Looking at 963 vs 950 wheel loader I have a 910 and 299 both are too small and the wheel load can not move in mud or dig into a pile with out loading traction
It really depends on your usage. If you have a widespread situation where the fast mobility of the 950 will help, then that is what I would do. I find that to be a big help when I can possibly road it between some places like a farm tractor. A track loader is OK in a pit and pile situation, or where you might be cutting hard material to load it out. My first piece of ( other than farm ) equipment was a JD350 crawler loader and I got a lot of things done with it. We dragged firewood logs with it in a forest service purchase first.
OK - lets start with the basics. What do you want to accomplish and in what type of conditions? I'm a huge track loader (953C) fan for its versatility however here lately I've been pondering a smaller wheel loader as well. Both machines have their place. A 963 and 950 are quite a bit larger than a 910 and 299 CTL, so what are kind of jobs are you looking at?
950 is one of the handiest sizes. They are pretty darn good off road and side hill. I've never flopped a loader and I have had a 950 in some precarious situations, the old 950's. The early JD644's were similar but not as good IMO.
It is interesting on comparing the two. Out West, you see few track loaders (except at landfills), everything is wheel loader. I can't say that I have in 28 years in the business seen one work here that wasn't in a landfill. Probably due to drier conditions, generally speaking. If something needs to excavated, its done with an excavator and if then needs to be moved its moved with a wheel loader. If its wet, you then see Artics. Out East, completely different story.
Todays 950 is bigger than and old 966. You can do a lot of stuff on tracks but an inexperienced operator can tear up a lot of ground as well. Tracks can do demolition, clearing and grubbing. Tires move lots of dirt over a large area, can be used to operate various types of operating plants like concrete, asphalt or any bulk material. Both can operate different attachments to enhance their usage. The key to either is the application you intend to use it in.
+++on demo work. The tracks do not get flats from #3 rebar scraps.
Traxcavator - 1. Has much better "grip on the ground", and much better digging ability than any wheel loader. 2. Has tracked undercarriage which is "spendy" compared to tires, when they're worn out. 3. Doesn't get flat tires or blowouts. 4. Because it has tracks, it's slow over the ground. Any distance to travel, and the wheel loader runs rings around it. 5. Because traxcavators have fixed (bolted, non-articulating) track frames, they ride rough. You need a good suspension seat on them. 6. Thanks to the fixed track frames, traxcavators are more stable when you have a full bucket raised and you're moving with it raised. 7. Need a lowbed to move them around. Wheel loader - 1. Hasn't got the traction of a tracked machine. Spins tires in poor underfoot conditions. So you need to keep good conditions underfoot. 2. Has tires that are much cheaper to replace and repair - but be prepared to fix flats a few times a year if you work in sharp rock, or where there's metal trash in the ground. 3. Is fast over the ground and they're great for "tramming" materials over a considerable distance. This really speeds up production. 4. Wheel loaders give a better operator ride than traxcavators. 5. Are not as stable when moving with a full bucket raised. Drop into an unseen pothole or have the ground collapse under weight application with the bucket raised, and you are likely to roll over. Add in, turning when bucket raised, and stability gets worse again. 6. Can "road" them from place to place if not overwidth for roads. Traxcavators have fallen away in popularity over the decades, basically because tires have got better and bigger and more robust for most wheel loaders, and undercarriage costs have outpaced tire replacement costs.
Before hydraulic excavators arrived I operated a TL545 loader doing excavation work, subdivision roads, street reconstruction even dug swimming pools. Even in dry sand it could out push the HD6 and the cycle times were as different as chalk and cheese. Except for real soft ground give me the wheel loader
Interesting enough here you rarely see a track loader at a landfill. The equipment of choice are either D6's or D61's followed by 826/836 sized landfill compactors with track hoes thrown in the mix to sort out metals and large debris. Local county landfill has a 953K but it's rarely on the working face from my trips there, it's usually parked by the maintenance shed with the paint still on the bucket. None of the private C&D landfills I've been in have one. On the flip side 953 sized loaders are very popular with the residential excavators as well as the commercial companies. I don't think you can cut a house basement around here with out at least a 953. There is a brand new one at the dealer I keep drooling over. If I only had one machine to choose from to put food on the table in my working conditions, it would be a 953 track loader.
seriously? you'd give up all the excavators? what is your ratio of excavators to track loaders? I'd choose an excavator every time 11 out of 10 times
Yep - wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. I can clear, grubb, grade, excavate, demolish, spread and load with 1 machine efficiently. It would be hard for me to make money with just an excavator as one always needs another machine be it a CTL, dozer or wheel loader for grading and excavating. You could build a 10,000 SF building pad with an excavator but it's going to take a minute to get within +/- .10th.
