Spudgunner, I'm gonna try to sneak a question in real quiet and maybe it won't get to ugly like before. Curious about your Toolcat. I've seen them at the dealer and at some equipment shows but never had the chance to talk to a real owner. If you don't mind me asking, What sort of work do you do with it and what's your opinion of it? If you could would you make changes to it or does it do everything you need it to do?
Thanks, Bulldog.
Well, since Kubota_Man has given the Ok for "topic drift"...
The concept behind the Toolcat, IMO, is outstanding. The implementation leaves a bit to be desired in terms of reliability (except for the Kubota engine which has been flawless). Commercially, I use mine 99% for snow removal and I have a couple of blowers and a blade. When I was looking for commercial-grade snow removal equipment, the two finalists were the Kubota GrandL-5740HSTC and the Toolcat. Ultimately I bought the Toolcat as its forte, IMO, is snow removal and the snow blowers available for Toolcats and skid steers are just out-and-out BURLY in terms of their construction. The front blower for the Kubota tractor was not available for me to examine while the Bobcat dealer had several blowers on the lot.
Of course, the Toolcat also has side-by-side seating so you can bring your dog along for the snow removal fun. Half the subdivision refers to my mutt as "Tooldog" and the UPS guy said I needed a bumper sticker that said, "Dog is my copilot."
Bobcat has come out with a second version of the Toolcat (the 5610) that has a three-point hitch on the back (instead of a dump bed). The PTO associated with the 3-pt is basically a hydraulic motor.
Hope that helps. It sounds like maybe you are just kicking the tires right now. If you want to know more of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, about Toolcats, just shoot me a message via the PM facility of this site as I don't want to derail KM's thread much longer.
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We now return you to the previously scheduled lubricant debate.