 20 tonne class diggers over the years from the likes of Cat, Hitachi, Komatsu and Doosan but feels that the Volvo is at the top of the class now. There have been one or two minor issues and Jamie’s machine has had an AdBlue pump replaced but apart from that Jamie reports that its “spot on”.

Having operated one of these for an Earthmovers test drive report recently, I can echo Jamie's sentiments about these machines, they really are a touch of class!

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