Five Considerations When Looking for an ATV/UTV Attachment – ABI Dirt

Transcript

Hi everyone, Matt Metzger here with ABI Attachments. Welcome back to another episode of the “ABI Dirt“. On today’s episode, we’re gonna be looking at the five things to consider when you’re looking to get an attachment for your ATV or UTV. Now, when it comes to dirt work for all of you, tractor diehards out there and swayed the only way to actually get work done is with the tractor and the three point. I hear you, I get you and I don’t disagree. There are a lot of advantages to having the amount of muscle you’ve got in your tractor to get your work done. However, if all you’ve got is a four-wheeler, side-by-side ATV, UTV or you prefer to use your ATV or UTV to get the job done. There’s some great attachments out there that can really help you get through the work. So today, if you’re curious about what you need to attach to your ATV or UTV in order to turn it into a work machine, we’ve got five things to consider.

First up is, weight this one’s a touchy one so I wanna get it out of the way right away. So when it comes to the weight of the attachment you’re working with it’s got to be light enough that you can pull it with your ATV or UTV, but heavy enough it can actually do some real work. I know the idea of the real work is a touchy point for people cause, ” my attachment can do real work.” Here’s the thing, this is why people have been putting cinder blocks and railroad ties on sections of fence and bed springs for years. You need to weight down where you’re working with, so it can actually grab the soil and do something with it. But, it can’t be so heavy that what you’ve got pulling back there providing so much friction that what you’ve got pulling behind your ATV or UTV starts to slip or slide. So be mindful of whether or not you’ve got four-wheel drive on your ATV, UTV. Be mindful of what kind of tires and how much traction you’ve got and then be mindful of how heavy that attachment is so you can actually engage the soil, the gravel, the dirt, the horse arena footing to do what you need to do.

So now that we’ve talked about weight, let’s talk about mobility. That’s number two in considerations when it comes to picking your ATV, UTV attachment because where are you going to take this thing? How many places does it need to move to? I was out of the buddy’s property the other day and walking across the pasture and there’s a chain hero up against the fence row. Why is there a chain hero up against a fence row? Because chain arrows can’t move very easily, you all know if you’ve ever used a chain hero big old pile chain links there is no wheels, there’s no tires. It’s a pain in the neck to move. So wherever you’re done with it, that’s where you drop it and you just pick it up back there, next time you go somewhere. So if you’re looking for an ATV or UTV attachment make sure you’ve got tires to transport, stop and think about things like how many different places is this attachment going to work? How far do you have to travel? How many different properties are going to be used this attachment? How many different operators are going to use it? And then you also can start to consider with mobility in mind. Where are you going to store the unit? Is the attachment you’re looking at? Is it some what collapsible? So it can take up a smaller footprint inside of your barn or lean to or is it going to sit outside and how much space do you have for that? That’s the why factor number two when considering attachment is mobility.

Third thing to consider when looking for an attachment is functionality. So this is where it gets to specific to you and your work, what are you doing? What do you need to accomplish? But be careful on this one, because if you get too narrow focused you might miss out on an opportunity to leverage a multi-purpose piece of equipment. So I’m gonna be honest about my bias on this one. I grew up on a dairy farm, there was always more work to do with not enough hours in a day and not enough hands to do it. So every single attachment we brought in had to have some kind of multi-purpose or multifunction because we didn’t have time or money to waste on one trick pony tools. So if you think about your whole context, not just the task on the list at hand right now, if you’ve got horse arena that needs to be groomed, you probably also have a drive way with potholes in it and you may also have a pasture that you need to knock down some lumps and manure out there. If you’ve got a property and you’re looking at that driveway especially as winter season is eventually gonna end and you wanna take care of some wash boarding, you probably also have some dirt projects that could get done and you might even have a food plot Outback. So take a look at your entire list of projects and be thinking about, in what variety of ways could you use an attachment and could you benefit from an attachment that has multiple purposes multiple different points of engagement or even multiple options for that attachment rather than getting a different attachment for each project you’ve got on the list.

So now that we’ve talked about functionality, let’s get into the fourth consideration and that’s aggressiveness, How aggressive do you need this attachment to be? So thinking back to your specific project you’re working on, if you’ve got a horse arena, how deep is the footing? How deep do you like it? Do you have a base under that footing that you need to have preserved? Let’s switch over into your gravel drive scenario. How deep are the potholes? Because remember you can’t get rid of a pothole by just filling it in with gravel. You’ve got to break down the sidewalls of that pothole all the way down to the very bottom. So you’ve got to rip pretty deep in that section. So how deep are your potholes? How bad is your wash boarding? let’s switch over to some of our friends in the sports turf space. How playable are those in the fields especially after the crazy seasons that we’ve had, you need to work that back up to get things smooth, playable, leveled out again. So how aggressive do you need your attachments to be? Because a lot of attachments claimed is to groom and to finish and to grade. But a lot of it is just top level movement, I mean top half-inch, top three quarter of an inch. But there’s some great products in the market that can do some really deep rips if you want it. You’re talking about very durable, high quality construction, high quality ground engaged components that leave a nice rip potentially even do some leveling as well as some finishing. So look for that tool that provides you the aggressiveness you need from your attachment.

And finally point number five on our list of things to consider when you’re looking for an ATV or UTV attachment to turn your side-by-side into workhorse is maintenance. This is like the boring a little brother on a list of five things to consider. No one likes to think about the maintenance when you’re looking at a new thing because you’re excited to buy your new thing, it’s your new attachment to help you get work done. But before you make that purchase please stop and consider the maintenance involved. How complicated is the tool? How many moving parts? How many belts need to have a tension on them? How many chains need to be oiled? How many hugs need to be greased? Are there any non mechanical parts such as any hydraulic systems or electric systems? These are all things that are going to become your responsibility once you own it. Because again, the better you maintain it the longer you’ll get life out of it and the more you use to get out of it. So take that as number five consideration, take a hard look at what you’re looking at purchasing. Make sure it’s something you’re willing to commit to as far as a maintenance schedule goes before you make the jump.

There you’ve go it – five things to consider when you’re looking to transform your ATV or UTV into a work machine if you’ve got an attachment for your four Wheeler, for your side beside that you love, you can’t live without, you swear by it that it’s the best attachment you’ve ever had. I wanna hear about it, leave a comment below. Let us know what you’re working with, what you like about it and some of the projects that it has helped you tackle. And if you’re interested in talking more about how to use your full real your side by side, to get work done around your property, you don’t really know where to begin remember we’ve got factory reps available to help answer some questions. They’re good guys, they’re gonna ask you a bunch of questions about your project, what you’re trying to accomplish and they’ll help you match you up with the right product. Give us a call if you have any other questions, but until next time, take care.