New look line-up for the Cat Dozer Range

New look line-up for the Cat® Dozer Range

Recently, Caterpillar announced a simpler naming convention across their entire range. In the latest roll out, customers are now seeing new names to designate the Cat Dozer range.

Giles Schmidhauser Sales Manager - Quarries Industrial & Waste Industries, said that this change is about pulling back and simplifying the line-up.

“In the past, the Cat Dozer names typically designated different feature sets. The new naming system will be now based on the horsepower class of the dozer model, the new D1 to D11 monikers will no longer have letters such as the N, K, or T at the end” he said.

“The addition of models over the years has made the nomenclature more complicated, this is about pulling back and simplifying the line up to power ratings.”

While the names are changing, there will still be annual product updates and new feature set for dozers, the difference is that customers will now need to know the year-model or the serial number of the machines to know which will have each update.

The nomenclature changes across the Dozer range is aimed at making a clear distinction between the 3 basic groups of dozers in the Caterpillar offering.

The first group comprises of the Small Dozer range; from D1 through to D4. These models will replace the K family of dozers and retain the low-drive sprocket design and holding the 75-100 horsepower machines.

From D5 up to D9, in the Medium Dozer range, is the elevated sprocket, high-drive design models comprised of dual-purpose machines geared for both heavy dozing and finish grading represented by the 125-240 horsepower machines.

Mr. Schmidhauser states that while the new numbers may rebadge some models, Caterpillar is not downsizing any products.

“The new numbers are based on horsepower, the old D6N is being rebadged as a D5, however it actually weighs more and offers more horsepower than the original D6N.”

The heavy push dozers from D9 to D11 will continueto be the best in class large Dozer Range at the 320-850 horsepower class.

The major shift in the model numbers will happen at the small end of the product line, with only a few suffixes to remain in use and will be rolled out over the next few years.

“We are already seeing the first of the new D6 dozers coming through our gates, and we’re excited to get these out to our customers in the first half of this year, with plenty more to come,” said Mr. Schmidhauser.  

This new naming convention for Dozers is not being updated all at once, Caterpillar will rename each size class once that model dozer has undergone a redesign or upgrade.

In addition to renaming the dozer line, Cat’s reorganization of the nomenclature will also result in a completely new name, the D1 and the rebirth of the D2. The new D1 will be the first Caterpillar dozer to carry that number.