That is the beauty of wheel loaders. The four equal sized tires. Solid axles without ball joints or U joints on the axles for steering. The rear wheels track the front perfectly. Backward is no different from forward in traction or geometry. Very easy on turf. Very close turning radius.
Wheel loaders are notoriously unstable though, when handling a load on uneven ground! I've had one front wheel in the air many a time! You just have to keep your cool and know what to do.
My particular machine is a bit of a Rube Goldburg as the selling dealer stated. It has the larger (Bradco) hoe on the back which is just a bit much for this machine. The normal hoe is the smaller fold up one. I think reach is absolutely everything in a hoe and would probably not want to have to live with the smaller one, but despite them loading the front tires almost full with Calcium, it is still rear heavy! The approach angle is also quite miserable!
The top speed of this machine, which has two speeds, is too slow to want to travel any great distance.
I switched the coupler to a hydraulically controlled skid steer type. I don't need side shift forks as the machine does this on it's own with the articulation, but I did attach a scrapped fork carrier that has hydraulically adjustable forks and that is one slick affair. You can also pinch things and pick them up, within reason
