When a contractor in the Benelux says they need een Kleemann breker—a Kleemann crusher—the next question is usually: MC 100 or MC 110? It's the most common choice in the 200-to-350-tonnes-per-hour range. Most online advice about these two models compares spec sheets. I'd rather compare job sites.

I'm a quality and compliance manager for a heavy-machinery dealership in Antwerp. We represent Kleemann and Wirtgen Group equipment, and my job is to inspect every crusher before it goes to a customer—roughly 40 machines a year—and again during commissioning on site. In Q1 2024 alone, I rejected about 7% of first preparations for issues that would have become warranty claims later: damaged cable routes, a hydraulic hose squeezed behind a mounting bracket, and one feeder that had shifted half a centimeter during transport.

This is a comparison of the Kleemann MC 100 and Kleemann MC 110 from that perspective. I'll walk through four differences that matter in practice—and one conclusion that still surprises many contractors.

How I set up the comparison

The MC 100 and the MC 110 share the same design family. Both are tracked mobile jaw crushers with similar control logic, and both can be configured with a magnet separator and side conveyor. That's where the similarity ends.

The MC 100 is the lighter, more compact solution for operators who change sites often and feed smaller material. The MC 110 is a larger machine, designed for higher throughput and longer campaigns. I evaluate them on four things:

  1. Throughput vs. actual feed capability. What the jaw can crush matters less than what your excavator can deliver.
  2. Mobility and site fit. If you move a crusher often, weight and width are not paperwork issues—they are schedule issues.
  3. System cost. A bigger jaw can demand a bigger loader before it ever sees rock.
  4. Quality details. What I check before delivery, and what those checks have taught me about both models.

Reading reviews that simply say 'buy the machine with the highest throughput you can afford' drives me up the wall, because that logic ignores how a crusher behaves when material flow is irregular. Let's start there.

Dimension 1: Output on paper vs. output in practice

The jaw opening on the MC 100 is 1,000 mm wide. The MC 110 steps up to 1,100 mm. Under ideal conditions, the nominal throughput difference is large—roughly 200 tonnes per hour for the MC 100 and roughly 300 tonnes per hour for the MC 110, depending on material and crusher settings.

But under ideal conditions is the key phrase. A jaw crusher only produces as much as the feeding system puts into it. I've stood on more than one site where an MC 110 was waiting for an excavator that was too small to bring a full bucket. The crusher ran, but it ran hungry. With the same undersized feeding cycle, the MC 110 won't outperform an MC 100 by anything close to 50 percent. It just burns more fuel and wears more steel while doing it.

Kleemann's Continuous Feed System helps here. It monitors the crusher and regulates the vibrating feeder so the machine doesn't get overloaded or run empty. Both models have it, and it works well. But CFS cannot create material that was never loaded into the excavator bucket.

If a crusher spends most of its shift hungry, the biggest jaw on the lot is still an expensive idle asset.

So the first question is not 'How many tonnes per hour can it crush?' It's 'How many tonnes per hour can my loading team actually put in front of it?'

Dimension 2: Mobility—the factor that changes my recommendation most often

This is where my opinion has shifted the most in six years. Early on, I assumed the bigger model was always the safer purchase. Then I watched customers burn money waiting for transport slots and route permits that they hadn't factored into the job estimate.

The MC 100 is roughly 8 tonnes lighter than the MC 110 and has a smaller footprint. In Europe, that gap often means the difference between moving with a standard low loader on open roads and needing a special transport arrangement for the heavier machine. On many routes, the MC 100 can be loaded, tied down, and gone the same day. The MC 110 may need a different trailer, an escort, or a route-specific permit.

Let me rephrase that carefully: none of this makes the MC 110 a bad machine. It makes it a machine that behaves differently when the job site changes every few weeks.

In our rental fleet, the MC 100s leave the yard noticeably more often than the MC 110s. They also come back with fewer small damage claims. Part of that is because they are smaller and simpler to set up. Part of it is because they end up on sites where they have enough space to work properly.

