Problems w/ Carlton 2700 anyone?

[dbeck]

The company I work forBought a carlton 27 hp kawasaki grinder. He has been having heaps of problems w/ it, most recently 2 radiators shot in two weeks. At the cost of $600 each time. Too many problems to list. Do you know of anyone else whoi has had problems? Let's help him build a case to get some help from distributor or carlton.
Thanks in advance!

 

[dbeck]

Any specifics?

Look at pictures of carlton chippers and the bandit stumpgrinders...see any similarities?

 

[Bill G]

Why did you go through two new radators in 2 weeks ?

Bill

 

[Koa Man]

Bandit is making stump grinders now? I thought Carlton was supposed to be a real good machine, although I have never seen one run. I owned a Rayco 1620 Jr for 10 years, real good machine, then I bought a Levco HD45. Levco then went out of business 2 months after I bought it. The Levco has been pretty good, but if I buy another grinder, it will be a Rayco again.

 

[Stumper]

Hey Koa, How did the speed of the HD45 compare to the 1620? I'm curious because I can grind from half again to twice as fast with my RG12 as my dad can with his HD45-but the HD45 is a LOT easier on the operator.

 

[Koa Man]

The Levco is about 25% faster to me. It takes learning a different technique in grinding since you cut straight down instead of side to side. It is real easy to go 12-15 inches deep with it, compared to the Rayco which will take much more time to go past 8 inches deep. The things I do not like about the Levco is it is harder to get into tight spots than the 1620, it cannot cut as high (but it will go a lot deeper) and the traction is much less. The things I do like is it is fast, goes deep, travel speed is much faster and easier to move around, although tight spot manuverability sucks. I think Rayco has addressed most of the shortfalls of the 1620 with their new machine.

 

[Stumper]

Those are the figures I kind of expected. Hydrolic controls ease operation but slow performance. The speed I can grind with the lower Hp RG12 seems ridiculous but since the articulation is all manual I can traverse fast and keep the cutters in the wood just short of bogging out.-I'd love to have a bigger machine for the big front yard stumps but for the smaller than 24" and/or hard to access I love my RG12. My dad loves is HD45-justly.

 

[ORclimber]

Originally posted by Stumper
The speed I can grind with the lower Hp RG12 seems ridiculous but since the articulation is all manual I can traverse fast and keep the cutters in the wood just short of bogging out.-

Funny how that works. Rented a 252 with autosweep and compared to my 1620, it was like watching paint dry. The big difference was the ability to manually adjust the sweep speed, which couldn't be done on the rental machine.