Tracked Skid Steer-High Operating Costs/ Tracks

[curtisfarmer]

I have read numerous threads on damage to tracked machines and how expensive they are to repair. I have heard of $15k repairs after 1,000 hours!!!! Rollers, sprockets, tracks, idlers, drive motors.....Yikes!!! Seems unreasonable. I would never buy one for those reasons unless I had a specific application that would justify it. Wheeled machines sure have less over head. My L48 has 1200 hours and the tires are fine. If I had to pay the horror story prices you see around, I would be pissed, disappointed, and looking for a different machine. Seems like you would have to charge a premium for a tracked machine just to recoup your wear and tear that will eventually add up to a huge repair bill. On my KX 121-3 I am super carefull and clean the tracks often, keeping in mind that mini exs don't have the wear and tear tracked loaders encounter. Just looking at most designs, looks like gravel, stone and aggregate would cause damage during normal operation. I am suprised they don't have almost fully enclosed sides to prevent material from getting in and causing havoc.

 

[radman1]

For what it is worth, my dealer says a bobcat CTL can expect about 1700 hours of use on their track and rollers for most operators. He says the tracks design used on CTL's like Cat will get about 1000 hours due to their roller construction and track design. He says the CAT style will ride smoother but won't last as long. He said Bobcat experimented a long time ago with the CAT style in early CTL's but discovered reliability wasn't as good. He said sand and rocky conditions will really destroy CAT style systems more than Bobcat more enclosed setup. Not trying to start argument but just repeating his statements.
CTL's seem to be in style now. JD's recent brochure shows a CTL using a harley rake in muddy conditions for lawn prep around a new house. The picture was laughable. The harley rake was basically a ball of turning mud and it was making a mess. Open design tracks like CAT, can be a problem with mud getting around the track and roller, then it freezes and the machine cant move.

 

[curtisfarmer]

Getting the material out of the tracks is KEY this time of year. A lazy operator that goes home without mucking out the tracks can cost some serious money by either throwing a track or having the machine not able to work the next day. Check out the pictures on LawnSite.com-Heavy equipment of damaged tracks on CTLs.......yikes!

 

[ndnparts]

I have a pole barn behind my house that had a dirt floor in it, so I hired a concrete contractor to excavate it and pour a concrete floor for me. He was also cutting a pathway to the pole barn and filled it with gravel as a roadway. The conditions right now are drastically more than wet, so the rented Bobcat (tire loader) he started with just kept losing traction when digging, so he switched to a small CAT CTL. That machine had the power to dig, and never lost traction, BUT, I stopped by at noon yesterday and found the Cat was sitting at the end of my drive with one track thrown, and the trailer was there to haul it off. I don't know how they finally got the track back on to load it, but it was gone when I got home last night. My guess is that had this happened in the muck, it would have been far worse to remedy and get out of there. I'm just glad I am not doing the job! Stan

 

[radman1]

Often when the tracks are thrown, they will go toward the SS rather than to the outside. I hear it is a real pain to get them off and remounted when thrown to the inside.