[Bill Schwab]

WE have both track drive, and wheeled loaders. We have an ASV-30, a 246 Cat, a bobcat 463, and a 935 Steel track drive loader.

Before you purchase anything, first determine usage based off percentage of work to be done. Every machine wears parts as it runs, so overhead recovery plus maintenance mangement recovery must be built in to machine hours used. Said that, where you can get up to 700 hours on a sset of skid steer tires, and the cost is only $550.00 on average, you can get up to 2500.00 hours on an ASV tracks and under carraige, and the replacement cost is $4K give or take.

Where we are, track drives only have a true advanatge 7-12% of the time, as it rarely rains, and the advantage for us is on slopes, as a track machine will work on a harsher angle.

Lets get to the turf friendlyness, or falocy of tracks. Tracks will be a bit more friendly on perfectly dry situations, and light limited dric=ving over the area. They will trash a yard just as bad and as fast as a wheel machine. We use 1.25" thick plywood to run over in these situations, and the wheel machines work just fine with much less aggrevation as they are less costly to repair.

There are companies who make rubber slip on tracks for around 2K that fit over wheels where if you need to use less ground pressure per square inch, should work for you, without the added costs of dedicated track machines.

If I did it again, in our application, I would stick with wheels over tracks. Personally, I think the track craze at this point is more an extension of ones manhood than a necessary must have purchase.

Plowing snow, what is snow anyway? LOL, talk to some of the folks who get snow, but I have read that the rubber tracks slide all over the place.

Hope this helps!