In August 2024, I asked our owners to approve a crusher purchase that looked, on paper, like a mistake: €660,000 for a new Kleemann MC 110i EVO2 Stage V instead of €390,000 for a used Kleemann Backenbrecher with a Stage 3B engine. After running my five-year TCO model, the expensive machine turned out to be the cheaper investment by roughly €180,000. That's the short version. I'm writing this now, after the first full season under the new machine, and the model held up.

I know how that sounds. I've spent eight years as the cost controller for a 60-person earthworks and aggregates company in South Tyrol, and my default position has always been to save money at the purchase line. I keep a cost database for every mobile unit we own—30+ machines, from excavators to loaders to crushers. “Buy used, buy smart, buy cheap” has worked for me before. This time, the data said the opposite.

Let me explain where the numbers came from, because this decision wasn't about brand loyalty or nationalism. It was about what a used Kleemann stage 3 machine actually costs once you stop looking at the asking price.

Why we needed a Kleemann Backenbrecher in the first place

In mid-2024, our company signed a subcontract to supply about 45,000 tonnes of certified base and drainage material for infrastructure tied to the 2026 Winter Olympics skiing venues near Cortina. The work was unglamorous: access roads, a sub-base for a cable car station, and the compacted layers underneath the ski slopes. The schedule was fixed by an event that will not move.

The deposit is mica-schist, and we needed a primary jaw crusher that could be relocated twice within two short alpine seasons. That pointed to a mobile Kleemann Backenbrecher—specifically the MC 110 class that dominated our comparisons. The real choice was between a new MC 110i EVO2 (Stage V) and a used MC 110R EVO (Stage 3B) that a German rental company was selling with 5,900 hours on the clock.

Christopher, our site project manager, is a former Wirtgen Group mechanic, so he can argue about swing jaws before breakfast. He flagged a known bearing issue on that generation at around 6,000 hours and said: “If that happens during a penalty window, nobody's going to thank you for the purchase price.” I don't have the engineering skills to verify it myself, but our own service records on older Kleemann units showed the same pattern. I had to take it seriously.

Still, when I saw the price difference, I wanted to take the risk. €261,000 is not a rounding error in our budget.

What my first instinct missed

For the record, I was ready to buy the used machine for the usual reasons: lower depreciation, faster commissioning, known history. I've learned to ask “what's not included” before asking “what's the price” in procurement, and in this case the list of “not included” items was longer than the spec sheet. It took three weeks of going through the numbers to see how deep that list ran.

Our own costing process had a real gap, too: we tracked fuel in liters per hour, but not in liters per tonne at altitude. The first version of my model literally couldn't see the biggest advantage of the new machine until Christopher demanded I start weighing the batches properly. Let me rephrase that—it wasn't the weighing; it was the hourly fuel logging that changed. We now log both, every shift.

Let me be honest about one more thing: this was not a case of clever green branding or wanting to look modern. It was the opposite of sexy. It was fuel curves, service intervals, and penalty clauses.

The TCO lines that changed the decision

I want to share the model, because “buy the new machine” is useless advice without the math behind it. And I should say upfront: these are our assumptions, not universal truth. If you're in a different market, your numbers will shift.

1. Capital cost after resale — the €261,000 gap shrinks to ~€12,000

Purchase price alone is the wrong comparison. EU Stage V emission limits (Regulation (EU) 2016/1628) have applied to new non-road machines since 2019, and in the Alps, older emission standards are becoming a practical problem: several valleys restrict which machines can work near ski infrastructure. In our market, a five-year-old Stage V Kleemann retained roughly 55% of its new value. The used Stage 3B machine, after five more years and 10,000 hours on the clock, would end up in Eastern Europe at around €100,000–110,000. Net capital loss on the new unit was about €297,000; on the used unit, about €285,000. The difference: roughly €12,000. The huge spread at the signature line shrank to almost nothing.

2. Fuel and AdBlue at 1,900 metres — a net saving of ~€35,000

At altitude, with a mix of crusher loads and idling, the EVO2 generation used about 22% less fuel per tonne than the older Stage 3B unit. With diesel around €1.55/litre in Q2 2024, that came to roughly €42,000 over the five-year window. The new machine uses AdBlue (around €6,500 over the same period), so the net fuel advantage was about €35,000. Fuel is the line most cost comparisons treat as a footnote. It's not.

3. Maintenance — another ~€48,000 in favor of the new unit

The used machine's 5,900-hour major service interval landed in the first year: bearings, seals, toggle plate, conveyor belt. I estimated €34,000 in year-one work, and I was probably being optimistic. The new machine had a two-year factory warranty and more predictable intervals. Over five years, the maintenance gap reached €48,000. This is where “cheap” starts to leak money quietly.

4. Availability and the penalty clause — ~€95,000

This was the heaviest line. Our contract carried a penalty of about €2,800 per day for late fill deliveries. Based on our fleet records, older Kleemann units at altitude ran around 82% availability in year one. The new EVO2 unit in its first season ran 94%. Over 150 days per season, that's roughly 17 lost days per season. At €2,800 a day, that's about €47,000 per season—€95,000 across two seasons. No amount of purchase price savings survives that kind of gap.

5. Permit and compliance risk — the hidden tax

Several tenders for the 2026 Winter Olympics skiing construction work explicitly limited older diesel engines at sites near the slopes. We estimated a realistic €15,000–20,000 in delays and rental backup if the Stage 3 unit faced a permit challenge. It wasn't certain, but “not certain” is not the same as “free.”

When the lines were added up, the new machine won by roughly €180,000. I chose that number carefully; depending on your assumptions it could be €140,000 or €220,000. What it couldn't be was negative.

What is skiing, from a procurement seat?

I understand that “what is skiing” is a question about a sport, not about crushed rock. But after two seasons on this project, I have my own answer: skiing is a construction deadline that the weather controls and the clock enforces. The 2026 winter olympics skiing races will be watched by millions; the sub-base underneath them will, I hope, be watched by nobody. That's the point of doing it right.

“Skiing is when the mountain tells us what it wants. Our job is to make sure the machine doesn't answer 'not today.'”
— Christopher, at 6 a.m. during the first commissioning

That quote stuck with me because it's the entire TCO argument in one sentence. The cheaper machine is not cheaper if it answers “not today” at the wrong moment—when the FIS inspector is waiting and the snow is melting.

When a Kleemann Stage 3 machine is the right buying decision

Now the honest caveats, because any model that always points one way is lying. If you work in a market where Stage V is not required and fuel is cheaper, a Kleemann stage 3 machine can absolutely make sense. Kleemann still builds Stage 3 configurations for export markets with lower emission regulations, and those units are proven. If there's no daily penalty in your contract, if you have a full-time mechanic on site, or if the project volume is under 1,000 hours, the used machine's math changes.

I also made a mistake in my own model: I predicted the first jaw plate replacement at 5,000 hours, and we changed it at 4,200 because mica-schist was more abrasive than the pit sample suggested. A TCO model is a living document, not a prophecy. The point is to push the hidden costs into the open so you can argue about facts instead of guesses.

And Christopher? He still says “I told you so.” At this point, I think the TCO spreadsheet echoes him.