You found a used excavator in China — on Alibaba, in a dealer’s yard, through a broker — and the seller is waiting for the balance. What you want is not a general product inspector with a clipboard. You want someone who knows excavators to put hands on that one machine, run it for an hour, measure the undercarriage, read the plates, and tell you in writing whether it is what the listing says. That is what this page is about: what we check, what it costs, and what to ask the seller for before anyone travels.
- The machine ID plate — the full 17-character PIN, readable, not a cropped corner.
- The engine emission label — it says which market the engine was built for.
- The hour meter — with the ignition on.
If the machine is what the listing says, these cost an honest seller nothing. On the Kubota below, the first two photos settled half the questions before we booked a train.
What we check: the 16-point pre-purchase inspection
This is the checklist from a real job, not a brochure: a 5.5-ton Kubota U55-4 in a yard near Hefei, Anhui, inspected for an overseas buyer in September 2026. The buyer sent us fourteen items he wanted confirmed. We answered each one with how it would be checked, and added two of our own. Every item is documented with photographs and video.
Two things on that list deserve a plain word. The stored fault history and the ECU hours can only be read with the dealer’s diagnostic tool. If the seller can have it on site, we read and record them. If not, we say so in the report and give our judgement from the dashboard codes, the hour meter and the wear evidence — we do not quietly skip the item. And the machine has to work: at least one hour of digging, travel and slew on ground the seller provides. A seller who will not give you a working area is telling you something too.
What it costs: the actual proforma for that job
Our own people are billed by the day; the technician, the train, the hotel and the car are passed through at cost with the receipts in the report. This is the proforma we issued for the Hefei inspection in September 2026, converted at 1 USD = 7 CNY:
- 70% in advance to schedule the visit; the remaining 30% once our team is on site and has sent you the on-site video.
- Written report following the checklist above, with photographs and video, within 2 days of the final payment.
- Pre-trip work — checking the seller company, scheduling, all online communication — is not billed.
- Meals were not on this proforma; the 2026 schedule caps them at USD 24 per person per day if you want them included.
How the number moves for your machine
A yard in Shandong — Jinan, Linyi, Qingdao, where we are based — needs no train and no hotel, so the same day’s work lands around USD 550. Guangdong, Shanghai or Jiangsu add a flight and a night. A machine that needs the thumb and coupler fitted first, or a second machine in the same yard, adds a day of the technician and of our inspector. Tell us the yard’s city and we send a fixed number, not a range.
What the photos and the paperwork told us before anyone travelled
On the Hefei job the machine was listed as a late-model U55-4 with a few hundred hours. We checked three things from a desk, in September 2026, before quoting the trip:
| What we compared | What we found | What it decided |
|---|---|---|
| Asking price against the market | The seller’s asking price was about one sixth of what a current-generation U55 sells for on a US dealer lot (USD 71,600 on a listing viewed the same month) | Plate and PIN are checked first, before the undercarriage |
| Model year against the model’s history | Kubota North America replaced the U55-4 with the U55-5 in March 2021; a U55-4 sold as a recent build is a Japanese- or Chinese-market unit, or the year is wrong | Not a US-spec machine — the engine label decides whether it can enter the US at all |
| Who the seller legally is | The company the store is registered to, the age of the store on the platform, and the company named on the seller’s own website did not agree with each other | We verify which entity owns the machine and which bank the proforma pays into, before any balance moves |
None of that is an accusation. A platform badge only confirms that a company exists, not that a machine is what its listing says. The desk check sets the order of the inspection, and it is included in the fee.
Where the machine is going decides what we check first
The undercarriage: where the money hides
Paint is cheap and steel is expensive. A fresh coat hides a lot; the undercarriage does not, because it cannot be repainted into a younger one. On a tracked machine it is usually the largest single wear item you will pay for after purchase, so we measure it rather than look at it:
- Link pitch — measured across four links and compared with the maker’s wear chart. Stretch means the pins and bushings are gone.
- Rollers and idlers — diameters with calipers, against new dimensions.
- Sprockets — tooth profile; hooked or sharpened teeth mean the chain has been running worn for a long time.
- Track shoes and grousers — height left, cracks, bent shoes from side loading.
The report gives a remaining-life percentage for each part as the technician’s estimate, so you can price a new undercarriage into your offer instead of discovering it in the first month.
Flood and fire: the check sellers do not expect
We put this at the top of our own list for yards around Hefei and Anhui, where machines from flooded sites tend to collect and can be refurbished to look very good. Silt lines on the cab floor and seat rails, corrosion inside harness connectors, the back of the display and the ECU, water in the oils, and heat discolouration on metal and rubber parts are what give a flooded or burnt machine away. It takes twenty minutes and it is the check most likely to change your decision.
Questions buyers ask before booking
Can you inspect a machine I found myself on Alibaba or through a broker?
Yes. Most of the machines we inspect were found by the buyer. Send the listing or the seller’s proforma and the three photos; we take it from there.
Will you contact the seller?
Not until you tell us to. We only coordinate the visit — the working area, fuel, opening the covers — and we do it as your inspector, not as a buyer.
What if the machine fails the inspection?
You get the same report either way, with the evidence, and the decision stays yours. On the Hefei job the honest answer might have been to walk away; that is still a result worth USD 861 against a five-figure balance.
Can you also check who the seller really is?
That is the company verification report, included in the fee: the legal entity behind the store, its registration, who holds the machine, and the payee bank on the proforma.
Do you inspect other used machines?
Wheel loaders, forklifts, trucks, tractors and industrial machines follow the same method with a technician for that type of machine. The checklist changes; the way we work does not.
Read next
- How to read an engine plate — real versus fake emission labels
- The sticker-swap economy — how relabelled mini excavators get made
- Japanese auctions versus Chinese yards — where used mini excavators really come from
- How used Japanese excavators reach global markets through China
- Verifying a genuine Japanese engine on a Chinese-built mini excavator
- Mini excavator sourcing from China — if you have not found your machine yet
ID plate, engine emission label, hour meter, and the proforma. We reply within one working day with what they tell us and a fixed quote for the visit to that yard — before you send anyone a cent more.
Prefer a written quote form? Use the inspection quote form.
Figures on this page: a XILINK proforma issued in September 2026 and the 2026 XILINK service fee schedule; dealer listings viewed in September 2026; Kubota model history from the manufacturer’s 2021 North American announcement; EPA rule checked against the current Form 3520-21 on 21 August 2026. The buyer, the seller and the machine’s identifiers are withheld.
Getting this order right matters.
Payment terms, inspection, certification — we handle these every week. Tell us where you are in the process and we will flag what usually goes wrong.
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