Bruder Toys Caterpillar Excavator

Caterpillar Excavator, neat toy - does not work well in dirt
I bought this for our 3yo son who loves heavy equipment and digging in the dirt. This is a cool toy as far as being a pretty good replica of a real one but it does not work well in dirt or sand. Fine sediment gets caught in tracks and after a short amount of time, the tracks quit turning. Then the handles on the arm do not move the bucket well. My son has since ripped off the tracks and does not do any digging with it but still enjoys pushing it around. Don't buy this if you want your kid to actually dig dirt, it would be good inside toy or outside but away from dirt or sand. But, I think it was intended for playing in these areas, so the rig is not that well designed.
Broken after 3 days
My son is obssesed with excavators and if ever there was one made out of durable material it would be great fun for the kids. But I cannot find one that will actually dig up dirt. I like that this one didn't have batteries or sounds, but unfortunately it also didn't have any durability either. The little hinge that makes the arm work broke within three days of use. Bummer.
Excellent
My 3 year old loves the excavator. It has big handles so his little hands don't have any problems diggging with bucket. It was a wonderful addition to our "big machine" fleet.
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Bruder Man Tga Tow Truck With Cross Country Vehicle

Much better than expected
I bought this toy for my twin boys for Christmas. They love it! It has lots of working/moving parts, well constructed and the wheels roll amazingly smooth. They have already spent hours and hours playing with it. My husband likes playing with it too. We got a few other Bruder trucks and are just as pleased with them also.
Flimsy truck - not up to Bruder standards
We are big fans of the Bruder trucks for our 3-year old son. Most of them are built of thick, durable, high quality plastic, and have interesting moving parts. We have the cement mixer, the recycling truck, the excavator, the crane and a few others. We highly recommend all of those. They are extremely durable and our son plays with them for hours. However, this particular Bruder item is not up to standards, and is somewhat flimsy. The plastic is either a different material or thinner than what we have come to expect from Bruder. The various attachments such as the chains and the wheel wells for the flatbed are also flimsy. Perhaps Bruder is experimenting with outsourcing to China, or just made some bad decisions with respect to this particular product.

We used to buy Bruder based on pictures on the internet. But now we feel we need to go to the store and poke and prod the product prior to purchasing to make sure the same designers / manfuacturing facility...
Too hard for the younger ones, too boring for the older ones.
Made well, but hasn't held anyone's interest for too long. Our youngest boy can't see how it goes together, and oldest doesn't care about it at all. (Almost 4 and 6 years old). The winch can't really handle the weight of the Jeep, and does project or retract well. External parts don't stay on well either. It gets some play from time to time, but it is too frustrating and doesn't work well enough to play with long. It's marginal.
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