Comments for Smack Talk

Comment on Power Lift! The Battle in Bowling Green Gets Physical! by Bobcat_Fan

Bobcat_Fan — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 19:09:59 +0000

Couple things:

1. Bobcat INVENTED the skid steer loader. Can’t we at least credit them with that?
2. You forgot ease of changing attachments.
3. You forgot attachments
4. Bobcat is the only skid steer made in the USA
5. Why on earth would you lift something that heavy that high?

[MODERATOR'S COMMENT: John Deere Skid Steers and CTLs are manufactured in Dubuque, Iowa.]

Comment on Power Lift! The Battle in Bowling Green Gets Physical! by Jonathon Eaton

Jonathon Eaton — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:11:35 +0000

Nice 5″ gap on the brute force lift with the Case and New Holland Machines.

Without that Gap, I garantee the CASE will outlift the John Deere. True, it was the operators fault, but honestly, who is dumb enough to not get fully into a palletized load.

So to make the competition fair next time, use CASE or NH factory drivers to go with your JD factory driver. Then we will see who slaps who!

From running all of the head to head at my Ranch, I chose the Case 465 SSL over the Bobcat 300 and the JD 3XX series.
It’s a more robust constructed machine than the others, and pound for pound more hydraulic reserve power.

The Direct driven Cummins motor retains 60% Hyd Power even at low revs like the John Deere, Bobcat with the belt drive needs to rev up to get the same power.

I have no remorse in my purchase. I love my JD Tractor, and Deere has no equal there, but when it comes to SSL’s Case has them beat.

[MODERATOR'S COMMENT: As previously posted, all the machines in Bowling Green were operated by local operators who run the same brand of skid steers in their daily work as they did at our Skid Steer Smackdown event. The Case operator didn’t position the block against the pallet stop, but this Case model will not lift the weight regardless of block positioning in our machine evaluations.]

Comment on Skid Steer Smackdown Season Two – The Prove It Tour! by buckwheat_la

buckwheat_la — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:19:31 +0000

i want to give congrats to John Deere for their showing at these events, and i well be the first to admit they have great specs, HOWEVER i do have a major problem with quality. The JD skidsteers may out preform my Cases, BUT, my Cases don’t break down half as much as the JD’s in my area, people may say Cases are outdated, but why mess with a track record like Case has.

Comment on Power Lift! The Battle in Bowling Green Gets Physical! by skidman

skidman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:18:30 +0000

To S-moe: A Gehl is a Tak. If you didn’t care for the Gehl machine, then you wouldn’t like the Tak.

Comment on Power Lift! The Battle in Bowling Green Gets Physical! by skidman

skidman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:16:49 +0000

Since my last comment it seems we still have some mis-belivers. It is funny that the above statement says I like to purchase machines that are not as good as some others. This demo was 4′ off of the ground at truck bed height.

To the Gehl, Mustang, and Tak lovers. You guys know you are all driving exactly the same machine painted different colors, so why not buy the cheapest of all three, the Mustang. Again the Gehl CTL85, Tak TL250, and the Mustang MTL325 only have a tipping load of 7056 lbs, where the JD CT332 has a tipping load of 9200lbs. Those 3 machines again all have 98hp and can’t lift squat. Better luck getting into a competition when you get a big enough machine to compete with someone.

Comment on Power Lift! The Battle in Bowling Green Gets Physical! by used_to_be_a_bobcat_fan

used_to_be_a_bobcat_fan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:51:53 +0000

I laughed at all the heavy lift shows of force, yes the Deere’s are impressive, BUT, would you want a rookie or even a seasoned operator lifting that much weight around? And then showing off to his friends only to flip or seriously damage the machine? Not me.
If the other names in the competition couldn’t lift that weight, I think that’s safer.
Let’s not forget that Deere’s loader reaches out higher as the loader goes up, so even if it hasn’t lifted its max. tipping weight, it will indeed tip as the load goes higher.
That was always a selling point for me with Bobcat and Cat, they both get their loaders to the max. reach 4 feet off the ground, so if it’s going to tip, it will be a at a lower and safer height than the Deere. A good example is lifting pallets of brick to scaffolding, would you really want to try to lower your heavy load down from a height of 130+ inches with out hitting the scaffolding, or lower the heavy load from 48″? I still prefer the Cat and Bobcat loader design.
And besides, Deere operators still can NOT see their back end of the tracks with the loaders down.
[MODERATOR'S COMMENT: The John Deere patented Vertical Lift boom actually lifts from the ground straight up along a vertical path, and then just slightly prior to reaching peak lift height (4 inches from the top), the boom moves just slightly away from the machine for max reach to load the center of a dump truck or hopper. This helps allow the bucket to be fully dumped the entire 90 degrees without the bottom of the bucket coming in contact with the inside of the dump truck rails.]

Comment on You Can See Clearly Now…Or Can You? by skidsteerdude

skidsteerdude — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:55:32 +0000

clearly JCB has the best visibility of all the skid steers with the single arm design advantage!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment on Skid Steer Smackdown Season Two – The Prove It Tour! by JCW

JCW — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:08:29 +0000

Marketing at its best! I am disapointed with how blatantly obvious the disadvantages that were given to the competitive models during the events. I saw at least two competitive models not fully engage the pallet which would have placed the center of gravity much further from the machine. I got another good laugh on the hill climb…just watch the bucket positions as they climb “Mount Skidmore”. Seriously disapointed that the Cat was not also included…probably for good reason. I suggest you have some of the folks you awarded in the operators competion run all the machines in all of the events to get a more realistic perspective on performance, then again if you did that you would probably be looking for new jobs. All in all, mission accomplished!

[MODERATOR'S COMMENT: All the machines in Bowling Green were operated by local operators who run the same brand of skid steers in their daily work as they did at our Skid Steer Smackdown event. The Case operator didn’t position the block against the pallet stop, but this Case model will not lift the weight regardless of block positioning in our machine evaluations. The New Holland operator does place the block against the backstop on his third lift attempt on the video.]

Comment on Season One – A Look Back by Herb Post

Herb Post — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:48:26 +0000

I saw the new D at Louisville yesterday. Nice machine. Vastly superior to our company’s early 250. I saw the suggestion box and was impressed by that. I looked the machine over with a mechanic’s point of view in mind. One of the few things I noticed was the lack of fluid sampling ports. A standard on larger machines like our 310SJs. Our company requires good sampling and so does warranties. Why not make it simple and efficient for the techs to do their job? Thanks for the oppurtunity to look and good luck with these.

Herb
[MODERATOR'S COMMENT: Currently, there are no John Deere programs associated with skid steer or compact track loaders that require fluid sampling. Extended warranty requires fluid sampling for contracts over 5,000 hours, but John Deere does not currently offer contracts over 5,000 hours on skid steers.]

Comment on You Can See Clearly Now…Or Can You? by Bob

Bob — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:53:25 +0000

I also demo’d a Cat skid loader last year and they have terrible visibility. that thing is dangerous!