Importing Diesel Engine-Powered Machine to UK From China

[Martin Winlow]

Hi,
My company is considering importing a new or used Chinese-sourced (and probably made) self-loading and self-propelled concrete mixer into the UK (see generic picture below). It is powered by a 2.7 litre, turbo-charged diesel engine. I would like to know what restrictions there are on importing such a machine into the UK in terms of emissions. It will be used for agricultural purposes only and not be used on the public highway.

 

[bodgitt&scarperLTD]

Hi,
My company is considering importing a new or used Chinese-sourced (and probably made) self-loading and self-propelled concrete mixer into the UK (see generic picture below). It is powered by a 2.7 litre, turbo-charged diesel engine. I would like to know what restrictions there are on importing such a machine into the UK in terms of emissions. It will be used for agricultural purposes only and not be used on the public highway.

I've no idea but I'd be very surprised if it didn't have to meet tier 5 standards (or whatever the current standard is)

I'd personally avoid Chinese built kit without some form of dealer backup here. Just look at the plethora of 2t 'loading shovels' going for a few K new at auctions- they are shite, everybody knows it and nobody wants them. A recession will only exaccerbate this. Sany and LuiGong are making inroads, but only with a dealer network and five year warranty. All the generic 'Rhinoceros' brand micro diggers and 'Wolf' mini loaders have been imported by the container load by Facebook barrow boys and are total unreliable crap.

I'm interested as I'm in the trade. What are your reasons for importing this? Self loading, self propelled mixers are a rarity here in the UK with batching plants nearly everywhere and mobile batching plants providing on-site, on-demand concrete for larger projects.

If you are insistant that this is the right product for your needs, I'd look to Italy where a few of these kind of machines are manufactured and quality and backup (except over the summer shutdown!) is much better. Personally though, I can't see where you'd be handling enough concrete on site that it would be more cost effective to mix it yourself than to get a lorry in or a batch plant for larger jobs. A good halfway house is a pan mixer or bucket mixer. Obviously you need something to mount it on but I presume you have that sort of kit anyhow.

That Chinese self propelled mixer is a one trick pony that I can't see any use for on UK sites, but you will know your intended application or sales market much better than me. Spares and reliability would worry me greatly. Only the other day there was a small Chinese dozer on FB for £2500. Imported direct from China. Stripped to fix a gearbox seal apparently, and for some reason (read- it's fked) not put back together. The real kicker? Only 26 hours on the clock...

This could be you.... https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/783662826422581

 

[The Byre]

Every word by @bodgitt&scarperLTD is spot-on! And in the West, we have continuous mixers that can be anything from under £1,000 to a thing for a million.

As for agricultural use - WTF? No - I can't think of an agricultural use! Laying concrete is laying concrete. Once the concrete is laid, you stick a shed or barn or parlour on there and that's it. The need for further concrete is gone!

Also remember - yes, these things may 'only' cost $30k in China FOB, but that translates (after duties and transport, guarantee reserve, etc.) to about £50k to £60k here. And if you do the serious thing and go there and negotiate a deal that gives you a reliable machine with spare parts back-up, etc., then you are going to have to go there and spend real money, testing and analysing - nothing wrong with that, except that I do not see a market for that sort of machine here!

The Chinese make all kinds of interesting pieces of kit that we seldom use - garlic and rice harvesters for example - but from Dorset to Drumnadrochit, I have yet to see any paddy fields in the UK! For the agri-sector, I would have thought that a small tractor with cab, PTO and loader would find more market demand.

In general, I would hesitate to import any random Chinese motor that has not been tested. For example, a Honda engine (built in China) had 2 parts of aluminium per liter oil after 50 hours, a YinXiang (Kohler - also built in China) had 4 and a no-name had 36 in a test I witnessed. That level of engine wear is concerning, to say the least!

 

[Martin Winlow]

bodgitt&scarperLTD: "That Chinese self propelled mixer is a one trick pony that I can't see any use for on UK sites..."

... unless you live on a particularly remote island 2.5 hours on an extremely unreliable ferry run by a bunch of criminals totally in bed with a corrupt political party (aka the SNP)!

@The Byre: I have considerable experience of importing goods from China and have found most of it to represent entirely what money I paid. A doubling of costs for import fees and transport is nowhere near my experience. My very rough rule of thumb is that the US$ cost is the UK£ cost... but I have not yet imported a large machine, the biggest being a small digger. All the kit I have imported thus far will see relatively little use compared to normal commercial use. So, the comparatively poor quality is usually not an issue - and we also have a very well developed 'make do and mend' attitude (and facilities/experience) up here that generally makes up for the lower quality of these cheap machines.

