If you're in the market for used heavy equipment, chances are you're doing what most people do: browsing listings and sorting by hours. 

Lower hours = better deal, right?

Not always.

A machine's hour meter tells you how long the engine was on. What it doesn't tell you is what the machine was actually doing during that time, or how well it was treated. That’s where detailed product status reports come in. They give you a behind-the-scenes look at how the machine lived, not just how old it is on paper.

For example, we’ll take one status report we did on a 2021 Cat D8T bulldozer that had logged 5,310 before it came to us, to better explain the topic.

Why machine hours alone can be misleading

Here’s the deal: just because a machine shows fewer hours doesn’t mean it’s in better shape. What matters is how those hours were spent. That’s where equipment reports, like the one we’re looking at today, tell a much deeper, more honest story.

Idle time isn’t work time

Idle hours count the time the engine ran but the machine didn’t move or work. No blade use, no ripper, just running. It still burns fuel, racks up hours, and inflates maintenance intervals, but without real wear.

In the D8T report we reviewed, the dozer logged 5,310 total engine hours. Out of those, 934 hours were pure idle: over 17% of its life doing nothing but sitting with the engine on.

That drops its actual working hours down to roughly 4,370 hours. So if you're comparing it to a "lower-hour" dozer that worked harder and idled less, the higher-hour one might actually have more usable life left.

Gear usage tells you the job story

How a machine shifts through gears says everything about how it was used. The report shows this dozer spent:

• 2383 hours in 1st forward.

• 1454 hours in 1st reverse.

• Only 179 hours in 2nd forward.

• And just 4 hours in 3rd forward.

First gear is where dozers do their work: slow, high-torque pushing. Reverse 1st supports the same during pullbacks. Almost no time in 2nd and 3rd = this machine wasn’t doing transport work or high-speed maneuvers. That's a healthy, purpose-used dozer, and not a hauler or a misused machine.

Minimal fault hours = healthy system

Diagnostics matter, but not just whether there were faults. We also look at how long faults were active. This report shows:

• Zero hours of hydraulic overheating

• Zero hours of filter bypass warnings

• Only 0.12 hours where the powertrain filter was bypassed; less than 10 minutes total.

That’s textbook: filters caught what they needed, and the system cleared itself. Nothing shows signs of stress, overheating, or neglect. Fault codes weren’t just cleared, they were never chronic.

Mileage on a dozer? Surprisingly useful

Mileage is common on wheeled machines like trucks, loaders, even graders, but rare on tracked equipment like dozers and excavators. Still, when available, it’s valuable.

This dozer logged 12,797 km total, split almost evenly between forward (6,839 km) and reverse (5,939 km). That balance confirms its usage pattern: back-and-forth dozing, not long hauls or misapplication. Combine that with the hours and gear data, and the story adds up: a properly operated, site-working unit.

Why does this matter, even if you don’t know engines

You don’t need to be a mechanic to spot red flags. Reports like these reveal more than your typical sellers want to show. They expose idle inflation, improper use, neglected faults; all things you’d never catch from hours and photos alone.

In this industry, this kind of clarity is rare. Listings often hide behind vague descriptions or cherry-picked stats. But at Makana.com, we’re flipping that. Every verified machine is backed by full reports, usage data, fault history, and component breakdowns.

No gatekeeping. Just real info, so you know exactly what you’re buying.

Wrapping up:

Machine hours are only the start. The real story is in how the machine lived.

And we’re here to show you that full picture, every time.

Browse our catalog of pre-owned, properly treated equipment available for sale now on makana.com.