Hi! I'm a industrial design senior at a university working on a project. Please let me know if this is against any rules or if it's in the wrong forum. I just wanted to ask/discuss a few things if possible! I apologize if this stuff is common knowledge already, but I'm willing to learn! How common it is to have ATVs or utility vehicles (I'm meaning side-by-side ATVs, etc.) on a job site (it'd be great to know what kind of environment you work in as well)? Do you guys run into any problems with them in terms of durability? When you buy or use an ATV or a utility vehicle, what are you expecting to use it for? And in real-world performance, does it match those expectations? What do you like best about the ATV or utility vehicle that you are using? Thanks for any help at all! Please feel free to share any other stories you have with your ATVs/utility vehicles. I'm really trying to get a better feel on how these vehicles fit into your plans/strategy on the job. Thanks!
I have an atv, take it to almost every job we do, we use it for everything, a pack horse, gps mapping, measuring tile line footage, chasing parts and moving people around the site, its the first thing we bring in the last tihing we take off the job. I don't know if brands are what your wanting to know, but we run honda's, mine is shaft drive and 4x4, electric shift and so far has been pretty dependable, wish I had a side by side with heated cab and diesel, but when I find one I can afford I'll own one. We pull a small trailer behind mine, it carries everything from a 100 gallon fuel tank to my laser and tripod, parts, wrenches and whatever else we need when we can't get my service truck to the equipment. Its a fill in the gap machine, when others vehicles can't get to my machines, it brings everyone lunch daily and takes everyone to the vehicles at night, it does it all and never complains. My kids call it the 'go for" vehicle, it you have to go for something we take the atv. It runs cheap and goes where nothing else will go. As far as durability, I know of a few with over 15,000 hours on them and they are still used every day, I'm thinking that's pretty good for a small gas engine, no matter what brand it is. Mine has a few thousand hours on it, no major problems. I talked to others that were in the same line of work I do and they told what brand and model to buy, that's what they've found held up, we've used customers atv's and side by side's, had problems with getting around the job site with them, some were stuck all the time, others were tippy and we'd almost layed them over on the hills a few times. What do we look for when buying one, service and parts availability, knowledgable staff that can keep mine running when I need it the most "in season", ride, how noisy it is to run and its handling charasteristics and don't ask me to tell you what makes one different than another, but there is a difference we've found, my help complains when we have to run some brands vs others that customers provide. What do I like best about it, it saves walking, before we had it and it was too muddy out, we walked, the atv saves time and walking.
Welcome to the Forums johnnylee! You're in the right Forum and it's not against the rules. From time to time we have students studying different fields come to HEF for advice and research. You'll find our members are more than willing to share their experience and knowledge. Good luck!
Thank you! Thanks for the great information? I've heard a few different reports on whether ATV use is common at a job, so I was curious about what type of jobs you do (if you don't mind, of course). Do you also work in a colder environment (since you were talking about wanting a side-by-side with a heated cab)?
To me atvs are not a need in most cases but very much a luxury anywhere. Sure your truck can get to the same speed but by the time you get in adjust yourself and get it started, the atv is already where it needs to be. We have never used them in winter when they werent stored in a shop but I can't see them being too bad to start (compared to some of the iron around here). But if you really need to pinch pennies it might not be the best bet right off the bat. The money could be spent on more essentials. Side by sides are ok but I will take an atv over quad any day on the hairier stuff. Both can actually support a variety of attachments too. I would say if your looking for a cheap way to run around the site, or need to get into some places with little environmental impact that trucks cant make it a quad would be your best bet. If you are on nicer ground and want more luxury, and are willing to shell out a few more clams, get a side by side. I have seen both used in many different places. Side by sides ran rampant in a few oil and gas plants I have been to cause they have the money and the employees are pretty cozy there. I have seen atvs on grading jobs, bush work, and in a few gravel pits. and im sure elsewhere as well. If it were my money, atv no question. 4x4 no question. Honda would be my choice for work.
