anybody plow snow with an ATV

DJL · Sep 16, 2008

Hey guys, a little off topic here, but you always have the right answers....or at least alot of food for thought! I"ve got a large gravel driveway. I always have plowed snow with a JD 4030 and loader. However, I"m getting tired of starting that old diesel pig in the dead of winter every time I get a little snow. I"ve got a Kawasaki Brute Force 750I 4-wheeler. What recommendations do we have on snow plow size, style (vee plow/straight/or state plow type) I will be lifting it with exsiting winch on the ATV. Do I need any front suspension upgrades? Tell me your ATV plowing experiences and preferences please!
Thanks
DJL

Anonymous-0 · Sep 17, 2008

Light fluffy snow they work pretty good with an angle blade. Make sure you have nothing solid that could be hit. Heavy wet snow, forget it. I always pack a layer of snow on a gravel driveway so the gravel doesn't get scraped off. Dave

Fawteen · Sep 17, 2008

My experience matches that of 135 Fan. I had an opportunity to "store" a four wheeler with a plow over a winter for some summer folks, with permission to use it.

After the first wet snow, I parked it and went back to my snowblower, congratulating myself on not having spent $600 or $700 on putting a plow on MY ATV.

Goose · Sep 17, 2008

Forget it.

At an insurance company I once worked for, one of the supervisors took it upon himself to plow the company parking lot with his ATV and a piddling 4' blade instead of paying the usual crew to do it. He only did it once. He spent most of his time getting stuck. He froze his butt off all day doing what I could have done in an hour with my old beater pickup and 7 1/2 foot plow.

Bill in NorthCentral PA · Sep 17, 2008

I have the opposite expirience as those posted. It has its limits in the wet stuff, but our standard PA snows, I move just fine with a 330 and a 48" plow. I have heard the recommendation that a 48" goes on anything under 500cc, with a 60" on machines over 500cc.

I don't like to let the snow build up, and it won't push a "winrow" of snow well, nor push snow up over a large winrow.

Pound for pound, better than a backblade and tractor, and much faster than a blower (normally).

Good luck,

Bill

ps: check out Moose brand for cheaper alternatives - I've heard their stuff was good quality.

greygoat · Sep 17, 2008

A neighbor tries to plow snow with an ATV.
He spends most of his time trying to get unstuck

26Red · Sep 17, 2008

We have a little ATV (250cc) with a 3.5ft angle plow for a 500ft driveway. It"s great for light snow, less than 5" deep. If the snow is wet and heavy, I usually add some weight to the rear of the ATV. Great manuverability, but you have to make more passes than a tractor or pickup. Only down side is you have to bundle up!

Anonymous-0 · Sep 18, 2008

I plow a fairly large area on my acerage with a grizzly 600 atv and 60" blade. Because of the speed and agility of it I can actually plow as fast as I could with my 88 plow truck. if the snows too deep just plow the top half off, the winch holds the plow up.

Sure its a little colder than a truck, and feels colder cause of the speed, but it is fun and I have only been stuck 1 time. I was piling snow about 5 feet high and decided to "goof off" and over centered the 4 wheeler. I was out in 30 seconds.

Your 750 is more than enough 4 wheeler to push alot of snow. I was once hired by a small town to do the sidewalks of main street and 1 pass nest to them so the city truck would push snow back on the sidewalks.

Try to keep a little more speed up and it works great!

495man · Sep 18, 2008

Have a 60" blade on a 300 King Quad 4x4 (diff lock), winch lift and chains on all four tires.

For what I spend on the blade and chains as well as the which (main reason I bought winch) I could have bought a really nice walk behind snow blower and not had to worry about wear and tear on my quad, getting stuck, not being able to do any amount of work in heavy snow.

For light snow / powdery snow it is perfect, wet packy snow...forget it, power isn't the issue, traction is, keeping in mind I am running chains on all four tires and my machine locks all four wheels so when you spin out...you're done.

Not sure where you are, but salt is used here and having your quad out in the salt isn't good!

The tractor plows the driveway...I save the quad for the walk from the driveway to door as the tractor doesn't fit in there.

Anonymous-0 · Sep 18, 2008

My brother in law had a blade on his 4 wheeler and brought it out to plow our driveway once. Even with chains on all 4 wheels it really struggled to keep going when pushing anything. After a couple of hours, he put it back on his pickup and left. I finished the plowing with my Ford 641D and back blade in about half an hour.

Now that was some years ago, and I assume that there are much larger and more powerful ATV's than my brother in law's, but for pushing more than a very little heavy, wet snow, it didn't work worth anything. He is a large man, so I doubt that it was a question of weight, but the setup he had just didn't work well. He got pretty frustrated, especially after he had bragged that he could do the job real quick and easy. I never saw the machine again.

Kind of like sending a boy to do a man's job, as my Dad used to say.

anybody plow snow with an ATV

DJL

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Anonymous-0

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Fawteen

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Goose

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Bill in NorthCentral PA

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greygoat

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26Red

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Anonymous-0

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495man

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Anonymous-0

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