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There is a lot to debate on the subject, fact and or fiction. Having seen both older series Cats in the shop, torn down, and the later high track designs, it does seem easier to work on those high tracks, trans comes out on rollers etc. This topic gets heated amongst people sometimes, but I think a lot of this was spawned by the big quarry and earthmoving industry, which supports Cat, trying to improve production and reduce down time with better or alternate design like the change they made 20-30 years ago. The D10 was the first high track I think, circa '79 or so when the prototype was tested at the proving grounds.
Some will argue the center of gravity vs the old style, older ones are more stable on slopes, more track to wear out etc.
I have run both, took delivery of a D6 LGP hightrack and ran it against a Komatsu D65 PX LGP forget the letter series on the Cat was around 93-94, ran em both, after they saw the trouble I had trying to stockpile wet material with a D8K, both machines performed well, got em both stuck in the pile, was like running on a waterbed it was so soft, but the D6 I could always manage to get out without help, whereas the Komatsu you knew not to even try, I always thought the D6 broke the suction or just never got it bogged enough, it would also turn better with a full blade in soft material, but after months of running both, each was an excellent machine for soft material, from an operators opinion they were both very productive, not sure about maintenance and repairs, as an owner that would be the deciding factor. I also ran the new D8N's when they came out, and we also had 2 D8K's on the same site, but neither were run on slopes, center of gravity was not an issue, both performed well, I also hauled both types on the lowboy without noticing much difference there either. It's definitely something designed for a reason, less shock to the final drives, more track to wear out, but these new undercarriage designs are so different and longer lasting than those of the past, you really need a mechanics view on them in that regard to point out the differences, I'm not sure how else you could get a true opinion of what the real differences are and how it effects operating costs. Say in high production quarries and earthmoving, it's about production and keeping down time to a minimum, and that is who they cater with these big machines, the mechanics who work on them would have some good information, and they've been in service for so long, it may be hard to find people who have worked on both, but with smaller outfits, it appears many of the old style crawlers are still in service, best scenario would be to speak with service people currently working on both types that are still in operation to get some facts on how they compare. It's still subjective as some operators are rough on equipment.
I have noticed that the D3-D5's have gone back to the older style, that's been going on for quite awhile, the last one I ran was a brand new D4G in '04 and that was a really productive fuel efficient machine, internally I'm not sure what may have changed in regards to servicing major components, again, the heavy equipment mechanic is the right person to talk to there. I remember running the D4H or whatever series it was with the high tracks in the late 80's early 90's, that D4G is outstanding in comparison to those. On some jobs, you just can't beat late model for production, main reason I do the rental thing for customers vs owning. If you are on slopes it may be an issue, I've never run any of those high tracks on slopes hard to comment, but it appears the old design would be better there.
Way back, I forget the model or MFR., might have been a high clearance ag crawler, but there were high tracks configured just like these modern ones, might have been early Cletracs or similar, conversions or factory, someone did use that design like in the 20's, with a lot less technology back then.
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