As a SEE Mechanic, I will confirm that they suck to work on. You need midget hands to be able to work on it and the truck is practically formed around the operator. The cab is very tight. They were designed to be able to dig and keep up with the convoy, that's why they were used. Only recently have backhoes gained the road speed the army is looking for and that will start to phase out the SEE trucks. The front end loader is very weak, but the backhoe really isn't bad at all. I can dig a fairly large hole in a short period of time with it. $4K is not a bad deal at all for a SEE truck, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one that's in nice shape for that.