Landfills on the west side of Washington State use D9 dozers, 631 and 637 scrapers and very large landfill compactors. I don't recall ever seeing a track loader on one of those operations. I have seen track loaders used in some of the transfer stations. In the transfer stations and some of the landfills with paved ramps and pads, they have gone to wheel loaders. Most of those have foam filled tires. East of the Cascades in the smaller counties I've seen some D6 and D7 dozers, 826 compactors and a couple of 621 scrapers.
Yes I should have been more specific, the transfer stations here run the track loaders.
Back in the mid 2000's my PSR said there were 200+ track loaders working his area that he knew of, that's not counting the farm machines.
Working mainly on dirt and jobs sometimes if it rains it turns to slop The current job I was at today was screening 1000 yards of fill and the 910 could dig into the tailings and load truck at the same time power screen 1200 on rent My concern with the 950 is traction and power to dig into rock and piles of dirt Also when digging 20k foot house moving and stock piling fill trap rock We’re starting to get in commercial job too We have 301 304 310 315 323 259 299 910 or is a 950 and a d5 dozer better option
A traxcavator with a 4 in 1 bucket and rippers is an exceptionally useful machine, if you don't need to move dirt a long ways.
When I was younger there were no excavators I remember at the mines but plenty of track loader types. They were used everywhere and did seemingly everything an excavator does nowadays and in some ways better. A clam bucket with teeth and a ripper on one and you are set for a multitude of tasks. These were very good for the line boring business too..... I remember well lots of house and building basements dug with track loaders and shallow crawlspace footings dug with TLB machines. Both jobs are now done routinely with excavators from what I see with another machine brought in for finish work. In the days gone by the machine that did the digging also did the finish work. Of course back then you had strong young men that knew what a shovel was for and how to use it also.
The clue is in the name. They are called front-end loaders (as opposed to diggers/excavators) for a reason. An FEL is not designed to load solid material out of a bank but to load loose material that has already been handled once by something else. YMMV.
That's funny. The promotional video for the Michigan 675 showed it digging into a bank and taking the material directly to the dump site eliminating the need to load trucks. It looked to be a pretty extreme application even for a 24 yd. wheel loader.
OzDozer here's a #7 for your traxcavators list 7 Cat has sold more at least 5 times more wheeled traxcavators than ones on tracks. Bob
So what if they sold more wheel loaders. There's more applications for wheel loaders but digging into banks and hard rocky ground or softer terrain is an application better suited to a track loader.
Why do people like skid steers? Same principle, the track loader is a one man operation, jack of all trades, can do a little of everything. If you are only needing it at one location and never transporting material far. I'd take a track loader over a wheel loader. After running track loaders for years, when i hop in a wheel loader it feels like the most clumsy and unproductive machine in comparison. Everything feels loose, unstable, no power. But it sips fuel in comparison to a track loader. Apples to oranges though. I'm biased saying i would take a track loader over a wheel loader. The 963D is a Cadillac in comparison to the 755k Deere. Operator comfort is not even a comparison. Cat has all the controls attached to the seat, so when the seat cycles up and down your arms stay with you instead of being moved around by the seat cycling. The arm rest flips up to give you way more room getting in and out of the seat. It's a lot quieter in the cab. The turtle/rabbit speed control button is right beside the directional control lever. Horn is also right there. Steps on the arms to get onto the tracks are three times as strong, never bent one(did bend a deere step). Deere is a cheaper machine to buy, the newer 755k's ive ran seemed to be a little bit better on fuel maybe because the last 963d i ran was a 2008 vs a 2020 deere. The cabs are tight to get into(i'm 6'3) and the interior is all metal so its loud in there, but bright side theres no plastics to break in the cab. The only sound deadening is on the roof. Rear side windows open up which is alright when you're on stand by and dont want to waste fuel keeping the AC going. The seat is not as comfortable. and the controls are on the cab so cycling the seat moves your arms and wrists which adds fatigue in 12 hours.
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