"IF I BUY A MACHINE, IT HAS TO HAVE A KOMATSU BADGE ON IT!"

When Tasmanian contractor Lindsay Doyle is looking for a new piece of earthmoving equipment...

If it doesn’t have a Komatsu badge on it, he won’t buy it.

Lindsay, whose family-owned company L&S Doyle carries out civil excavations, vegetation clearing under powerlines, and cable-laying works for the NBN rollout, all throughout southern Tasmania, primarily sticks with Komatsu because of its service and backup.

"The guys down at Cambridge do an excellent job for all our maintenance and servicing," he said.

"Whenever we've had an issue with a machine even a major issue the backup has been fantastic, both from the factory and the branch down there.

"That's the reason that I don't choose anything else these days. If I am going to buy a machine, it's got to have a Komatsu badge on it," said Lindsay.

He doesn't have any service contracts as such with his machines just using the local branch for all his equipment servicing.

"They know all the machines, they oil-sample them and do everything," he said.

Lindsay's fleet consists of the three recently delivered PC27MR-3 mini excavators, which are used for NBN rollout work, a brand-new PC88MR-8 short-tail excavator for road maintenance and civil works, two PC130-7excavators, plus a WA180-1 and WA250-3 wheel loader.

"Our three PC27s are used in trenching for cable-laying, working in conjunction with a small truck, then backfilling after the fibre-optic cable has been placed," he said.

One of its PC130-7s, fitted with a mulching head, is used for vegetation clearing under power lines for Aurora Energy, while the other is used for general civil construction works.

"We purchased our latest machine, the PC88, specifically for our road maintenance contract works, as it's ideal for cleaning culverts, drainage works and dig-outs, as well as general maintenance on the roads," Lindsay said.

"And when it's not doing that, we use it in our private civil construction work, alongside our PC130, putting in roadways, clearing sites, setting up for new house site, and the like.

The two loaders are used in a local quarry operation run by the company.

"Our main loader there is the WA320, backed up by our little WA180-1, which is quite an old machine, but still going strong."

Quite a few of the company's machines are six years old or more but Lindsay says longevity is a real strong point with his Komatsu equipment.

"Our PC130s would be the best machines we've ever had; the older of them would be nine years old now, and both of them have gone really well.

"Before we had the PC130s, we had PC60s I had three of them at one stage and again had a really good run out of them, before we upgraded to the larger machines because our work changed."

And that machine performance and reliability, combined with the local product knowledge and support is what keeps Lindsay coming back to Komatsu.