What is The Best Mid-Size Skid Steer?

4570Man · Sep 30, 2022

mikester said:
All skidsteers suck. Your $15K will buy a really sucky one.

I own a wheeled and tracked skid steer. The wheeled machine doesn’t do well in soft ground. If the ground is fairly firm but muddy on the top it doesn’t do well. It also rides like a pogo stick. If you’re working on fairly smooth and dry ground it’s a capable machine. The tracked one is a completely different animal. You’re not buying a tracked one that’s not at a fire salvage sale for $15k but a tracked machine is very capable. A tracked skid steer will make a tractor look silly. The wheeled machine will still outperform a tractor on dry ground. The tractor wins in mud. You can run steel tracks on the wheel machine to help with the mud. I don’t have them on mine because I don’t like them for one thing but I drive the machine on roads and driveways so steel tracks are out of the question.

ROUSTABOUT · Sep 30, 2022

crashz said:
Your price point puts you in the range of well used wheeled mid-size machines with hand and foot controls. Typically that means that the bucket and boom is controlled by your feet and the sticks are for forward and backward movement of each side of wheels. Takes some practice to get comfortable with it. Pilot controls (right hand drive joystick and left hand bucket) are worlds nicer and easier to operate (to me). But I wouldn't shy away from a really good deal on machine with foot controls.

You also have about $15K in tools you want too.

Are you in hilly terrain? My SS was terrible slopes. I once nearly flipped it end over end when I took the bucket off to exchange for forks, backed down a hill and stopped. The tail heavy SS wanted to keep going and I had that precarious second of two wheel balance that seems like 10 minutes. Mine was a Bobcat 753.

Why the high horsepower? Do you need high flow?

I highly suggest renting a machine that closely fits the used rig that you want to buy. You may love it or absolutely hate it.

We always kept a skid steer for cleaning out chicken houses. My brother rolled one over backwards while we were changing implements. The look on his face as he went over... priceless.

ROUSTABOUT · Sep 30, 2022

4570Man said:
I own a wheeled and tracked skid steer. The wheeled machine doesn’t do well in soft ground. If the group is fairly firm but muddy on the top it doesn’t do well. It also rides like a pogo stick. If you’re working on fairly smooth and dry ground it’s a capable machine. The tracked one is a completely different animal. You’re not buying a tracked one that’s not at a fire salvage sale for $15k but a tracked machine is very capable. A tracked skid steer will make a tractor look silly. The wheeled machine will still outperform a tractor on dry ground. The tractor wins in mud. You can run steel tracks on the wheel machine to help with the mud. I don’t have them on mine because I don’t like them for one thing but I drive the machine on roads and driveways so steel tracks are out of the question. View attachment 764545

I was thinking 15 grand might get a parts machine. Plus he's wanting all those attachments. These new 100 horse machines have Def, so I rent. I done been through having a machine that was in the shop for months longer than I was able to use it. Funny though, they still wanted the payments.

4570Man · Sep 30, 2022

ROUSTABOUT said:
We always kept a skid steer for cleaning out chicken houses. My brother rolled one over backwards while we were changing implements. The look on his face as he went over... priceless.

The tracked machine is a lot better in that aspect. They’re still back heavy but nothing like the wheeled machine is. The tracked machine is all around much more planted to the ground.

4570Man · Sep 30, 2022

ROUSTABOUT said:
I was thinking 15 grand might get a parts machine. Plus he's wanting all those attachments. These new 100 horse machines have Def, so I rent. I done been through having a machine that was in the shop for months longer than I was able to use it. Funny though, they still wanted the payments.

My Kubota 75 doesn’t have def. It’s still got the DPF crap which seems to be a lot more reliable than DEF. That’s one of the reasons I bought it vs a 97. My Komatsu is a 2006 pre emissions with a 85 hp yanmar.

ROUSTABOUT · Sep 30, 2022

4570Man said:
My Kubota 75 doesn’t have def. It’s still got the DPF crap which seems to be a lot more reliable than DEF. That’s one of the reasons I bought it vs a 97. My Komatsu is a 2006 pre emissions with a 85 hp yanmar.

We have a 75 and 95 Kubota. Might as well not had the SVL95 because it spent more time per year at the shop, over 6 months each year, sometimes 9 months. First year def or dpf whatever. It would shut down and at least it would idle, so we could load it. Haul it 100 miles to the shop again. I'm not blaming the shop. They were good people. But Nash Tx was the closest place.

ning · Sep 30, 2022

Before I pulled the trigger on my tractor I was thinking "wait, these skids seem so much more capable!"
I rented a tracked unit to drill a zillion holes in the ground for trees one spring (it was wet so thankfully the yard gave me a tracked unit instead of wheels) and that was awesome.

More recently I rented a skid (wheeled) to drill other holes (deep ones for a ground mount solar array) and I almost rolled it on a minor rise moving from one pasture to another (yes the bucket was low!), and I knew then that I'd dodged a bullet in not getting a wheeled skid instead of my tractor - I don't like driving sideways on even a minor hill on my tractor (like 10 degrees - we know the tractor won't roll unless you're driving too fast and drop a front wheel in a hole but I still avoid it) but at least I know it won't roll over going up and down even my much steeper hills!

Someday I'm going to have a bigger piece of land and likely will have multiple machines to do a lot more with - excavator to dig, skid to move dirt, tractor for swiss army knife work. Here, though, I'll rent skids when I need something more specialized that my tractor won't do, and try to avoid the wheeled units as much as I can.