But can someone answer my original Q, please...?​

 

[The Byre]

You islanders are always quetching about the ferries! You were complaining in the 50s and you are complaining today! It must be some obscure Gaelic tradition! A bit like soaking Harris tweed in urine and then singing songs about it!

"Feumaidh sinn gearain mu na h-aiseagan - 's e traidisean a th' ann air an eilean SEO! Seinnidh mi òran mu dheidhinn."

 

[The Byre]

But can someone answer my original Q, please...?

The magic words to look for are - Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM) Regulations.

Have a look here -

CEMA - European Agricultural Machinery - Post-Brexit: Latest information on rules for engines used on Non-Road Mobile Machinery and agricultural vehicles

www.cema-agri.org

Everything is uncertain, thanks to Brexit - so, as you are on the most remote island of them all (unless you sit with the seagulls on Rockall) where things like MOT just do not apply, I can't see HM inspectors breathing down your neck - though you never know!

 

[Maple Sourcing]

Be careful about the quality.

 

[WaveJumper]

Why have all the hassle can you hire in what you need for the task, let someone else have all the maintenance issues and depreciation costs.

 

[The Byre]

Why have all the hassle can you hire in what you need for the task, let someone else have all the maintenance issues and depreciation costs.

Because he is on the remotest island imaginable - one thing I did discover is that the OP would get into serious trouble if he is caught removing sand to make his concrete from the beaches there. The last time someone tried to do that (in 2013) they nearly ended up in prison! He would have to apply to the local council and to the owners of the island - or ship it in at great expense!

Everything is different on the island - it is an offense to keep ordinary honey bees - only European Dark Bees are permitted. It has a bookshop - well, actually more of a bookroom, full of books about the islands. There is a one-person publishing company and a two-person brewery, a shop with a post office, a bakery and a pub-come-hotel. Since 2000 the population has shot up to about 130. The island is owned by some Canadian financier.

It was all happening in 2013, the year Ian Rankin visited the island, the bee ban was introduced and the last crime was recorded - someone broke a wing mirror on a car. It was also the year that someone took sand from a beach, which caused the council to launch a major crime investigation, which had to be dropped for lack of evidence - it later transpired that builders from the mainland had taken the gravel and sand. Until then, the islanders had paid the island owners £10 a tonne for gravel and sand.

 

[bodgitt&scarperLTD]

... unless you live on a particularly remote island 2.5 hours on an extremely unreliable ferry run by a bunch of criminals totally in bed with a corrupt political party (aka the SNP)!

@The Byre: I have considerable experience of importing goods from China and have found most of it to represent entirely what money I paid. A doubling of costs for import fees and transport is nowhere near my experience. My very rough rule of thumb is that the US$ cost is the UK£ cost... but I have not yet imported a large machine, the biggest being a small digger. All the kit I have imported thus far will see relatively little use compared to normal commercial use. So, the comparatively poor quality is usually not an issue - and we also have a very well developed 'make do and mend' attitude (and facilities/experience) up here that generally makes up for the lower quality of these cheap machines.​

​

But can someone answer my original Q, please...?​

Now your question makes perfect sense.

But learn from the example of the bulldozer. You can make do and mend all you like, but when it shits the bed at twenty hours from new your ‘light use only’ means sweet FA and you’re even further from China than most with your ferry.

I would stick to a secondhand European model, but only after you’ve examined the work you want to do and ruled out a cheaper pan mixer or static plant and something to load it. I can’t believe that you won’t have a need for a loader of some description, for example. A cheap pan mixer mounted upon on a tractor already on the island could be loaded with your mini digger. Or buy your own tractor, and then you have a dumper once paired with a cheap trailer.

You’re currently still looking at spending an awful lot on a one trick pony with an exceptionally limited amount of use on a small island- unless you plan to rent it out, in which case you need reliability!

Don’t get me wrong- I love Chinese kit, and both @The Byre and I will attest to the quality of our Chinese sawmills. But larger machinery is a totally different kettle of fish. Any one of the major components is liable to shit the bed from day 1, and there is zero spares availability. See bulldozer.

 

[The Byre]

I fear our brave OP has run away!

Sawmill - possibly the best equipment purchase I ever made! Planks and beams for all sorts of things are never in short supply! And over 10 very large pine trees are now waiting to get cut down and turned into more planks and beams for our next building project - and I'll start just as soon as My Herpes (or Everi as that are now called) has managed to 'unlose', i.e. find, my pallet forks so that I can pick up the logs quickly.

