If you typed what is skiing into Google and landed here, you're not lost. You're just in the wrong part of the internet. This article is not about snow. But if you've ever watched a conveyor belt “ski” off its idlers—slapping sideways until it tears—you know that kind of skiing is a maintenance nightmare. And it's the kind of thing my job is supposed to prevent.
I'm a quality compliance reviewer at a company that supplies heavy mineral processing equipment. I review every machine and every manual before it reaches customers—roughly 200 items a year. In 2024, I rejected 14% of first-time deliveries. Not because the steel was bad, but because the paperwork was wrong: missing calibration certificates, incorrect torque values, safety labels that didn't match the machine language.
This is a comparison post. I'm going to compare two ways to put FLSmidth equipment on site: buy new from the OEM, or buy used/rebuilt and have it refurbished. I've worked with both. I've also watched buyers choose wrong. One of them was a plant manager named Jonah. I met him at an industry maintenance conference—my second congress this year, and the one that made me want to write this.
The obvious question is “which one is better?” The right question is “which one matches your risk tolerance and your cash position?”
We’ll walk through each one. And there will be at least one conclusion that surprises you.
A lot of buyers focus on the machine price and completely miss the other costs. The rigging. The installation. The commissioning engineer’s hotel bill. The first 500 hours of consumables. And the cost of one unplanned shutdown in month two.
New FLSmidth equipment costs more. No surprise. You’re paying for a known baseline: fresh tolerances, full OEM drawings, a warranty, and a commissioning engineer who answers when you call.
Some of you arrived here after searching flsmidth udbytte 2020. The phrase is Danish for “FLSmidth dividend 2020,” and if that’s your real question, this section is the closest I’ll get. Dividend news in 2020 told the market how FLSmidth was managing cash in an uncertain year. For a buyer, the useful takeaway is not the dividend itself. It’s this: ask the seller how FLSmidth’s financial decisions affected the availability of spare parts and service agreements. The answer tells you whether the company managed the cycle without cutting the support you’ll need later.
A rebuilt machine can cost 40 to 60 percent less up front. That’s real money. But here’s the blind spot: the quality of a rebuild depends almost entirely on who did it. I inspected a “rebuilt” Raptor cone crusher that had a new mantle, new liners, and a worn bearing pack. It ran for 11 days. Then it seized. The rebuild shop blamed the ore. The operator blamed the shop. Lawyers got involved.
Let me rephrase that: the sticker price said “bargain.” The repair invoice said “new machine.”
My rule after years of reviewing these decisions is simple. A used or rebuilt FLSmidth machine only makes sense if the total projected cost—purchase, overhaul, installation, and at least one realistic failure event—is 35 percent or more below a new machine. Below 35 percent, the risk premium is too small. Take the new unit.
Here’s the part that surprises people. A well-rebuilt FLSmidth machine can beat a brand-new one on first-year reliability. Not because the rebuild shop is magical, but because the design has history.
Take the Fuller-Kinyon pump. If you’ve searched flsmidth acquired fuller 1990 pump, you already know the story: FLSmidth bought the Fuller Company in 1990, and the Fuller line of pneumatic pumps became part of the FLSmidth product family. Those pumps have been moving cement and pulverized coal for decades. The bearing arrangement, the seal set, the wear plate clearances—they’re known quantities.
A good rebuild shop that has done twenty of those pumps knows the weak spots. A brand-new model from any manufacturer—FLSmidth included—has not yet proven itself in the field. I’m not saying new is unreliable. I’m saying the phrase “new equals safer” is a legacy myth from a time when OEMs spent a decade in the lab on every model. Today, automation software is updated quarterly. Sometimes the machine is fine but the control code isn’t.
Jonah told me about a new FLSmidth apron feeder that threw a logic error in week one. The mechanical side was perfect. The PLC had a bug. The fix took two remote sessions and a field visit. Meanwhile, the older rebuilt feeder next to it kept running. Not because it was better technology. Because it had no technology to fail.
This is the dimension my team cares about most. It’s also the least sexy, so most buyers ignore it.
New equipment comes with a full OEM file: assembly drawings, welding specs, spare parts lists, calibration certificates. That file is a deliverable. If the vendor reaches your site without it, I will not sign the release.
Used and rebuilt equipment is different. You’re trusting the previous owner’s maintenance records, the rebuild shop’s judgment, and the forklift driver who moved the machine twice. Sometimes the record is excellent. Sometimes it’s a notebook that says “oil changed maybe.” I have seen both.
When I inspect a rebuilt machine, I check the documentation like I check the welds. That’s where the print standards come in.
Most industrial manuals are printed on commercial offset presses. Industry practice is 300 DPI at final size for photographic images. If a supplier hands me a PDF at 150 DPI and says “good enough,” I know they don’t understand standards. And if their logo color is more than Delta E below 2 off from the correct Pantone shade, I know they don’t follow specifications. On a machine that costs seven figures, a blue logo that looks purple is not a design choice. It’s a warning.
The same logic applies to the physical manual. A cheap, misprinted manual is the first thing your customer touches. In online printing, 500 flyers on 100lb gloss text runs between $80 and $150, based on publicly listed prices in January 2025. That’s not a lot. Rebuilding a manual with proper stock and color might add $60 to the total. On a machine purchase, that’s nothing. But it changes how customers perceive your entire company.
And spare parts? Ask if the rebuilt machine is compatible with current FLSmidth spare parts catalogs. Some legacy Fuller pumps have been modified over the years. If a rebuilt unit uses a nonstandard seal, you’ll discover it when you need a replacement. That’s not the time to be surprised.
I know this sounds soft. But in B2B, perceived quality is a real asset. When your customer sees a machine with chipped paint, nonstandard fittings, and a binder of photocopied manuals, it tells them your company doesn’t sweat details. That perception follows you into negotiations, audits, and client site visits.
Your equipment is your brand in physical form. The savings from a rebuild might be tempting, but if this machine will produce product for a client with high quality standards, the optics matter.
That’s not an argument to always buy new. It’s an argument to make quality a deliberate decision. If you buy rebuilt, spend the money to make it look and document as close to OEM as possible. Paint, decals, manual, calibration tags, torque charts. It took me about five years and 150 inspections to understand that the extra 10 percent spent on “appearance” often pays back in credibility.
Buy new if:
Buy rebuilt or used if:
And if you’re still wondering about the ski query: this is not a ski hill. But the same principle applies. You can buy the expensive new bindings and trust the warranty, or you can buy used bindings and have them checked by someone who knows what they’re doing. The mountain doesn’t care about the brand. It cares about the condition.
That’s the whole point. Whether you buy new or rebuilt FLSmidth equipment, the quality that matters is the quality you can verify. Check the machine. Check the paper. And check the person who signs their name to it.
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