I do ag tiling, land clearing, dirt work of all kinds, you name it we pretty much do it. When we're tiling, in a lot of cases, the pickups sit in the customers yard or on the road, one spring we never got any 4x4 pickup off any paved or gravel road, so fittings and fuel everything came in via atv or foot, the farthest we carreid stuff was 3/4 mile one way. That year the tile was strung with a dozer or with what we call the dummy rolls pulled with an atv, the small rolls of say between 100 and 250 feet. All maintenance was done from the atv, everyone had boots on and we stood in mud from the time we got out of the trucks till we climbed back in, the atv was light enough to get around and also if we got stuck with it we could usually push it out or take the dozer and pull it back out, after that we took it everywhere. We've done some land clearing where we couldn't get the trucks into, period, the terraine wasn't what I'd call friendly at all, and I'm not taking my service truck into an area where you'd do 4x4 hill climb competitions for sport, so we used the atv's to fill the gap again. When we're tiling we pull a large fitting trailer around, its over 10,000 lbs and most times its left by the road or in the yard, the atv's are used to "go for" fittings as we need them. We use the atv's for tile mapping and measuring when we're done, I don't have that 50k mapping system on my trencher so we use hand helds that run off battereis via the atv's, before it was walked to map and carried battereis by the case full to refill the gps unit, we also walked with a wheel to measure everything to the tune of several hundred thousand feet per year, we now ride the atv instead. As for climates, we start tiling in the spring before the frost is completely gone out and finish in the fall after the frost is back in, we usually end up with a snow storm to shut us down, we've used the atv's in such bad weather you couldn't see your hand in front of your face from it snowing so badly, four years ago we left the atv sit beside the trencher the last night in hopes we could go another day, in the morning we couldn't see the atv or trencher because it was under a snow bank, two days later after we dug it out, it fired right up and we used the atv to help shuttle people back and forth from the road to haul the equipment out. When we used pickups to do the job we ran over a tank of gas per day per pickup 7 days a week with the atv we run for day on 2.5 gallons of gas x almost 10 months per year it adds up to some dollar savings. We also do our scouting from the atv's, after getting 4x4 pickups stuck more times than I could ever count and not having anything there for machines yet to get us out with, we now just automatically take the atv to every job site there is, whether we use it or not. The side by side with a heated cab would be great, when everything you touch is wet from water and your soaked from head to foot on most days, when it turns colder a heated cab to climb into from time to time would be nice, that and we're getting older and to hang onto and climb onto the atv is getting somewhat more difficult. The most people we've had on one atv was 8 also pulling a small trailer and carrying a 100 gallon fuel tank and shovels, cordless tools, laser and tripod, and assorted fittings, I"m pretty sure we were over the towing and carrying capacity of the atv. Its the only machine we own thats used, abused and doesn't get the care it deserves but keeps on going just the same, my kids grew up on them and ran them from the time they were old enough to hang on, we've flipped them over, sank them into mud holes over the handlebars, had them stuck more times than I care to think, floated them down creeks from too high of water, driven them many tens of thousands of times, put countess thousands of hours on them, hung them up on stuff everywhere, driven them in all types of weather, and even huddled behind them and used the exhaust as heat in a blinding snow storm once when we couldn't get back to the trucks to go home, till hours later when when it stopped snowing so we could see where the trucks were parked, buried them under snow banks and dug them out to run yet another day of work, had one wash away in a flood to be found days later downsteam and drove it back to the job site to run the entire day before going home to have its oil changed. Anyone that says its an unneeded luxury doesn't do the type of work we do or go where we go on a daily basis, mine are also painted bright yellow so we can see them in all types weather and terraine, but most times you can't see any yellow on them from the coating of mud. Every machine I own get treated with care and serviced and greased and used for its intended purpose except the atv's, for some reason they don't and really can't be taken care of other than to change oil and service them, every job they do is abuse and neglect, I guess its just the nature of operating them I guess you can say, they are realativly cheap to buy and easy to replace with another one, so to save time and walking they get run somewhat rougher than most machines out there. I've found over the years that when farmers or landowners can't drive their 4x4 pickups around, it means its too wet and I get a call to come in and make it so they can drive around again, either from fixing tile or putting tile in, so that time frame from when I get there till I leave, pickups are pretty much useless for my work enviroment, anything with tires on them for that matter is pretty much helpless except the atv. Whoever invented the atv in my opinion deserves to be a millionaire, for the steps its saves and workload it does, same goes for the side by side.
I love my 4x4 yamaha 250 cc atv I have had it for 18 years and have not killed it yet enenthough it has never been used as intended. I have pulled loaded grain wagons probably 5 ton even pulled a empty tandem dump when the clutch failed. I also had a 16" oak tree fall on it and all that was dameged was the rim was crushed and a crack in the fender. I use it for everything from moving materals in and out of muddy jobs to the grass seeder that I have mounted on back that hardly ever comes off also for dragging yards with a harrow or chainlink. I have gotten some strange looks when I pull up with it but after I am done everyone can't believe what it can do. For the cost of one it will be the cheepest and most used machine on the job and it will save a few trucks from beeing worn out as it will out last them atleast 3 to 1. When the job is done you will have it to have fun with.
Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences (and thanks for the clarification Randy88), I really appreciate it. Learned a lot of new information that I didn't know about. I'll keep monitoring the thread; I'd love to hear more stories if anyone else has anything else to share