I've been managing equipment purchases for a small excavation company for nine years. That's not a long time compared to the guys who've been in business since the 1980s, but it's long enough to make 14 significant mistakes—totaling roughly $68,000 in wasted budget. I keep a checklist now so our team doesn't repeat them. The first item on that checklist is not brand. It's machine category.
I think most small contractors buy the Yanmar skid steer loader too early and the Yanmar 60 excavator too late.
Before you call me a brand fanboy, hear me out. This isn't about which logo is on the side. It's about which machine solves the bottleneck that actually makes you money. In my experience, the answer depends on your work, and I learned that the expensive way.
Everything I'd read before I started running our fleet said a skid steer loader is the more versatile machine. Bucket, forks, broom, auger—it can do a little of everything. In practice, I found the opposite. The Yanmar 60 excavator was the machine that let us say yes to larger jobs. The skid steer loader, as useful as it is, only buys time on surface work.
Why does this matter? Because a machine purchase isn't just a cost. It's a capacity decision. If you can't dig a 6-foot trench without calling in another company, the loader's versatility only helps part of the day. What I mean is that the cheaper option isn't just a budget decision—it's about what jobs you can take, what your crew can handle, and what you have to sub out when the site becomes more complex than the estimate predicted.
In September 2022, I approved a rental for what the estimator called a quick grading job. The crew showed up with a skid steer loader, but the project turned out to have a 90-foot sewer lateral that needed to be at 3 feet. The loader scraped the top inch. Then it sat there while I paid $850 for an emergency excavator delivery and $2,100 for a rental that had already stopped being useful.
I knew I should have walked the site and checked the utility plan. I didn't, because the pre-bid notes said surface only. Well, the odds caught up with me. That was the day I started asking one question on every job: what has to happen below grade? If the answer is anything more than shallow grading, a Yanmar 60 excavator should be in the plan.
This was the second time we had the wrong machine on site. We didn't have a formal equipment request process, and that's exactly how a foreman ends up renting a skid steer for a job that needs an excavator. After that, I created a pre-rental checklist: site access, underground scope, disposal volume, and the distance from the trench to the pile. It's saved us from repeating the same mistake.
Look, I'm not saying the Yanmar skid steer loader is a bad machine. It's not. If your work is backfilling, loading, final grading, demolition cleanup, or moving material around a mud-logged site, it's often faster than an excavator. The loader can pick up and carry material across a site; the excavator is not designed to do that efficiently. I recommend the Yanmar skid steer loader without hesitation for that class of work. Actually, let me correct myself: I recommend it for that class of work, but not for every class of work.
I went back and forth between the Yanmar 60 excavator and the Yanmar skid steer loader for two weeks when we first bought equipment. The excavator offered digging depth. The loader offered speed and multiple attachments. On paper, the loader made sense. But my gut said our jobs were mostly trenches, edges, and tight backyards. We ended up buying the excavator first, and it was the right call for us.
This lesson is not about the big iron. It's about the support equipment that shows up on site and wastes an entire day when it's the wrong size. People ask me about the single stage vs two stage air compressor question as if there is one correct answer. There isn't. The answer only makes sense after you know your duty cycle, not before.
A single-stage compressor is probably fine if you're blowing out filters, topping off tires, and running a blowgun for a few minutes at a time. A two-stage compressor is for continuous air tools, sandblasting, and jobs where the compressor will run for longer than a coffee break. I bought the cheaper single-stage unit in 2021 because the price difference was $400. It ran for twenty minutes, shut off, and would not restart until it cooled. We lost half a day on a punch list. The $400 savings cost me about $1,200 in billed time and a client relationship hit.
Don't make the same mistake I made by mixing up pump categories either. A balloon pump is a cheap, hand-operated tool used to inflate sewer test plugs. It has a job. It should not be compared with a compressor. A pool pump can move clean water through a filter, but it's not a dewatering pump for a muddy excavation. I've had the balloon pump question, the pool pump question, and the single stage vs two stage air compressor question show up in the same week from people trying to save money by using the wrong category of equipment. The question isn't which is cheaper. The question is which is designed for this specific duty.
I hear a lot of people say the skid steer is the safer first buy because it does more tasks. That sounds logical. In practice, it only holds if those tasks are actually on your calendar. If you're a landscaping contractor doing final grades and material hauling, a skid steer loader will probably do more for you than a 6-ton excavator. I'll say that plainly. This isn't a brand loyalty argument. I've lost enough jobs to know that the right answer starts with your next three projects, not your idea of what a machine should do.
The other counterargument is rental convenience. I'll rent an excavator when I need it. That works if you only need it once a year. But rental days add up, and the availability of a quality machine isn't guaranteed when your schedule slips. There were four dry weeks in a row in 2023 when we used the Yanmar 60 excavator every single day. Renting that would have paid for half the machine by itself.
Honestly, neither—unless the work is there. But if the work is there, here's my rule of thumb: if your jobs involve underground utilities, foundations, drainage, or anything deeper than a few inches, start with the excavator. If your work is surface prep, cleanup, or moving bulk material, start with the skid steer loader.
I'm not 100% sure this holds for every industry and every market, but in my experience, the machine that gets the hardest part of the job across the finish line is the one you should buy first. For most of our jobs, that's the Yanmar 60 excavator. For others, it's the Yanmar skid steer loader. There's no single best answer. There is, however, a more honest one than the manufacturer brochures will give you.
If you're making this decision, do me a favor: walk the next job site before you sign anything. Look at what's underground. Ask how many times you'll move dirt more than 30 feet. That will settle the argument faster than any spec sheet.
Specs and availability based on Yanmar North American product information, accessed January 2025. Verify current models, attachments, and rental options with your local dealer.
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