Budget-minded property owners and contractors don’t shop for “cheap” utility tractors. In the first place, the word has negative connotations. In the second, any machine…

There was a time — say, 15 years ago — when snow was mostly pushed around parking lots by pickup-mounted blades. Blizzards might see the…

This promotional photo of the Toro RT1200 riding trencher is an eye-opener. The tool-carrier chassis rides on four triangular rubber tracks with a backhoe mounted…

Buckets and compact wheel loaders are made for each other. Literally. Yes, grapples and forks can be affixed to the front end of wheel loaders,…

When you buy a car, you might kick the tires, maybe peer into the wheel well to look at the leaf springs or torsion bar,…

In this era of skid steers and track loaders, utility tractors might seem at risk of losing market share, but manufacturers are still confident. These…

Compact excavator operators know that their success rides on good rubber tracks, which is why excavator manufacturers sell their machines with tracks that optimize the…

Trend lines for compact telehandler sales are rising as U.S. equipment users increasingly incorporate the two-stage, attachment-focused telescopic machines into their work patterns. This market…

When a property has been allowed to return to a natural state of twisted grasses, thick-barked brush and trees grown well beyond the sapling stage,…

Compact tool carriers (sometimes termed compact skid steers, compact utility loaders or mini-track loaders) continue to evolve into machines of greater capacity and utility. For…

The smallest hydraulic excavators (with seats for operators) indeed are small. They are narrow and short enough to be driven through doorways. They’re powered by…

Envision the scene: A worker is sent to an area of a jobsite to reface jaggedly broken edges of old pavement and to chip away…

Anyone in the market for a skid steer loader has expectations for his or her dream machine. Size, lifting force, versatility — these and other…

The skid steer has evolved from a rudimentary three-wheeled, belt-driven blacksmith shop creation to a hydrostatic-propelled workhorse. Along the way, the operator’s crude open-air seat…

Bigger is, well, bigger, but it can be better, too. “Big” compact track loaders are still compact compared to many other machines in the equipment…

Sometimes it feels like the only difference between one brand of compact machine and another is the nameplate and color. Features are common among them,…

Walk-behind trenchers have been around long enough to have lost their novelty. When was the last time you saw someone laying open a trench with…

The lifeblood of a compact hydraulic excavator is its hydraulic fluid (pressurized oil) that flows through its pumps and motors, but those motors wouldn’t animate…

When an operator seats himself in a compact track loader, he always faces two tasks. The first is to take care of the machine. The…

Putting rookie operators in the driver seats of heavy equipment is the last thing most contractors do. At risk are machines sometimes valued at hundreds…