Skidsteer age...

[sgbotsford]

This may belong in the equipment forum.

A farm tractor lasts 30-50 years, and is just getting broken in at 4000-6000 hours.

A skid steer is OLD equipment at 3000 hours, and seems to rack up hours a lot faster, often getting those 3000 hours in only a few years.

How come?

[SRT8]

Originally Posted by sgbotsford

This may belong in the equipment forum.

A farm tractor lasts 30-50 years, and is just getting broken in at 4000-6000 hours.

A skid steer is OLD equipment at 3000 hours, and seems to rack up hours a lot faster, often getting those 3000 hours in only a few years.

How come?

Say you have an excavating or grading company. You will have several skidsteers, and all you do is dig and move dirt all day. So if you have an employee on your skidsteer for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 160 hours a month that totals to 1920 hours a year. Plus skidsteers can be used in more ways due to the number of attachments that are available.
Also skidsteers take a beating on a regular basis.

[sgbotsford]

Ok, that answers the why they get hours faster. I actually thought of that after I posted.

the general figure around here is that if you can run a machine for 500 hours a year, you can make money with it. (It goes to the site, it comes back to the shop. 2 hours gone in a day. It gets used 3 days a week. 18 hours a week. Your operator takes two weeks off in July and August. 50 hours a month. Fall to snowfall it sits idle. Snowmelt to spring it sits idle So it only runs 8 months a year.)

But what wears out? Do hydraulic power systems have an intrinically shorter life span than a mechanical power system?

[alldayrj]

My machine gets lots of hours in the snow. I run tanks of fuel through it without shutting it off, leave it running to go grt food, and have plowed 46 hrs straight(alternating operators). However my 2007 only has 6xx hours because i pay for the fuel, i throttle it down when its idle and shut it off. Employees may not
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