Do not buy a harvester solely from an idle demonstration. Process actual timber under load.
Use it: Before purchasing any used harvester or processor carrier.
A harvester concentrates more technology and more failure modes into a single machine than anything else in a forestry fleet, and most of it is in the head rather than the carrier.
The commercial exposure is what makes inspection discipline worth the effort. In a cut-to-length system, when the harvester stops, wood production stops — there is no parallel machine and no buffer.
The single most important instruction on this list is the last one: process actual timber. A harvester that looks and sounds correct in a yard can still have a failing measuring system, a tired feed motor or pumps that cannot hold flow under sustained load.
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Carrier and crane
Then test under load
Interpreting the answers
What a good answer looks like
Ticking a box is not the same as being satisfied with the answer. These are the lines where the response itself tells you something.
What you asked
A good answer
A answer that should worry you
Measuring system accuracy
Machine-recorded volume reconciles against a manual measure across a range of stem sizes.
A persistent length or diameter bias. On 100,000 m³ a two per cent error is a very large number.
Head hours versus machine hours
Both recorded, with rebuild dates for feed motors and saw motor.
Head hours unknown. The head is where the money is, and where most downtime originates.
Crane pins and slew bearing
Minimal play, with service records.
Detectable play at the pins or bearing, which indicates both wear and how hard the machine has worked.
Hydraulic temperature under sustained load
Stabilises within normal range while processing continuously.
Climbing steadily during the test. Cooling problems are expensive and often chronic.
Working through it
How to use this checklist
Inspect the carrier and crane cold, before any demonstration
Then process timber in your own species and stem size for long enough to reach operating temperature
Check measuring data against a manual measure during that run, across several stem sizes
Ask for head hours, feed motor rebuild dates and saw motor replacement dates in writing
Never buy from an idle demonstration alone
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
How long should a harvester demonstration run for?
Long enough to reach stable operating temperature and process a meaningful sample — an hour of continuous work is a reasonable minimum, and longer is better. Short demonstrations hide cooling problems, intermittent faults and measuring drift, all of which only appear once the machine is working properly rather than warming up.
What if the seller will not let me process my own timber?
Treat that as decisive. A harvester that performs in the seller's timber may behave entirely differently in yours, particularly across the softwood-hardwood divide. If your own material genuinely cannot be brought to the machine, at minimum insist on processing comparable species at comparable stem size, and reconcile the measuring data during the run.
Should head hours change what I pay?
Substantially. The head carries much of the technology and most of the downtime risk, and feed motors, saw motors, pins and bushes are all major periodic costs. A machine with low carrier hours and a high-hour head is not a low-hour machine. Price the head separately in your own assessment even if the seller does not.
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