Not just any case, its an M&S Case

Thu 15 Dec 2016

Not just any case, its an M&S Case

Like many companies in the West Country, M&S Plant Hire has diversified over the years. Colin Martyn established the firm as an agricultural contracting business in the mid 1960’s and purchased his first digger about a year later. In the late 1980’s the plant hire side of things expanded rapidly, due in part to them being one of the main contractors involved in the construction of Roadford reservoir, which at the time was one of the biggest projects taking place in the South West, with major contractor Alfred McAlpine involved in the earthworks and construction of a massive retaining dam for the local water authority. During this time M&S Plant Hire was running around 15 machines. Colin’s son Darren joined the family business in 1992 and the firm then became known as Martyn & Son. Since those heady days of the late 1980’s, the plant hire side of the business has been scaled down somewhat as they have focused more on the agricultural contracting services side of the business, expanding into making and selling fodder such as haylage, hay, silage and straw, as well as providing services such as sand blasting and paint spraying. 002

Diggers are however still seen as a core component in the company’s portfolio of product services, but they are mainly deployed on agricultural sector works as opposed to mainstream construction work. The new Case CX80C is the company’s third 8 tonne class machine, and has replaced the outgoing CX80 model that had proven to be a very reliable piece of kit. Earthmovers caught up with the new machine at work in the sleepy village of Halwill in Devon, not far from the Cornish border, where it was working on some drainage works and the formation of tractor access tracks around a farmer’s field in some wet and challenging conditions. M&S Plant Hire employ two main excavator operator’s, Mark Colwill, who has been with the company since 1987, operates the 13 ton machine and Ross Davey, who has been full time with the firm for 10 years, but has worked on and off for them for around 19 years. Ross is the company’s 8 ton excavator specialist, and has been rewarded for his efforts with the latest Case machine to join the firm. Ross told us more about his background with plant, “I started out operating wheeled diggers on farms, which mainly consisted of ditching work, I then moved onto road and street works jobs, once again on backhoe loaders, and I have also spent time operating Volvo A25 articulated haulers, Caterpillar dozers, and various excavators, as a relief operator covering annual leave and sickness periods, so a wide variety of jobs really”. 006

Ross’s first mount for M&S Plant Hire was a Caterpillar 307 on agricultural duties, more and more work seemed to come in for this versatile sized machine, and so when it was time to upgrade the machine a decision was made to opt for a Case CX80 model. Ross said “This machine was so versatile that the workload just got heavier and heavier as word spread about the capabilities of this size machine, we then added a grapple to the machine, which has gone on to prove very popular during the winter months for doing forestry and hedge work with”. The original Case CX80 served M&S Plant Hire well, with hardly any problems worthy of a mention, except for general wear and tear, a blown exhaust, and a dipper ram snapping after 4,500 hours. A number of manufacturer’s machines were tried during demonstration periods, with some models coming in for criticism from Ross, especially for poor visibility to the left hand side when working with the door shut during offset ditching work, eventually the decision was made to stick with the Case brand that had served them so well with the previous model, and as Darren Martyn commented, “We have been so impressed with Case machine’s, due in part to their versatility, they are economical to run and the outstanding service and back up we receive from our local dealers”. 012

The new CX80C has been supplied by local long term Case dealership M&M Plant Sales, who are delighted to have this size class machine back in the Case range after an absence of some five years, with general consensus being, it’s been a long wait but one that was well worth it. The machine features a whole host of improvements over the outgoing model, including the fitment of the latest Tier 4/Stage IIIB Isuzu AP-4LE2X emissions compliant engine, which offers a power output of 41.2kw (55hp), which so far appears to be extremely economical too. Perhaps unusually this day and age for an 8 ton machine, this one has been supplied on 600mm steel tracks as opposed to the more popular rubber, or rubber track pad set ups. One assumes the steels are better suited to the more agricultural type of work that M&S Plant Hire undertake, and let’s be honest you can’t beat steel tracks for tracking in a bit of hardcore! 030

Talking about his latest mount Ross said, “This new machine is a great improvement on the old CX80, which in all fairness was a cracking tool as well. It has more power and digging force and the different work modes help me control the machine better for specific tasks of work. For me, a major benefit with this machine over most competitors, is the 80 degree offset to the left of the machine, this is very important for the type of work we are engaged in, which often involves hours, days and sometimes weeks of ditch cleaning, where good visibility down into the ditch is essential, and for when we are working in barns and sheds, for me personally that is what won me over from an operators perspective”. 021

Ross went on to tell us about his plus points with this machine, “I have been very impressed with the overall visibility from the new cab, lighting is very good and as I do a lot of late night work, we have had additional lights mounted on the cab. Comfort levels in the cab are fantastic and little touches like the windscreen wiper function on the right hand joystick is a really clever and useful addition. The machine is so stable and smooth to operate, and you can easily operate everything and track at the same time with hardly any power loss to other functions, add to that the outstanding fuel economy, which is seeing us burn only about 8 litres per hour, which keeps the boss happy and I spend more time working and less time filling up!” 019

Asked if he had any dislikes Ross said, “The length of the refuelling hose is a bit of a disappointment, the lack of storage space both in and out of the cab, and the new Geith hitch is not as good as the old one in my opinion, but these are minor issues overall”. Ross gave us a tour of his machine starting at his “office”, the cab. This all new redesigned cab has wider door than the previous model and access is improved with the location of ergonomic grab handles. The cab is wider by some 7% and is said to offer 11% more foot space. For additional operator comfort the cab is mounted four fluid shock absorbers, which effectively means the cab is floating, which makes for a far more comfortable ride for the operator, with much less noise ingress. 025

The full colour monitor will be familiar to larger Case machine operators, as it is the same as those fitted across the range from CX130C upwards. This monitor also doubles up as the rear view camera screen as is so common these days. Full air-conditioning is standard and a welcome addition for any operator. More glass makes for amazing all round visibility from the seat in this new model, with the only downside for Ross, being the lack of space to the rear of the cab for his lunch bag. Stepping out of the cab for the walk around and Ross is keen to show us the tool box just below and slightly to the rear of the cab. In Ross’s opinion this is too small, and he preferred the larger toolbox in the centre of his old machine. 032

To the rear, the wide opening panel on the left hand side gains the operator access to the cooling core, battery, and grease gun storage. For Ross this also doubles up as storage for his track cleaning shovel. 033

Access to the engine is via a small lift up bonnet. It looks a little congested but with access to all major filters found under the next hinged door panel this should not be a problem. The filters fitted to this machine are the same size as one would find on the CX130C models, which would be handy for people running the different sized machines, meaning they only need to carry stocks of the same size filters. Ross is also a fully qualified plant fitter and does all the servicing himself; he had high praise for the convenient way the filters are laid out, making routine servicing a breeze. Another useful addition to the cab, which was specified in the order, was an additional work light to the side of the cab which enables the operator to fill up with diesel on late winter’s nights. 034

Another specification addition was the fitting of a roof top cab guard to protect the cab from any possible damage from fallen branches when engaged in forestry work with the machine. 023

M&S Plant Hire have been very impressed with this new C series model , which appears to be ticking all the right boxes for Colin and Darren, I for one would not be at all surprised to see the next upgrade of their current 13 ton machine, which is a competitors make, being superseded by a Case equivalent.

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