Having been elected president of my club I have taken on the task of helping to find a second groomer for us and have been looking at a few different machines.I talked to one of the drivers of one machine this past weekend,a Bombardier BR 180,and of course he was extolling all the virtues of it but I'd really like to get the opportunity to have some objective opinions on these machines.There must be bad points as well as good about these,actually one of the bad I learned recently was the cost to replace the main hydraulic pump,upward of $10,000.
I also have some info on a series 2000 Tucker Sno Cat for sale,unfortunately that info doesn't include the year of it.Who might be able to give me the good and bad points of Tuckers?We actually have an older one now,1977,and it works good but it has a 316 Dodge engine which in this application is less than desirable.To call it hard on gas would be a fair statement and for some odd reason we can't seem to keep u joints in the rear drive shaft either,there's an unusual amount of heat generated from something and the guys that work on the machine have rebuilt the rear end and tried shimming it to align the drive shaft better but nothing has worked yet.Do the newer Tuckers still suffer from the same u joint ailment?
One other machine we have on our list is a 2004 John Deere tractor with a track kit on it,it 's for sale as a complete unit with the matching drag and from what I can gather it has been very well cared for.Does anyone's club use a tractor for grooming?Good and bad points of this kind of set up?
I also have some info on a series 2000 Tucker Sno Cat for sale,unfortunately that info doesn't include the year of it.Who might be able to give me the good and bad points of Tuckers?We actually have an older one now,1977,and it works good but it has a 316 Dodge engine which in this application is less than desirable.To call it hard on gas would be a fair statement and for some odd reason we can't seem to keep u joints in the rear drive shaft either,there's an unusual amount of heat generated from something and the guys that work on the machine have rebuilt the rear end and tried shimming it to align the drive shaft better but nothing has worked yet.Do the newer Tuckers still suffer from the same u joint ailment?
One other machine we have on our list is a 2004 John Deere tractor with a track kit on it,it 's for sale as a complete unit with the matching drag and from what I can gather it has been very well cared for.Does anyone's club use a tractor for grooming?Good and bad points of this kind of set up?
bluewho
Active member
The tractor is the way to go and being a john deer is even better.The only drawback is being so high it does not groom low bush trails and would be a single seater.Track groomers are very high matenance compared to any tractor style.
This particular tractor has had the cab modified to accept a second seat and who ever did it did a great job,from what I can tell in the pics I was sent.The Tucker we have pics of is in real decent shape too but I'd like to know if the drive line is still the weak link in them or not,as I had said in my first post our old Tucker goes through u joints like it's going out of style.The BR seem to be good machines too but in the event we would ever have to do any major work to the hydraulics it could just break our club financially.Personally I'm leaning towards the tractor if for no other reason in that I worked with farm tractors for 21 years at my previous job,but I'm only one voice so I have to convince the rest of the committee to go in this direction.
Devilin AblueDress!
New member
The club I groom for has 2 JD's with saucy track conversions and a Pisten Bully 400. I don't know a lot about the JD's as I run the Bully. I do know both JD's had some sort of hub/carrier bearing type issue that ended up costing 10K a piece to get back up and running, supposedly a routine wear issue that both were over due for. The Bully is a BEAST! We have had only minor issues with the Bully. Has the rubber x tracks on it and cleats break every so often, got it done to about a 20-30 minute job changing one. Had a hydraulic line chafe/rub threw. 2 of our operators managed to get it stuck. One was an honest mistake in a 8ft deep snow drift 1500' long. The other was a complete bone head move in an area that had ben drifting badly and not packed real hard. Some jack hole drove his ford ranger down the trail and got stuck. Operator thought he could go around it. 6-7ft of un-packed snow.....5k Dubie drag...bad combo. The JD's get stuck routinely from what I hear. All 3 pull the Dubie drag/groomer. Bully pulls a 15ft wide double winged and the JD's pull a 12'6" single wing.