44 in stock across 17 Indiana and Ohio dealerships, from $850 to $139,500.
There is no single cutoff. Many skid steers work well past 5,000 hours with good service, and plenty of them are still running at 8,000. What matters is what the hours were spent on and whether the maintenance was documented. A 4,000 hour machine that handled pallets and pushed snow is often healthier than a 1,500 hour unit that ran a breaker or a mulcher daily. Judge by hydraulic performance, undercarriage or tire condition, loader arm and pin wear, and service records.
Skid steers, compact track loaders, mini excavators, and compact wheel loaders do the work that used to require a rented backhoe and a long weekend, and on Indiana and Ohio farms they have quietly become year round machines. Buying used in this class is mostly about undercarriage, hydraulics, and hours earned honestly, because those three items decide what the machine costs you after the sale.
The three machines solve different problems. A wheeled skid steer is the cheapest to buy and operate, turns fast on hard surfaces, and is the right answer for feedlot work, concrete, and yard use where you are not fighting soft ground. It rides rougher and it will tear up a lawn or rut a wet field, and tires are a modest expense compared to tracks. If most of your work is on gravel, concrete, or inside buildings, wheels save you real money.
A compact track loader spreads weight over a much larger footprint, floats on soft ground, pushes harder, and stays productive in the wet springs common across the eastern Corn Belt. That capability costs more up front and considerably more per hour in undercarriage wear. A compact excavator is a different tool entirely, built for digging, trenching, tile work, and precise placement with a blade and a swinging boom. Many operations end up with a loader and an excavator rather than trying to make one machine do both.
Loaders are sized by rated operating capacity, which is a percentage of tipping load, usually 50 percent for wheeled skid steers and 35 percent for track loaders. Small frame machines around 1,300 to 1,750 pounds of capacity handle pallets, light grading, and stall cleaning. Mid frame machines from about 1,750 to 2,200 pounds cover most farm and light construction work. Large frame machines above that run high flow attachments, handle big bales and large buckets, and are what you want if you plan to run a mulcher or a cold planer.
For excavators, sizing runs by operating weight. One to two ton machines fit through gates and work in tight yards but reach and dig depth are limited. Three to five ton machines are the most common farm size, with enough reach for tile depth in most soils, useful lift, and a machine you can still trailer behind a heavy pickup. Above eight tons you are into equipment that requires a serious trailer and a truck to match, so factor transport into the decision.
On a compact track loader, the undercarriage is the single largest ownership cost and the first thing to inspect. Rubber tracks commonly last somewhere between about 1,200 and 1,600 hours in mixed conditions, and much less if the machine works on abrasive surfaces like concrete, asphalt, and crushed rock. Look for chunking at the lugs, cracks between lugs, cuts to the embedded cords, and stretched tracks that sag or ride loose. A full undercarriage, meaning tracks, rollers, idlers, and sprockets, can run into serious money and should be priced into any offer.
Check rollers and idlers for leaking seals and flat spots, and spin them if you can. Look at sprocket teeth for hooking and uneven wear, and check track tension against spec. On wheeled machines, look at tire tread and sidewalls and whether the set is matched, since mismatched diameters on a skid steer put constant strain on the drive system. TRULAND stores run compact construction inspection programs for skid steers, compact track loaders, compact wheel loaders, and compact excavators, and a documented inspection before purchase is cheap insurance in this class.
Hydraulics tell you more than the hour meter. With the machine warm, cycle the lift, tilt, and auxiliary circuits to the stops and watch for slow, jerky, or uneven movement, listen for pump whine, and check for drift when you hold a load. Look at the hydraulic oil condition and the filter change record. Inspect every hose for chafing and every cylinder rod for pitting and scoring, since a scored rod will chew seals and keep leaking no matter how many times it is repacked.
Then judge the hours in context. A machine at 2,000 hours that pushed dirt and handled pallets is in a different place than a 2,000 hour machine that ran a hydraulic breaker or a mulching head, because high load attachments beat on the pump, the cooling system, and the loader arms. Look at the bucket edge, the quick attach plate, the loader arm pin bosses, and the boom weldments for cracks and repairs. Wear at the pins and bushings shows up as a bucket that rattles and a plate that will not stay latched.
The loader is a power unit and the attachments are what make it pay. Standard flow auxiliary hydraulics run roughly 17 to 24 gallons per minute and handle augers, grapples, brooms, and most buckets. High flow systems, generally above 30 gallons per minute, are required for mulchers, cold planers, large snow blowers, and some stump grinders. Buying a machine without the flow you need means either underperforming attachments or a costly retrofit, so decide on the attachment list before you decide on the machine.
Check the quick attach system, the auxiliary couplers, and whether the machine has the electrical connections for attachments that need them. Case drain lines are required for many high flow attachments and are commonly missing on used units. On farms, the attachments that get the most use are a bucket, pallet forks, a grapple, a bale spear, and a snow pusher, and buying those with the machine is usually cheaper than sourcing them separately.
