Walt,
I grew up in Vermont and snowmobiled there a fair bit, though that was admittedly many years ago. In my experience I have never been somewhere in a snowcat that I couldn’t get to in a snowmobile, but I’ve been lots of places on a snowmobile that a snowcat could never reach. A good sled and competent rider will outperform a snowcat.
UTVs and ATVs on tracks may be the rage, but they aren’t nearly as capable as a snowcat. In fact, the first time I saw a UTV on tracks was at the Utah Winter Sports Park and I chatted with the sales manager of the Polaris dealer I buy from. The first words out of his mouth were "It's not a snowcat". I totally concurr. I’ve posted this before, but I bought a used Polaris Ranger on tracks and took it to the same place my snowcat buddy and I do most of our snowcat testing. Its performance was really disappointing, and the snow wasn’t all that deep. Rather than being an over-the-snow vehicle it kind of chewed it’s way through the snow, and did so slowly. When I say "really disappointing", it was so bad it wasn't worth giving it another try under different conditions. I sold it after one outing in the snow! The idea of trying to use one to tow some grooming equipment strikes me as a non-starter.
The vast majority of my snowcat experience is with rubber belted Tuckers. They, like all snowcats, have their plusses and minuses, but in terms of ease of use a Tucker with an automatic transmission is hard to beat. If you aren’t familiar, the Tucker system uses two axles with two tracks on each axle. When you turn the steering wheel you “crab steer”; meaning the axle assemblies turn opposite each other. If you turn the wheel to the left, the front axle turns left and the rear axle turns right. The effect is a smaller turning radius.
With two track machines you have brake steer machines and hydrostatic cats. Brake steer means you apply brake pressure to slow or stop one of the tracks while the other spins normally. It certainly works, but in my opinion it’s not really smooth and the shorter the turning radius the less smooth the turn. Hydrostatic machines definitely have their advantages, but they also have a lot of complexity. And when something breaks, I think it gets real expensive... real fast.
That brings me back to one of the Tucker advantages: simplicity and ease of repair. While the newer generation machines are bigger heavier and much more complex, the older rubber belted Tuckers are easy to understand and parts availability is pretty darn good. While there are Tucker proprietary parts on them (which Tucker is very proud of) a great deal of the other stuff is readily available. Most, for example have gasoline fueled Chrysler Industrial V-8 engines and parts commonality with their automotive counterparts is excellent. Manual transmissions were made by New Process Gear and most of the automatic transmissions were Allison AT545s. Axles are Dana Spicer. Need a part? Call your local auto parts store.
I chide the Snow Trac mafia on the forum somewhat frequently. They have their plusses, but parts availability is not one of them. When something breaks or wears out, they scramble to try to find a part that will work. Often, it’s another used part in marginally better shape than the one that’s broken. Some other times they try and reverse engineer a part and have it fabricated. That would drive me up the wall...
When you start looking for a machine to buy I strongly suggest you focus on “value” and not price. I understand you will have a budget, and need to stay within that, but the cheapest machine will very likely have a lot of hours which means wear. If you start replacing idler wheels, drive sprockets and track belts the dollars add up fast. You are way better off spending somewhat more on a machine that is in much better shape. Within the Tucker universe sales are typically to governmental agencies, utility companies and some are sold for groomer usage. I recommend staying away from groomers. They tend to get a lot of hard hours and maintenance and repair can be sketchy, at best. Ex- government machines can be good, but sometimes not. Utility companies tend to put low hours on their machines, and they have huge maintenance budgets.
Good Luck!
