Neil: Neil from Messick's here today to discuss two of my favorite setups for snow removal. That's these RTV 1100, Kubota's diesel utility vehicle with a hydrostatic transmission power steering, and a heat and air-conditioned cab. Specifically when fitted with these BOSS Snowplows for a number of years now, we tend to gravitate towards BOSS plows over the ones that Kubota offers themselves for these machines. Today we're going to talk about the features of the BOSS plow, specifically the things that gravitate us towards that model, and also show you the installation process of how easy this plow comes on and off the machine.
Neil: First, why BOSS Snowplows? It might be a little surprising to you that us as a major Kubota dealer and proponent of their equipment, first goes to another vendor to look for snowplows. There's a number of things that attract us to this brand. First, when it comes to the quality of their products, BOSS does nothing but focus on snow removal equipment.
They're not worried about the rest of their product line. When it comes to feature, functionality, quality of the BOSS product, we've always been very, very happy with what we've found. Another thing that we really like here is that it's very easy for us to adapt this snowplow onto a whole host of other brand machines. If we're bringing in say, a used gator from somebody or someone that owns a Polaris machine and wants a snowplow for the front, we're able to stock these plow and hydraulic assemblies and only need to order an interfacing kit that ties this plow back into your base unit.
We can stock these in our inventory and have a fairly versatile piece of equipment that we can fit up to a lot of other brand machines. Everything that I'm going to show you here today about this plow is true whether you're mounting it onto a Kubota or another make of equipment. We like them for that. Another thing that really attracts us to this over some specifically the Kubota models is the installation of these is very easy. It's consistent, it doesn't take us as long, let's put it that way.
There could be a lot of intricacies when you're installing plows onto an equipment. We don't sell truck plows for this reason. The installation of some of this stuff, if you're not used to doing it, can be really hard. However, BOSS uses a really nice system for their plows where you have a simple interfacing kit on the front, and most of the rest of your installation is involved simply getting wires back to the battery in order to power everything that's out here on the front of the machine. It is that easy.
You're not installing hydraulic pumps and running back hoses and putting on valve assemblies and electronic diverter kits. Some of these from other vendors can get really, really complicated and we're happy with the installation process that goes into this. This setup is no less expensive than any other brands, but the money that you are spending is tied up more in the product itself rather than in installation labor. I tend to feel better about selling that. I feel like I'm selling you a better product. I'd rather have your money spent on the plow rather than the time that it takes to put the plow on the machine.
There's two different plow options for these machines, either the straight plow or the V-plow. The V-plow is going to come through at about $1,000 more money than what the straight plow does and it's going to give you some added functionality. In addition to being able to angle the V-plow to the left or to the right like you would with the straight plow, you could also take a V-plow and swing both of the wings back to allow you to drive forward and bust through drifts or have a narrower package if you're trying to run down sidewalks.
Or you could take both of the wings and sweep them forward, which is useful if you're trying to cover a large parking lot and collect the snow and sweep it off the side almost like you would with a box blade on a tractor, or a skid steer, or larger piece of equipment. In addition to that extra functionality, the construction here is a little bit different. The stray plow is going to come through with a poly edge here on the back. Now you might think poly and think plastic and think light duty. In this case, it's not. It is a piece of plastic here that's made for plowing snow. You tend not to see this stuff broken.
The one benefit of it is that snow tends to roll off of these plastic surfaces a little bit more smoothly and fluidly. It doesn't stick quite like it can on a metal surface like the V-plow is. It has its benefits. In order to operate the plow, a controller is installed back inside the machine. This involves the installation of a plug down underneath your dash. This can be unplugged from the dash and put away seasonally when it's not in use so that you're not always having something permanently mounted that's on your machine.
In the case of the V-plow here and the straight plow, you're going to have a common switch here in the middle that's going to lift the plow up or lower it down. By double-clicking that button in the middle, you could put it in the float to allow the plow to float independently of the machine. On the straight plow, you're going to have a simple left-right on the V, I have a left-wing or right-wing control that allows me to choose exactly what position each one of these wings is in.
Now in some machinery, the seasonal installation of things like plows and snow blowers sometimes can be a real headache, but BOSS uses a SmartHitch installation system here on these that they've had for, gosh, a decade or more, as much as I can recall. It's really easy to do. The first thing that you do here to take the plow off the machine is to reach down here and flip the two latches on the inside of the SmartHitch over to unlock, and you'll see a little red tab come up to indicate that the thing is released and then grab the two pins at the end and slide them out.
Simply take them and give them a pull and it releases those two pins from the machine. Once that's out over on the side of the plow box where all the hydraulics and everything are contained for the operation of this, you just simply flip the switch and curl this down, and you curl the plow out of the mount on the back of the tractor. That's going to expose these two electrical connectors here that you can unplug the multipins that give the control to the plow and also the power to the plow and unhook the two of those.
Now they have weatherproof caps then that you can cap these connections off so that they stay good and clean and don't corrode over time. At this point, I can simply take the machine and back away from the plow and everything is unhooked. Putting the plow back on again is extremely straightforward. Once you've taken this off and parked it here, it tends to stay. The hydraulics on this don't have a lot of weight on them, so they tend not to drift. Most of the time this is going to be in exactly the same position as it was when you backed away from it.
You're simply going to drive back up into it again and try to guide the plow right back into the center of the machine. A second set of eyes here does help because clearly, your sight lines from the driver's position down to this mountain down here aren't the greatest, but as you drive in, everything tends to line up easy. There's some guides on the plow that help to guide the machine right back into the right spot. Once you have it inside of here, you're going to reconnect your electrical connectors again so you have control back to the plow, go back to your controller here and double tap the down arrow in order to put the plow in float.
Once you've done that, it energizes this switch up here on the plow box that you can push up and start to work that back into the machine. Now, once that comes back into the machine, if you've beforehand taken the levers here and put them back into the lock position, it sets these spring-loaded pins up so that they will jump back into their holes as soon as everything lines up.
I simply take this button and press up, and you're going to hear a click right there as the pins jump right back into place again. With that back in, I can go back to my controller now, take it out a float, and press up, and everything is there and I'm ready to go. That's a little bit on these BOSS plows. They have been fantastically reliable setups on them here in the wintertime. Maybe half of the utility vehicles here that go out of our stores are going to go out with some kind of plow setup on the front.
BOSS has got a great website and a really nice configuration tool to be able to go through and pick your machine, pick your plow, and then see the required kits and accessories that are available for that particular marriage of those parts. Things like cast iron skid shoes to keep your plows from digging into the stones, markers to go out here on the ends so you know where the edges of your plow are. Work light packages that can be installed down here on the plow to illuminate the area that you're working.
They've got a really complete product line of all the accessories that can really make these packages stand out, be productive, especially if you're a commercial snow removal operator. There's a lot of things here that you're going to like and love for sure. If you're shopping for a piece of equipment and we can help, or if you've got parts of service needs for a machine you've already got, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373 or online at messicks.com.
