Strengths Good operator comfort, visibility and useability. Fast hydraulics and great feel through the controls. Great turning circle and the ride control makes travel comfortable. Great breakout loader and hoe and aux hydraulics run attatchments well. The outer box design of the extenda hoe makes it great for clamping objects between the bucket and stick and then retract or extend which is handy for loading trees and the like into tippers. Cab access and egress is also a breeze as are service checks and maintenance duties.

Weaknesses The newer models of the 315SG that are made in South Africa seem to suffer from a severe lack of quality control in the factory. Our newest machine that was purchased in July 07 has suffered over 250 hrs downtime in its 705 hr life time.It has amassed a list of over 50 faults, both major and minor, within 10 months of purchase. While the problems were thought to have been an assembly issue we have now been told that oil samples show that the rear diff will require replacement due to high metallic content in the oil. This is a major point of interestas it shows that the problems may also stem from the driveline assembly factories.

Overall Our first 315SG has clocked up over 2000 hrs of trouble free operation in a variety of work climates and unfortunately our newer machine has fallen well short of the benchmark set by our first machine. Our work area covers most of Western Australias inland extremes and we need equipment that our operators can have faith in and unfortunately the latest 315SG does not carry that on its shoulders. Through this all we have been well looked after by the agent Hitachi Construction Machinery and I would like to comend them on their efforts to get our confidence back in this machine.