Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/816045
EquipmentWorld.com | April 2017 29 Conventional wisdom has it that skid steers rule on hard surfaces and in tight quarters. Hard surfaces chew up expensive treads on compact track loaders, and confined spaces make other machines look like drunken bulls compared to skid steers' nimble nature. THE VERSATILE, NIMBLE skidsteer I s that enough to keep skid steers in your fleet? Maybe, maybe not. But skid steers are versatile and offer a host of appealing features. "Skid steers are good at lift-and-carry," says Eric Dahl, Bobcat loader product spe- cialist. "They're good for applications that tend to be less demanding. And they have a great balance of traction and travel speed that make them effective at snow removal." That travel speed makes them adept at scooting around large worksites and even allows them to be driven short distances on roads, depending on local laws. And for greater distances, skid steers are easy to trailer, says Randy Tinley, JCB product manager for skid steer and compact track loaders. Their low cab height makes them suitable for working in areas with restricted overhead clearance. "But while landscap- ing, agriculture and construction all have applications that emphasize skid steers' trait, there is no truly skid-steer specific applica- tion," says Tinley. "The main consideration is space constraints, such as loading trucks in a small area." And of course there's their relatively low cost. Initial investment for a skid steer is 20- to 30-percent less than for a compa- rable CTL. Tires are half or less the cost of tracks, and skid steers have no undercar- riage components to maintain or replace. CTLs are amazing machines, but amaze- ment is expensive. "If owning and operat- ing costs were the same, everyone would own a track loader," says Jim DiBiagio, ASV general manager. But those costs aren't equal, and the advantage goes to the skid steer. ASV understands this. The company has been closely associated with compact track loaders since launching its first model, the MD-70, in 1990. But it also offers three radial-lift and two vertical-lift skid steer loaders. More "new" than meets the eye Look at a skid steer from 2017 and one from 30 years ago, and there isn't a lot that jumps out as new and improved. Other than the addition in the 1980s of verti- cal lift to the machine's original radial-lift architecture, it might seem the design has stagnated. Not so, says Gregg Zupancic, product marketing manager at John Deere. "We will soon offer self-levelling of the bucket in both the up and down mode." He says that while self-levelling in the up mode has been around for a while, self-levelling down is new. "Our machines have a creep mode, which delivers full power to the at- tachment while maintaining a low ground speed." Deere skid steers have three work modes, which vary the rate of machine response to operator input, as well as three drive modes. Return to dig, return to carry,