Making Tracks
Nine Manufacturers Have Their Sights Set on the Compact Track Loader Industry. Those Companies Share Their Product Lines, Specs and
Prices with CE.
By Keith Gribbins
It’s a spring season design/build landscape job, overhauling the scenery of a ritzy golf course condo community, but today it’s just too wet to work. Your crews are sitting on their hands in their trucks, trading smokes and drinking coffee. And even if the rain did stop, the jobsite is too soft to track machinery over. Your fleet of skid steers is just too rough and tough on the lawn in this cold, wet weather. Every time the tires turn, they pick up sod and cost you extra money in restoration. And those pesky owners are already worried about damaging their well-groomed lawns — especially near the golf course.
Luckily, you’ve found a great alternative. You sent your skid steers back home and rented a compact track loader. It looks like a skid steer and acts like a skid steer, but with a set of tracks instead of wheels. Engineered with a
dedicated undercarriage (looking like a little Sherman tank), compact track loaders leave a lighter footprint on jobsites than their skid steer brethren. Their tracks create extremely low ground pressure — from 3 to 6 psi —
dispensing the weight of the machine through multiple contact points, which makes them easy on lawns (even if they’re wet).
Compact track loaders also give better traction than skid steers. Working on steep slopes or slippery, wet hills, a compact track loader can maintain a steadier work pace. When pushing piles of dirt, a compact track loader can build up more tractive effort too. Those dedicated tracks can even give you better flotation when working on sandy, snowy or muddy jobsites — like this landscape job right in front of you. But best of all, this compact track loader brings all the versatility of a skid steer to your jobsite, engineered with the exact same quick
coupler attachment plate, so nearly all your skid steer attachments will work on it.
Obviously, this is a great machine for extending the working season of contractors such as landscapers, who can use them in the early, wet spring months or the rainy fall (where they couldn’t use skid steers before). Because of their undercarriage, compact track loaders are also great machines for markets like dirt-moving, residential construction and the local rental lot. In fact, it’s a piece of equipment skid steer users have been wanting for some time.
“Compact equipment manufacturers across the board have done an improved job of listening to their customers in recent years,” says Randy Vargason, general manager of Mustang Mfg. Co. “Mustang’s customers, for instance, were demanding a piece of equipment with the flexibility and ruggedness of a skid steer that wouldn’t punish sensitive areas or get stuck in wet or loose ground. Customers complained that putting tracks on a skid steer was only a band-aid solution. They wanted a dedicated track loader machine.”
Of course, compact track loaders do have their
disadvantages compared to a skid steer — a much higher cost of ownership (due to the undercarriage), high track wear on hard surfaces, like concrete and asphalt, and a much higher purchase price. In the past, operators often just fitted their skid steers with over-the-tire steel or
rubber tracks from manufacturers like Goodyear, McLaren Industries and Loegering, but those were only
a temporary solution.
Luckily, about 15 years ago, two companies (ASV Inc. and Takeuchi Mfg. Co.) began developing a small loader engineered with a dedicated undercarriage and a set
of tracks. Today, these machines are called either
rubber track loaders, multi terrain loaders or compact track loaders.
In 1995, the entire compact track loader market yielded only $10 million in total revenue. Fast-forward 10 years, and the entire market is expected to finish at $700 million in 2005. Of course, unlike skid steers, compact track loader sales are not industry reported through the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). However, an estimate using UCC-1 filings
indicates in numbers that North America sales in 2003 were near 9,000 units sold and in 2004 were near 11,000 units sold.
“In 2005, compact track loader industry sales should continue to climb to an all time high of 14,000 units,” says Larry J. Foster, product marketing manager with John Deere’s Construction and Forestry Division.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. A great
indicator of this industry growth is the expansion of manufacturers into the market. In 2005, New Holland, Case and John Deere released new product lines
into the compact track loader industry, while companies like Bobcat and ASV have expanded their model offerings.
Large or small, vertical lift or radial lift, rubber tracks or steel tracks, enclosed cab or just ROPs, basic or
opulent, suspension or no suspension, cheap or expensive — today’s market offers a wealth of choices for
buyers. To help better understand this growing
opportunity, Compact Equipment contacted nine top manufacturers of compact track loaders — industry heavyweights like Takeuchi, ASV, Bobcat, Caterpillar, Mustang and Gehl — to find out what made each
company’s product line unique and appealing.
And what we found was an enormous growth market (more makes and models than ever before). So take your time, read the next 12 pages, check the specs, learn about the companies and pick the perfect
compact track loader for your jobsites and applications.
Keith Gribbins is managing editor of Compact Equipment.
>CONTINUED
BACK TO TOP 