If a crusher will stay on one site for six months or a year, the mobility gap between these two models is almost irrelevant. If a crusher moves every month, mobility can be the difference between profit and loss on the second job of the year.

Dimension 3: The cost you won't see on the crusher quote

Most buyers compare the price of the MC 100 and MC 110 and assume the fuel and maintenance costs scale the same way. The bigger hidden cost is the support equipment needed to keep the jaw fed at its rated speed.

The MC 110 performs best when it receives a steady flow of large material. That normally means a larger excavator or a wheel loader that can move quickly without strain. The MC 100 is more forgiving; it can be kept productive by a 20-to-25-tonne excavator in most demolition and recycling applications. If you already own that size of excavator, feeding an MC 100 is a natural match.

A customer in Liège last year wanted the MC 110 for a concrete crushing project. I asked about their excavator fleet. They had one 22-tonne machine available for the job. We calculated the loading cycle together and saw that the 22-tonne excavator could feed the MC 100 to roughly 200 tonnes per hour, but it could not feed the MC 110 much faster than that. The MC 110 would have added cost without adding output. They took delivery of an MC 100 instead.

Now, if that same customer already owned a 35-tonne excavator or was renting one for the contract duration, my advice would have been different. The MC 110 can handle larger slabs, more rebar, and more edge cases. Edge cases are worth money on demolition jobs. But you have to be honest about whether your loading system can feed that appetite.

Dimension 4: What I check before any Kleemann goes to work

In quality inspection, we don't spend much time worrying about whether the crusher was built correctly in Germany. The factory quality is not where I've seen problems. Problems appear in transport, in commissioning, and in the gap between what was specified and what was delivered.

There are four areas I check on every machine, regardless of model:

  • Cable routes and connectors. A machine that has done 800 km on a low loader can arrive with a chafed harness or a loose plug. Crusher 'fault codes' after a transport are often just wiring issues.
  • Jaw gap and wear plate condition. I verify the actual closed side setting against the agreed product spec. It's easy for a machine to be delivered with the wrong jaw setting from the previous job.
  • Magnet and belt alignment. A magnet that's too high loses metal; a side conveyor that's misaligned spills material and causes cleanup costs.
  • Compliance documents. For Europe, I check the CE Declaration of Conformity and the Stage V engine documentation under Regulation (EU) 2016/1628. A crusher without the right paperwork can be parked for weeks at a border or a site audit.

That last point is worth repeating: on both MC 100 and MC 110, the most overlooked commissioning risk is paperwork, not hardware.

Which one should you choose?

If you were hoping for a simple 'take the MC 100' or 'take the MC 110,' I'll disappoint you. The answer depends on the bottleneck at your site. But here is the decision rule I use with customers:

Choose the Kleemann MC 100 if you move between sites regularly, feed from an excavator in the 20-to-25-tonne range, or work in confined urban locations. The MC 100 is easier to transport, easier to position, and more tolerant of irregular feeding.

Choose the Kleemann MC 110 if you have high-volume continuous production, a loading team that can keep up with a 300-tonne-per-hour appetite, or a site where the machine will stay for months. The bigger jaw handles larger feed and tougher material with more margin.

Still undecided? Rent one of each for a week on a job that resembles your typical work. A few days on an actual site will tell you more than any article, including this one.

Final thought from someone who checks the details

The most expensive crusher is rarely the one with the biggest sticker price. It's the one that doesn't match the job: too small for the contract, too big for the support equipment, or too heavy for the roads it has to travel. I've seen all three mistakes in our customers' yards.

Both the MC 100 and the MC 110 are well-built machines. The difference between a good purchase and a bad one is not the color of the brand decal—it's the plan around the machine. If a dealer can't show you a commissioning checklist or explain the transport weight difference in your market, keep looking.