All purpose UTV for farm use?

[John_Mc]

For a while I lusted after a used Japanese mini-truck. Most of these have 4WD, they sometimes have dump beds. The big downsides for me were: they seemed overpriced for being (about) 20 years old) and nearly all are right-side drive, which the insurance companies don't like, so charge a big premium to insure for road use, and, finally, I was uncertain about availability of parts and competent maintenance for a vehicle that is so old and was never sold in the North America.

I was looking at getting a Japanese mini-truck with a dump bed some years ago. I dropped the idea when I found you can't run them on the road in Vermont.

 

[Industrial Toys]

 

[rd_macgregor]

There is a web site in the US which lists all the rules and restrictions on minitrucks state-by-state (Mini-truck state laws). My brother in Colorado has two of them, but he says Colorado refuses to license them for road use.
There used to be a seller here (recently retired and closed up shop), so there are a fair few puttering around local roads; our highest speed limit is 90kph, so the minitrucks can usually keep up with traffic pretty well.

 

[Oleozz]

We have a mini truck dealer close by and to me they always looked top heavy, like they would be very "tippy" on hills. Is that true or are they stable like most utv's.

 

[rd_macgregor]

Since I never actually got one, I can't say from experience. However, my observation in my cabbed tractor and cabbed RTV1100 is that the cab makes it look and feel much more top-heavy than it actually is. There are whole web sites devoted to adapting mini-trucks to off-road use (including numerous videos...Google "off-road mini truck"); they seem to do pretty well when fitted with aggressive tires and maybe a modest lift kit.

 

[Jim Nelson]

We have a mini truck dealer close by and to me they always looked top heavy, like they would be very "tippy" on hills. Is that true or are they stable like most utv's.

I have 2 of them,1 street legal that just goes to town and back and the other a Suzuki 4x4 that I have put a dump and scissor lift on and use only around our property which is much closer to vertical than horizontal and it is very stable.I built another Suzuki mini for my son, in Colorado, to use for hunting and he gets along fine with it. When I was building it it was really light in the rear end, it would skip the rear tires going down our steep, paved driveway where mine with the dump/scissor apparatus is very stable because of the extra weight.

 

[rickyd79]

I tried to enter the Farm Utility vehicle set a few years back. 500 acres grain farm and 120 acres pasture / timber. Livestock. family. After shopping and all of the sticker shock, I bought a 20 year old Toyota pickup for $1400. Still use it every day. Heater, windshield, haul & drag, parts availability, go anywhere, bed with tailgate, street legal. Still can't afford a UTV.

Recently bought a 2017 Kawasaki Mule DXT diesel 4x4. I checked out honda and polaris and kubota. I needed a work vehicle and the kawasaki was the only one that met my requirements. Yes they are pricey but easy to justify as a business vehicle. I understand i could have bought a cheap pick up truck but its way quicker and easier getting in And out of the mule. I use it every day for farm work and its easy to get into tight places. It seats 6 passengers with a small cargo bed or quickly converts to 3 passenger mode with a larger cargo bed. Actually i drive my family of 7 around in it regularly. Anyway if i did not own a business that benefits from having it i probably would not have spent the 16k. But since i do its money well spent. I would not trade it for a pickup truck of equal value under any condition. No way. But i respect those that feel otherwise.

 

[DrRod]

I haven't read every post in this thread so forgive me if I repeat - but . . .

Experience has shown that most ATVs, UTVs, etc. can pull much more than their rating. This is because the real limiting factor is not what it will move -- its what it will stop. A large ATV weighs around 600 pounds, add a 200 pound rider and you get a gross weight of 800 pounds. Towing capacity may be 1,000 pounds but there are lots of people who will state that they successfully have towed 2,000 pounds [including me]. But when you hit the brakes, you really feel the push from behind and in a tight spot it can be really dangerous -- like getting pushed out onto the road at an in opportune time.

So give this some thought as you move forward.