Hit 500 hours on my Grove TMS9000 with zero downtime

I checked my run meter yesterday and saw 500 hours since the last major service, no breakdowns or cable issues. That's a personal best for me after 12 years running crawlers and truck cranes. Anyone else tracking their longest stretch between major repairs on a specific rig?

3 comments

3 Comments

dianahayes24d ago

My 2009 Liebherr LTM 1050 had a stretch of 600 hours last year before a control valve seal went bad, and I almost had a heart attack when I saw the diagnostic light come on. Honestly, zero downtime that long just means you either got lucky or you're not pushing the machine hard enough to actually find the weak spots. I'd rather have a minor failure every 200 hours that I catch and fix than to be sitting on a ticking time bomb where something major like a swing bearing or a hydraulic pump grenades itself at 501 hours. The cable issues you avoided probably mean you're running lighter picks than the machine is rated for, which is fine for uptime but not great if you're trying to maximize your rental or job revenue. Plus those Grove meters are known to glitch and skip hours when the temperature sensor gets flaky, so that 500 might not even be real numbers anyway.

taylorc4024d ago

Oh great, so now I have to worry about my crane's hour meter lying to me too? My 2008 Grove probably thinks it's got a solid 3,000 hours when in reality it's been running on borrowed time and wishful thinking.

grantw3224d ago

Nodding along here @dianahayes, I had a 2006 Grove that threw a code so alarming I swore it was saying "prepare to die" but it was just a loose ground wire, made me feel like a real dummy for losing sleep over it.