[Dale Wiley]

The tracked machines such as Toro TX 425, Ditch Witch etc seem to me to be very inefficent and break down prone machines.

We rented a TX 425 for 6 weeks last fall and winter. It did OK, but my crew did not like it because of the walking in rough terrian.

We rented another one last week to plant 108 trees with. The gdamn tracks fell off it about 6 hours into the job. Bad engineering because Cat, Bobcat and Ditch Witch have all the good track engineering tied up in patents and everything else is a poor imitation

6.5 hours lost production time. 1.5 hours shop time, total 8 hours lost time first day.

2 hours to take machine back to rental company and get another one. Machine gets to job and digs 5 holes and damn track motor blows seal and starts leaking hot gear oil on 3 driveways and 2 lawns before crew catches it. Crew is shut down on tree planting for the rest of the day and we have to re shuffle the work load. 4.5 hours lost production time there. 6 hours for clean up of driuveways and cut out damaged sod. 2 hours lost time taking machine back and telling them not to bother with another one.

So, were are looking at 22.5 hours of lost production time at $ 35 per hour for a grand total of $ 787.50, and puts the job down 22.5 hours. Now I am pissed, and I try to never get pissed because it just screws up my whole week.

I paid $ 215 deposit on the machine and I want it all back, the rental company is balking at that. Screw them.

Now... I drive to Portland and pickup our new S 600 Vermeer compact skid steer. Awesome machine. I take it to job and crew starts planting trees again and the machine works fine, everything goes good, and I am getting the job back on track.

Rental equipment sucks. My payment on this unit is $ 837 per month. It will have paid for the first payment by the end of today....