It was mid-September 2024 when the lowboy backed into our yard. I had coffee in one hand and a flashlight in the other, and the dust from the lot made the late-summer light look yellow. That’s usually when mistakes happen—which is exactly why I refused to skip the pre-delivery inspection on the new LiuGong 925E.
I’m the quality/compliance manager at a LiuGong dealership. I’ve been reviewing every machine we take in before it reaches a customer for about four years now—roughly 50 units a year. In 2024, I rejected about 12% of first deliveries. Not because the machines were bad, but because a loose fitting or a mislabeled manual still counts as a quality failure.
This particular order was for a utility contractor that does site work in mixed clay and shattered limestone. They needed a 25-ton machine to run a 1.2-cubic-yard bucket without working too hard. In the LiuGong excavator lineup, the 925E sits between the 922E and the 936E. It’s a middleweight machine, and honestly, it’s the one I get the most questions about from rental fleets.
I’ve inspected 9018F mini excavators, the 9035E, the 915E, the 936E, and a bunch of wheel loaders, graders, road rollers, forklifts, and backhoe loaders over the years. The 925E matters because it’s small enough to move easily but still big enough for real utility work. The spec sheet on LiuGong’s site (accessed February 2025) puts it in the 25-metric-ton operating class. I don’t want to recite exact digging depths like a brochure—arm configuration changes the real numbers. What I care about is whether the machine matches the machine we quoted.
The first thing I do is a walk-around, from the bucket teeth back to the counterweight. On this 925E, I found what looked like hydraulic residue on the boom pivot. I touched it, smelled it, wiped it with a rag. It was assembly grease, not a leak. That’s exactly the kind of moment where an inspection earns its keep. If we had skipped the check, the customer would have seen that grease and assumed a leak. Then we’d be explaining instead of loading.
The undercarriage is where I spend the most time. Track rollers take every hit from rocks, mud, curbs, and whatever else is left on a construction site. On this machine, every track roller turned smoothly and none had vertical play. I’ve seen factory-new machines with a dry roller from the factory. (Not going to name names; the point is that inspection is not a formality.)
Track tension was within spec, but I still noted that it should be adjusted after the first 50 hours depending on the site. That’s not a defect—it’s just the difference between buying a machine and setting it up for a job.
Here’s where the story turns. After the inspection, I went back to the office to write my report. The sales rep had left the customer’s quote on the desk. It was open, and I saw something that made me stop.
The quote wasn’t a single line. It had line items for the machine, freight, pre-delivery inspection, delivery within 25 miles, and a note that optional hydraulic attachments would be quoted separately if added after the order. That last note is rare. Most quotes don’t want to remind you that extras exist.
About a year earlier, I dealt with another dealer whose quote had exactly one line: “Excavator—$X.” When the machine arrived, additional charges appeared one by one. The $4,000 “transportation and handling” fee was on top of delivery, not instead of it. We had to cover it to keep the client. I won’t name the dealer. The point isn’t to shame them—it’s to remember that a price with no details is not a price.
So I’ve learned to ask “what’s NOT included” before “what’s the price.” The vendor who lists all fees upfront—even if the total looks higher—usually costs less in the end. The LiuGong quote looked higher than a discount quote I’d seen. But when I added up what the discount quote would really cost, the difference was way smaller than the hidden-fee surprise from a year ago.
The inspection had gone well, but the real test came when the customer asked about attachments. Their foreman walked over and asked if the 925E could run a hydraulic compactor attachment for backfill work. He’d been told by another dealer that any excavator in this size class could run anything. A trash compactor from a nearby demo job had gotten him thinking about hydraulic attachments in general. That’s a red flag.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure. The standard auxiliary flow might have been enough, but “might” doesn’t belong in a spec sheet. So I pulled up the operator’s manual and compared the pump flow and pressure numbers to the compactor attachment’s requirements. The standard machine could run it, but only if we added the heavy-duty auxiliary hydraulics option. We updated the quote before the contract was signed, not after. The price went up, and the customer hesitated. For a moment, I thought we’d lost the sale.
But that transparency is why he called us about a month later to price another machine. He asked for pricing “the same way—spell it all out.”
Looking back, I should have demanded an itemized quote from the earlier dealer before agreeing to anything. At the time, I was so focused on the unit price that I didn’t ask about extras. If I could redo that decision, I’d ask for a full breakdown first. But given what I knew then, my choice to push for transparency on the LiuGong purchase was the right one.
This approach worked for us because we’re a mid-size dealer with enough time to do proper pre-delivery inspections. If you’re a one-person outfit with no service crew, your experience might be different. I can only speak to our region and our ordering patterns.
I can’t answer that for you. What I can do is tell you to verify. If you’re comparing liugong excavator models, spend time on the dealer’s inspection process, not just the brochure. For a specific liugong 925e excavator, ask for the hydraulic flow rates with the attachment you plan to run. Ask about track roller spec, track tension, and every line item that isn’t included in the price.
Quote transparency is a quality feature. The machine is only as good as the promise written on the work order.
For us, the 925E has now logged about 250 hours as of February 2025 without a major issue. The first service visit was a loose hydraulic fitting that we found during delivery. That’s not a perfect machine story. It’s a real one. And the next time someone sends me a one-line quote, I’ll either ask for the details or walk away.
Specifications and availability change; confirm current details with your LiuGong dealer and verify attachment compatibility from the manufacturer’s data.
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