Still on my first wife and love her. She just can't get rid of me.
Actually Nate, considering the time I've been in business, I did not have too many.
First
CDS was from 1989 till 2001,
Sccond
CDS 2001 till 2013 (and my partner at the time got another one.) All good machines.
Moved to Texas, got the largest longest Sprinter and an Apex. Good machine. Built a new house on acreage and found Texas to be a little too hot, conservative and religious to our taste. People were actually very nice and polite but a different culture.
Moved back to CA (actually I kept my business going in CA throughout our Texas experiment) and had two vans at the same time. Sold the Sprinter- Try finding parking in San Francisco for an extended sprinter.
Got tired about greasing the
Cds's shaft, messy, hard to reach and the engine cover gets messed up. And at the time
HydraMaster did some stupid stuff trying to cut costs and save a buck (plastic parts) recovery tank that starts leaking at seams.
2014 (I think) opted for a pro-1200. Still have it. Good machine.
Currently, trying to start my business in the Sierra Foothills and need a water pond.
Sapphire is all too busy constantly making new models, yet do not seem to understand that it may be better to create one knockout machine where all the kinks have been straightened out.
So I got a
Butler. I didn't trust
Sapphire to create a dependable water pond. I also like the stainless steel water and recovery tanks and the new space saving design (the reason I never bought a
Butler before).
And I prefer to do business with small family owned company, that was not yet bought out by a German and or an American conglomerate.
So now I also have a new extended GMC 3500, a
Butler mid-mount with extra heat and the big blower, 110 recovery and 110 fresh water. Just drove it from the East Coast. Didn't do diddly with it yet, so I can't say much about it as of now. What I can tell you, is that the sale experience with
Butler, how thorough and responsive they were throughout, the time spent teaching me about and how to maintain their machine, their patience and grace, leaves everybody else in the dust.
Looks good parked in the garage though.
Probably be looking to sell my Pro- 1200 in a GMC 3500 cargo (regular length) with very low mileage and hours on the machine, sometime in the next year.
They were all good machines with advantages and disadvantages that helped me make a decent amount of $.