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Six years ago I bought the Toro 222 with two buckets, forks, grader bar (I love that thing), rototiller and Eliminator bar. We work in established landscapes that are confined. This machine has made me money.
I looked at it from a rather simple point of view. This machine gave me the equivalent of two men plus when I needed it - on call. At the time, my payment was about $400 a month. I figured as long as I billed the machine for three to four days per month - I covered the cost of the machine. We haven't used it a ton as we do not run a large installation operation. But the Dingo has allowed me to take on work that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do for my customers - keeping them happy and adding a bit more revenue each year. I don't want to get tied up on a project for a week or more. If it's more than two to three days I'm not comfortable. The dingo lets me do jobs in one or two days that by hand would take three to five days.
The rototiller is the only powered attachment I bought and it's a nice attachment. Much easier on the body and much less work than using a walk behind unit and significantly faster. The only problem is that the tilling depth is 4" to 6" max.
If you have nothing, buying a mini in the right applicaiton will be a good investment. I took a somewhat backwards approach by buying the equipment and then selling the work for it which has been no problem.
This year I added a New Holland 885 mostly as a yard machine- I have yet to take it out on a job - I'd rather use the Dingo for our projects.
We tried using the Dingo for snow plowing - it was horrible as the Kubota engine does not like the cold weather (perhaps would be okay with a different engine). We also used the dozer blade for snow - no trip mechanism. Maybe they have something available today that trips. We used a prototype snow blower for Dingo about 5 years ago which was okay - just very slow. ATV is a much better option for us.
I'm beginning to think that with about 700 hours on the 222 that I might want to trade it in for a new power unit - 322. We don't use it much - but it's worth having one around for when we need it. I wouldn't think about not having one at this point.
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