Neil Messick: Neil from Messick's here today with a little bit of a fun tractor video. I post a question on some Facebook groups about a month ago for guys to vote on what their worst most frustrating to use tractor attachment was. I'm going to run you through some of those here today. The number five most frustrating implement to use is a three-point hitch snowblower. 

Little surprised to see this one make the list too because it is something that we actually sell quite a lot of, but I think I know where the frustration comes from. It is an implement that you need to fundamentally operate in reverse, which is a literal pain in the neck because you're craning your neck over top of the tractor constantly to be able to see where you're going. 

This is a really popular setup. Actually, even up in Canada in areas that get tons of snow, you'll very frequently see three-point hitch snowblowers used. They can be made a little bit more convenient to use by swapping out some of these manual controls for hydraulic options or manual attachments up here for your chute with hydraulic cylinders. They can be made better, but they are frustrating to use. 

We do put a lot of front snowblowers on tractors as well. Driving forward obviously is a lot easier way to do this than driving in reverse, but they are going to be nearly double the cost because the added complexity of the hitch is in the drive lines. The number five most frustrating compact tractor attachment to use is the three-point hitch snowblower. The number four most hated three-point hitch attachment is the three-point hitch post hole auger. 

The reason why these are frustrating is several. First and foremost, the awkward shape of this thing. The way that it hangs off the back of the tractor makes it extremely difficult to install. It is a two-person job at really at most times in order to pin one of these things up. It just is a frustrating piece to put on. Once it's on, you're going to find that these things see varying results depending on what your soil conditions are. 

Because your tractor's three-point hitch doesn't have any downforce, oftentimes, these things don't exactly want to push down into a hard ground and give you the hole that you're looking for. You can add on some hydraulic downforce kits. Fundamentally, you just don't have a whole lot of power and you're relying upon the screw here and the weight of the unit itself in order to push itself down into the ground. 

There are a lot of better options for these things on small tractors. Now, we're starting to put some hydraulic augers onto the front of the machines with the popularity of skid steer attachments and front third function hydraulics. We're getting some more options now for guys who are really frequently doing post augering that we can fit up to a small tractor, but the three-point hitch post hole auger, really frustrating. 

The number three implement is a three-point hitch backhoe. I didn't make these results. I was a little surprised how some of these came up. Three-point hitch backhoes though, I actually don't even have one here on the lot in order to show you. They kind of started going out of style about 15 years ago and most modern equipment doesn't use that style of attachment anymore. As things progressed in the industry, we started to see those backhoes actually damaging the tractors that they were attached to. 

The industry moved to a more modern subframe mount where the backhoe has its own mounting rack in the back of the tractor. I know why those three-point hitch backhoes showed up on the list though. One of them is the damage concern that we have seen tractors literally snapped in half by the weight of that backhoe jostling around in the back of the machine, but also because they're really difficult to put on. 

That large heavy implement is really hard to manipulate onto the back of the tractor. Get the three-point arms around and then, often, a stiff top link to go up there in order to hold that in and then even once it's on, getting it good and tight on the back of the tractor. Particularly, if you have screw tight turnbuckles and stuff on your three-point hitch, it's really hard. That backhoe tends to just slop around on the back of the machine as you're using it. That's your frustrating backhoe attachment. 

The number two most frustrating implement surprised me a little bit actually and that's three-point quick hitches. I think there's a couple of reasons for this. One really is just that we, as an industry, might be overselling the capabilities of these things a little bit. Three-point quick hitches are a really nice attachment in order to be able to pick up your implements very easily and not have to sit and kick the balls of the three-point hitch over top of the pins and fight with your implements so much. 

You very easily can lift these release levers back up into the implement and pick it up and go. When it works, it works great, but I think the frustration may come and that it doesn't always work. The three-point hitch specification isn't very strict and so we find a lot of implements, particularly older ones, are imported stuff from overseas that may not be following the exact correct dimensions that enable these things to work properly. 

A lot of times, we're selling guys three-point quick hitches that are going into the back of their machine that just aren't going to mate properly to some of the implements that they may find out they're causing a little bit of disappointment in the way that these things work. It absolutely has its place. If you're buying new implements, make sure your implements are quick hitch-compatible. On this land pride stuff here, you'll see they even put stickers on all the ones that are going to make to these hitches. 

Even within their own product line, you'll find some stuff today that doesn't mate properly to their own three-point quick hitches. It is an imperfect standard and you want to pay attention to make sure if you're going to invest in this stuff that you're investing in a system that's going to work. So far and away, the most popular option in the worst tractor attachments category was drive-over mower decks receiving 157 votes. 

Now, I may have fed the fire on this one a little bit because I very much am not a fan of drive-over decks. There is a small subset of customers who they are probably right for. For the vast majority of us, you're better off with a standard deck. That's simply because they take just as much time to get on and off the tractor as the drive-over variant does. There's also a real issue too as the things are bounced around underneath your machine and the linkages work loose and stuff moves around. 

That mower deck that used to go on and off real easy, all of a sudden, stops, not lining up properly. When that happens, it becomes much more difficult to get on the tractor than what a standard mower deck would be. Man, the industry has been trying to do these things for 20 years. There's old tractors that have drive-overs. There's new tractors that have drive-overs. Nobody has ever come up with a system that just works consistently and reliably and doesn't give up lift height and a slew of other things. 

Number one on the list of the worst tractor attachments is drive-over mower decks. Those are the results of the Facebook poll on the five most frustrating tractor attachments. This video was a little tongue in cheek obviously. There are some very good uses and some very good applications for all these attachments. If anything, maybe this tells you that if you're looking at one of these pieces, maybe take a second look and make sure it's going to work out the way that you're hoping it will, right? 

Fundamentally, maybe we're just giving a little bit too high expectations to some of these things and the way that they actually go to use. If you're in the market for attachments, you have parts or service needs for machines that you've already got, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373. We're online at messicks.com