richy_B

But the emissions from my 2015 4.5 litres Iveco 75 is considerably higher than my 1.9 litre 2023 grafter? My 1.3 corsa van is also £335 I believe and it is very low emission comparatively. I can't work out the logic behind it.

How do they work out road tax - This month I have paid for another year on 2 vehicles - Iveco 75 7.5t tipper @£165 and Isuzu Grafter 3.5t tipper @£335. How does anyone work out that the 3.5t van twice the 7.5t tipper???

I ran a S426 for about 5 years. They aren't chippers and much slower on large timber but if you are stuff through pruning (we do a lot of lime repollards) they were amazing. Thirsty on diesel though, would use full tank in a hard day of shredding. 5 years of no blade changes is also a massive cost saving - currently on a Forst ST8D we change the blades weekly at a cost of £60/week. Over 5 years that's significant.

We've got quite a few pto machines that we run off various tractors - I've been wondering about trying to buy/build some donkey engines which we could use to keep the tractors free. Has anyone done this? Not huge power demands, probably 25-30 hp each. Preferably all diesels.

A friend had to sell their discovery as they existing insurer declined to renew cover and the comparison sites were bring up £8k upwards. Sensible 40 year old in a rural village.. Anything LR is a no go now as they are being pinched left, right and centre in cities.

As Dan said you get some used for taking logs away once it is down but they've not really got the reach for grapple saw work. 8 or 9metres is your limit. Should be able to get a better deal on a used 6 wheeler compared to an 8 as they are less popular then just switch the clamshell to a forestry grab. Could probably add 400mm additions to the sides as well to increase the volume. A 6 wheeler should hold 12t odd which is a lot of tree. We looked at it last year but it was going to be £40k for the lorry, about £3k estimate for servicing and mot the £4k a year insurance. Didn't think we'd ever make our money back. Plus finding C class drivers is much harder to do.

I'm a fan of basic tractors but I've not had much experience of the mew zetor range. Anyone used their larger horsepower models? Forterra HSX 140 for example. I'd ideally like to run one with a botex hook loader trailer for mixed usage (flatbed with bolsters, 20m3 chip/log bin).

That helps a lot as I can atleast start getting an idea on what's available.

My Dmax came with Geolandar Road tyres which I want to swop over to mud terrains. I just can't work out the wheel size - it's missing a measurement. I've got 205R16C but usually you'd have 205/55 R16 for example. Am I missing something obvious?

Still have it, never got round to advertising it with the run upto Xmas and all that. Yeah for urban work it has been handy. It's only half a metre longer than a transit t350. They are heavy compared to a Isuzu n75 but for me carrying 3 ton and towing 3.5t was fine. I was looking at a 18t hookloader to replace it but have decided to go for a 12t hookloader as they have a very small footprint.

How do people transport larger (5-8t) arb diggers? Can you use an agri tractor and plant trailer if you are mainly doing tree shear work / vegetation work?

I'm on my 2nd multione now. Pallet forks are a must obviously. By far our most used attachment is the XL high tip bucket for woodchip. Quick way to lift and shift a lot of chip. Can load 3.5m high vehicles or 40 yard skips no bother. The 4 in one bucket with teeth is dead handy. I have an x2500 augertorque head with 150/300/450/600mm flights. Cement mixing bowl is very useful on certain jobs where we can't get our truck/materials close to where we need the concrete. You can fill the bowl and it mixes whilst you drive over to where you need saving massive amount of wheelbarrow time. Log grab for loading bigger timber. Our 9.6 can lift 1.5t log sections on a 7.5t truck without any drama.

Same on our 4x4 single cab. The remap is very beneficial - I don't know why it isn't widely publicised and offered as standard option at purchase. We added the airbag suspension to increase it from 3100kg to 3500kg as well. Makes it a brilliant allround package.

We've got some large roadside removals coming up and I was looking to hire someone in to support. Large London plane stems up to crown break of 6-8 metres. We'll get all the limbs off just looking for someone with either an arb grab lorry or perhaps hook loader and crane who can lift them down in bigger sections to save us having to chog them down. Very local tip site so can drop them off straight after. Probably 3 days worth of work. Ideally in November. Richard 078 254 111 97.

I am going to be parting with one of our arbtrucks. 2016 Iveco 75 tipper Euro6. Built the body myself. Been a good truck for the 4 years we've had it. 4.5t empty though so gives 3 ton / 10-12m3 of chip. We do highways work primarily so having thespadce for road barriers was the handiest addition. PX against an 18t hook loader most likely as I'm not sure there will be a lot of interest as 7.5t drivers are rare now.