Looking at getting either a track loader or a skid steer - concerned about traction in the winter with the rubber tracks. Any experience or advice?
Tracks are great in summer mud, sand, grass, etc. But winter there is no friction or traction on ice. If you have a slight slope driveway tracks will be a challenge. I use tires in early season then add chains later. Studded tires work well also.
It depends on how much damage you allow to your soils and plants.?ÿ A skid steer with tracks can tear the HE!! out of anything under them.?ÿ Have had too much experience from clearing a fence line then building back.?ÿ So much damage can take quite a while to heal.
They both suck on ice. If I could afford I'd buy a tracked one any day. As an amatuer, the stability is more comforting to me.
?ÿ
In other news- had a little black bear come thru last night
Ended up going with a 2012 JD 318D with 1500 hrs. Bought it local from a guy I??ve been acquainted with for 20 years. They are moving out of state And not taking it with them.?ÿ
Probably a great deal.?ÿ Those have 893 possible attachments so you can do anything except kiss your mother-in-law with it.?ÿ You will have too much fun.
The difference between men and boys
Is the price of their toys.
I always prefer tracked equipment but it also comes with the realization that I know I'll have to dress up the area that I operate it in as well since the twisting and turning of the undercarriage will do some damage. You have to operate tracked equipment differently than you might a pneumatic tire machine but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've had too many rubber-tire backhoes and articulating front loaders that have either gotten stuck on a very wet site or rutted up a path through a grassed area pretty significantly whereas a tracked machine usually will perform better and distribute the load nicely
?ÿ
People scoff at this notion but the newer generations of dozers are configured with additional rollers under the rails now to where guys are starting to fine grade streets, parking lots, building pads, etc with them as well as rubber-tracked skid steers. All the local landscapers that do building pads for homes seem to use trackloaders almost exclusively with clearing excavator & thumb occasionally for larger stumps. Don't get me wrong, a grader with pneumatic tires will ALWAYS have a place fine-grading should the contractor so choose but that gap between them keeps steadily closing each year it seems and machine control is helping to close that gap