 

[The Byre]

Friday night at 7 pm the courier from My Herpes rocked up - if my wife had not happened to be outside at that moment we would have never noticed this miracle happening!

They now call themselves Everi and everi time we have had problems with couriers, it was always with My Herpes - a unique record!

Off the top of my head -

A customer ordered 1,000 CDs that had to come from Poland - and, of course, these vanished into the ether. Ten days later, the customer was mowing his lawn in the sunshine when he was hit on the head by a flying box of CDs. He went to his garden gate only to see a youngster running away down the road. According to the delivery report, it had been signed for - so in the strange world of My Herpes, being hit on the head amounts to the same as a signature!

I ordered two horse blankets that didn't arrive. I called the vendor who, after a week of hoping that the horse blankets would put in a guest appearance, said she would send another pair - as I was on the phone to her confirming the address, a boy appeared carrying a tattered and torn parcel - the horse blankets had arrived (and being rather robust, they were both in one piece).

Now a two-week wait for a pair of pallet forks to make the 14-mile journey from the local depot to us at seven in the evening. That is almost as long as it took for the pallet forks to come from China to the wholesaler! And My Herpes is a German company (owned by catalogue company Otto Versand).

There has to be a joke in there somewhere, folks - but I haven't found it yet!

 

[The Byre]

P.S.

Don’t get me wrong- I love Chinese kit,

I have had no experience in that direction - but I did enjoy a night with Tropical Kitt and she brought her own tube of K-Y which was nice of her!

 

[IanSuth]

Every word by @bodgitt&scarperLTD is spot-on! And in the West, we have continuous mixers that can be anything from under £1,000 to a thing for a million.

As for agricultural use - WTF? No - I can't think of an agricultural use! Laying concrete is laying concrete. Once the concrete is laid, you stick a shed or barn or parlour on there and that's it. The need for further concrete is gone!

I can think of an agri use.


We used to use a large cement mixer with power shovel thing attached (1/2 tonne batch from memory) to mix seed grain we had kept back from best bits of our fields with slug pellets and mercurial dressing - we then broadcast sewed that rather than using a seed drill (so the slugs couldn't follow the rows and because a varispreader on the back of a little IH B250 fitted with the back tyres off our B634 was lower ground pressure so could get on our wet clay fields without puddling them.

We only stopped when the mercurial seed dressing got hard to source (it is an anti fungicidal essential on wet fields)

 

[CHUKTC]

You may find this link helpful: https://www.conformance.co.uk/ce-ma...4-non-road-mobile-machinery-exhaust-emissions

 

[Martin Winlow]

I fear our brave OP has run away!

Sawmill - possibly the best equipment purchase I ever made! Planks and beams for all sorts of things are never in short supply! And over 10 very large pine trees are now waiting to get cut down and turned into more planks and beams for our next building project - and I'll start just as soon as My Herpes (or Everi as that are now called) has managed to 'unlose', i.e. find, my pallet forks so that I can pick up the logs quickly.

Nope! Still here!... but for some reason I'm not getting notifications of replies...

I think the Euro V engine requirement is going to kill the idea anyway so, a used EU self-loader is probably a more sensible answer. There are a million and one things that we could do with it - all stuff that has been bodged or ignored entirely for the last 100 years (when skilled labour was cheap and lived here!) and, yes, 'hiring' (no actual money involved, you understand!) would also be a large part of its role...

Thanks for all of your inputs...

MW

 

[nestorsong]

If you are not professional with the repair and maintenance, don't expect a good operating life.

 

[fisicx]

If you are not professional with the repair and maintenance, don't expect a good operating life.

Doesn’t matter how good you are at maintenance if you can’t get the spares

 

[Martin Winlow]

By way of an update I got a quote for importing a machine without an engine! The company concerned has quoted a 2.4m3 model at ~US$22kCIF Felixstowe with a Cummings Euro5 engine and ~US$17k without... They have also been interested (and kind) enough to forward me technical drawings of the engine, engine bay (including engine mounting dimension info) and torque converter (that the engine bolts to). I'm almost thinking about a battery electric conversion (it's what I do)... I have emailed conformance.co.uk that CHUKTC was kind enough to provide. Interestingly, they say agricultural vehicles are under different legislation (no link either) and no mention of what happens if you import a machine designed to have an engine but without one fitted... perhaps unsurprisingly.

 

[nestorsong]

Doesn’t matter how good you are at maintenance if you can’t get the spares

Indeed, it is called a hidden cost.