Why maintenance matters on site
When a piece of earthmoving equipment dies at 10am, it doesn’t stop just one job. The crew waiting on it still gets paid, the trucks booked behind it still turn up, and the programme slips. That downtime usually costs more than the repair.
Safety is the other half. A chafed hose, a dead reversing alarm or a grabbing brake is a hazard long before it’s a breakdown. Owners also protect resale value with a clean service history, and hirers avoid damage charges when a machine goes back in the condition it arrived. If you hire through Quotor, a good chunk of this routine is probably yours for the hire period, depending on your agreement (more on that below).
Daily pre-start checks
Do these before the engine’s turned over, with the machine on level ground.
- Check engine oil, coolant and hydraulic oil. Milky oil means coolant is getting in, and foamy or low hydraulic oil points to a leak or air in the system. Look under the machine for fresh drips.
- Run your eyes along hoses and fittings. Wet patches, or dust caked onto a fitting, show a slow leak. Chafed or bulging hoses are next to fail.
- On tracks, look for missing shoe bolts and tension that’s visibly saggy or drum-tight. On tyres, look for cuts, bulges, low pressure and loose wheel nuts.
- Walk around and test the reversing alarm, beacon, horn and work lights. Cracked or muddy glass counts as a defect.
- The seatbelt should latch, the extinguisher gauge should sit in the green, and steps and handrails should be clear of mud and grease.
- Write down the hour meter reading in the logbook and anything you found. If a check fails, tag the machine out and report it. An untagged machine with a known fault gets used by the next person.
Weekly and monthly checks
Weekly, grease every point on the machine’s grease chart, not just the easy ones. Pins and bushes on the boom and bucket linkage get missed most, and a dry pin wears out fast. Wipe the nipple first and look at what’s pushed out. Gritty or milky grease means contamination. In dusty conditions, check the air filter restriction indicator or clean the pre-cleaner. Then check attachments: worn teeth and cutting edges, quick hitch pins and locks, and the hoses running to them.
Monthly, look at the undercarriage. Oil weeping from roller seals, uneven wear on rollers and sprockets and packed mud all show up here, and track tension should match the figure in the manual. Check battery terminals for corrosion, belts for cracking or glazing, and drain water from the fuel tank sump.
Scheduled servicing by engine hours
Every machine has an hour meter that counts engine running time. Service intervals run off that meter instead of the calendar, because a machine working flat out ages differently from one that sits idling. Preventive maintenance of construction equipment just means doing this work on schedule rather than after something fails.
Many makers use a similar ladder. Treat the table as a typical pattern, because the operator’s manual for your make and model sets the real intervals and fluid grades.
| Typical interval | Typical work |
|---|---|
| 250 hours | Engine oil and filter, greasing, general inspection |
| 500 hours | The 250-hour service plus fuel filters and closer checks |
| 1,000 hours | The 500-hour service plus hydraulic filters and gearbox or axle oil checks |
| 2,000 hours | Major fluid changes and the most thorough inspection |
Maintenance by machine type
The daily and weekly routine above applies to every machine. These are the extras for excavators, forklifts, loaders and rollers.
Excavators
The undercarriage and slew ring need the most attention on excavators. Check the slew ring’s grease and mounting bolts, and watch track tension and roller wear. The boom, stick and bucket pins work hard too, so keep up the greasing.
Forklifts
Inspect the mast, chains and forks on any forklift. Chains should be oiled, with no stiff links or visible stretch, and forks should have no cracks near the heel. For LPG machines, check hose and cylinder connections. For battery machines, check terminals and the charging area’s ventilation.
Loaders
Tyres take the punishment on loaders, so check for sidewall cuts and loose wheel nuts. Grease the articulation joint at the centre pivot, and check bucket pins and the cutting edge.
Rollers
The drum and vibration system are where rollers differ. Check that scrapers sit right and spray nozzles aren’t blocked, because material sticking to the drum spoils the surface. Check the oil level in the vibration housing against the manual.
Keeping service records and running a maintenance schedule
Keep one logbook per machine. Record the date, hour meter reading, what was done, who did it, the parts and fluids used, and any defects with their fix. Photos at handover and return help if there’s a dispute about condition. Good records also back up your WHS or OHS obligations and lift resale value.
Across a fleet or a job, sort machines by hours left until the next service and book the work into gaps between phases. On larger jobs, it’s often the project manager who decides when a machine can leave site, so get service windows into the programme early. Construction equipment maintenance management software can flag upcoming services automatically, and a spreadsheet does the job for a handful of machines. Our guide to construction equipment management covers the fleet-level picture.
Who is responsible when you hire
People often mix up the law and the contract, so take them separately.
Start with the law. Under the model WHS laws, which apply in every state and territory except Victoria, whoever has management or control of plant must make sure it’s maintained and inspected by a competent person, following the manufacturer’s instructions. Victoria has its own OHS Act 2004 and OHS Regulations 2017, and these put duties on suppliers who hire out plant, including inspection and maintenance between hires. These duties can overlap, so a supplier and a hirer can hold them at the same time.
The contract decides the day-to-day split. Typically the supplier handles scheduled servicing and delivers the machine in good order. The hirer typically does the daily checks, greasing and refuelling, reports defects and pays for damage beyond fair wear. In dry hire your own operator does the daily checks. In wet hire the supplier’s operator usually does them, and the supplier commonly stays responsible for servicing. Neither arrangement automatically moves legal duties, so get the split in writing.
Quotor connects contractors with suppliers across Australia, and wet hire listings show which machines come with an operator. Before you commit to a supplier, ask when the machine was last serviced, who does the daily checks and who covers damage. That’s part of good equipment procurement, and it’s far easier to settle before the machine arrives.
Common causes of breakdowns on site and how to avoid them
Dirty or low fluids do a lot of quiet damage. Contaminated hydraulic oil wears pumps and valves, and water in the fuel damages injectors, so the daily fluid check and the hour-based filter changes catch most of it.
Dry pins and bushes wear until there’s visible slop, and that repair costs far more than the grease. The weekly grease round prevents it.
In dust, a blocked air filter chokes the engine, and you’ll see black smoke and lost power. Watch the restriction indicator.
Lifting or digging past a machine’s rated capacity strains pins, booms and hydraulics. Cracks and bent pins show up in the weekly attachment check, so don’t skip it.
Track tension that’s too tight wears sprockets and rollers quickly, and too loose lets the track come off. The monthly undercarriage check covers both.
Slamming attachments into rock or ignoring warning lights shortens a machine’s life, and the logbook will show the repeat faults if you read it. Running past a service interval is a common route to an expensive failure, and the hour meter tells you when it’s due.
Downloadable daily pre-start checklist
Print the daily checks above on one sheet and keep it in the cab –
Click Here to Download Daily Pre-Start Checklist