An enclosed cab with heat and air conditioning changes how much you use the machine, especially for winter feeding and snow work in northern Indiana and Ohio. Verify the door seals, the glass, the pressurization, and whether the heater and air conditioning actually perform. Check that the seat bar interlock, parking brake, and all safety interlocks function correctly, since defeated interlocks are both a hazard and a sign of how the machine was treated.
Look at visibility, controls, and whether the machine has the control pattern you want. Many machines offer switchable hand and foot or ISO and H pattern controls, and operator preference matters more than people admit when they are running eight hours. Check the display for stored fault codes, confirm the machine starts cold, and look at the cooling package, because a radiator and oil cooler packed with chaff and mud is a common cause of shutdowns in agricultural service.
Compact construction machines hold value well and the used market stays tight, so the price gap to new is often narrower than in other categories. A newer used machine with remaining factory coverage or a PowerGard Protection Plan is often the best balance, since the electronics, emissions systems, and hydrostatic drives on modern machines are the expensive things to fix. Older, simpler machines can be excellent value if you are comfortable with wrenching and the undercarriage is fresh.
For work that comes up a few times a year, rental deserves a hard look. TRULAND offers skid steers and attachments, mini excavators, and related equipment on rent at Wauseon, Ohio and Angola, Indiana. Compare a season of rental against a purchase, and be honest about how many hours you will actually put on the machine. Also budget for undercarriage and tire replacement in your ownership cost, plus a trailer and a truck rated to move the machine legally.
External sources are provided for reference. For anything specific to your machine or your operation, call the store nearest you.
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There is no single cutoff. Many skid steers work well past 5,000 hours with good service, and plenty of them are still running at 8,000. What matters is what the hours were spent on and whether the maintenance was documented. A 4,000 hour machine that handled pallets and pushed snow is often healthier than a 1,500 hour unit that ran a breaker or a mulcher daily. Judge by hydraulic performance, undercarriage or tire condition, loader arm and pin wear, and service records.
Typically about 1,200 to 1,600 hours in mixed conditions. Working mostly on concrete, asphalt, and crushed rock pulls that down toward 800 to 1,200 hours, and abrasive or severe duty can be less than 800. Tracks last longer if you avoid tight counter rotation on hard surfaces, keep tension at spec, clean out packed mud, and do not run with a loaded bucket while turning sharply. Replace tracks before the cords show, because cord damage can take out rollers too.
Buy tracks if you work on soft, wet, or unimproved ground, need flotation in spring, or want to push harder without spinning. Buy wheels if you work mostly on concrete, gravel, or in feedlots and barns, want lower purchase and operating cost, and want to travel around a farmstead quickly. Track machines cost noticeably more per hour because of undercarriage wear. Many operations that own both use the wheeled machine for daily chores and the track machine for field and dirt work.
For most tile repair and short runs, a three to five ton machine with roughly eight to ten feet of dig depth handles the job and is still trailerable behind a heavy pickup. If you install main lines at depth or work in heavy clay, look at the larger end of that range or above. Consider a blade for backfilling, a thumb for handling pipe and rock, and hydraulic flow for a compaction plate. For full system installation, most farms hire that out rather than buying.
Only if you plan to run attachments that require it. Standard flow, roughly 17 to 24 gallons per minute, covers buckets, forks, grapples, augers, brooms, and most snow equipment. High flow, generally above 30 gallons per minute, is needed for mulching heads, cold planers, large snow blowers, and some stump grinders. High flow machines cost more and there is no benefit if you never run those tools. Decide your attachment list first, then buy the machine that supports it.
Start with the undercarriage: track lugs for chunking, cuts down to the cords, roller and idler seals for leaks, sprocket teeth for hooking, and track tension. Then run the hydraulics warm through full cycles and watch for drift, slow response, or noise. Inspect cylinder rods for pitting, hoses for chafing, and the quick attach plate and loader pins for wear and cracks. Check the cooler package for packed debris, verify interlocks work, and pull stored fault codes from the display.
On a machine that works year round in Indiana or Ohio, yes. An enclosed cab keeps you productive during winter feeding and snow removal and out of the dust during summer, and it usually helps resale. The main cautions on a used cab machine are door seal and latch wear, cracked glass, and air conditioning systems that have been neglected. Test heat and air before you buy, because evaporator and compressor work on these machines is not cheap.
Yes, with the right attachment and enough capacity. A bale spear on a mid to large frame machine handles typical 4x5 and 5x6 dry bales, but wet wrapped bales are much heavier and can exceed the safe capacity of a small machine. Watch rated operating capacity, keep the load low while traveling, and be careful on slopes because a raised bale moves the center of gravity fast. A telehandler or loader tractor is safer for large volume bale handling.
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