I have seen these snowplows around, but no one seems to have them in my area.There is a dealer close to my town, but I don't see many around. Do they made a good plow? What do you think of them?<p>Bryan<br>http://www.snowplow.web.com<br>
Brian your age is really starting to show. You need to realize that all plows for the most part are well made and engineered. Hiniker has been making plows for longer than just about anybody else, and while they may not look very good to you,they are a fine plow. You dont see them around here much, because they are a regional plow. Meaning that they are very common near where thay are built which, let me see, oh is upstate NY near the great lakes, which means that they get alot of snow. A ton more than we see in 5 winters.<br>Alot of manufactures are that way, ever hear of frink they make huge road plows, better than most others, but they started making smaller plows, why.<br>Alot of manufacturers are getting into the smaller market because so many trucks are being sold that they want a piece of the pie.<br>Now this dealer should get new plows to sell. The fishers are junk,and the hiniker looks bad. Maybe he should stick to selling shovels, since none of his plows are any good. BTW what makes a good looking plow?<br>I say if it pushes at the beginning of the storm and it still works at the end and it made you alot of money, then it is a good plow.<br>BTW my buddy in Poukeepsi NY has 3 hinkers and swears by them.<br>Dino<br> <br>
I hate to side with Dino on this one. Have you ever heard of Northman plows? They are built in Iowa and are only sold in that area, but they are sold in Northern Hydrolics. Anyways my point is I live in Maine, and there are two types of plows, Diamond and Fisher, this is because they are built there. I just bought a new Fisher plow, because i needed a 10' blade with a trip edge, on my F 650. So now i own e Fishers and 10 Diamonds. Going back to your point about you wouldn't by a Diamond because it didn't remove in one step. This has its good points, have you ever tried to connect to a Fisher Minute Mount, that isn't level on the Ground? If a Minute Mount isn't on level ground or better yet inside my shop it sucks to hook it up. If i had to keep 13 plows in my shop I would go nuts. Anyways I am waiting to see how the Minute Mount works with a 10' blade.<p>The Thing is that there really isn't one bad plow on the market. You have to look at how and what you are going to plow. If you are going to do a lot of parking lots, i would look for a heavy duty plow. If your going to do a lot of private roads, get a plow with a deep curve like Diamond. If you doing your own driveway, that is 65 feet long and 20 feet wide and it is your only account, get a snowbear. If you only have a 1/2 truck and it is like a 99 or 00, get a Northman or something light.<p>Moving snow is a job, and what makes you or breaks you is your equipment, just like any other service business. Would you want to clean you local mall with a standard home mop? When you plow, it doesn't matter what color or brand your plow is, it is what does the job the best. The other point never to forget is cost, why by a plow that cost more, because you can remove the whole thing in one step compared to two. The less mony up front, the more money you make down the road.<p><br>Geoff
Geoff I am hurt, why do you hate to agree with me. HAHA<br>As a side point,and this may apply to you Geoff, we had a 6.5' min mount on a Ranger and dropped it behind the shop after the season was over. Well we got a freak strom in mid April, 18-22" of wet snow. Well the plow had had sunk about 2" in the ground and off on an angle. Litterally took 2 guys an hour to get it hooked up.Can you imagine if it had been a 10'. Unless they are on level hard ground forget it. The same applies to Western(which is even worse, to many gadgets to hook up)and all plows were the entire assembly removes. There are a couple that have a hdro jack built in ti help with off camber hookups, but that is just another thing to go wrong.<br>With my old style fisher, I can have the blade installed in about 2 min using only a small pry bar. Gotta love spring loaded pins. BTW I have the old fisher mount, but run a meyer blade. The reasons are many, the primary was that I have other people drive the truck and I like the full trip better for the safety of the truck, but that is just me.<br>Dino <p>----------<br> Professional Ice and Snow Management <br>Products:Services:Equipment Think Snow
My biggest reason for buying Diamond blades, was attachment ease. The old style fishers were great, and your right 2 mins and the blade is on. How does the ranger with the 6'1/2 fisher do? Again if i ever buy a small truck, i want a trip edge on the blade. Only Fisher offers a 6 1/2 trip edge.<p>Geoff
The ranger does fine, has it purpose, not a mall lot plower, but good for drives and small areas. <br>The fisher 6.5 is junk, the ribs have distorted, the blade has cracked, and the enitire moldboard in out of wack. Now granted this ranger has seen more plowing in 4 yrs than most will in a life time, however the bottom trip is equally at fault for the damage.We have since replaced the fisher blade with a modified meyerblade to fit the min/mount system.<br>Like I posted before, I used to like the bottom trip but have gradually been won over by the full trip design. That being said not all full trip design are the same, and further I have since switched to a v plow and a full trip design and a v plow just dont mix. I have the western v plow which is basically a the same as the fisher.They are made at the same factory and then sent to Illinois for painting. How do you like your v plows?<br><p>----------<br> Professional Ice and Snow Management <br>Products:Services:Equipment Think Snow
Talking about mounts where the head gear comes off. Well, there are many out there, as we've all said. Many are a real pain to hook up. <br>Around here, most guys leave the head gear on for the winter months, and remove it in the spring. My brother is one of them.<br>He has the Meyer set up. We have to chain the headgear to a tree, and he has to jerk it out of the mounts. This is even with the use of anti-seize compound, on the sleeves. Putting it on in the fall, requires beating it with something heavy, but not too much, or you'll pass the pin locations, and have to find a tree, to tug it back out a little. I used the end of a 8' 2" x 8" ramp. Tap one side, then the other. This is good though, as it ensures less play in the plow set up. <br>Now, mounting the blade on the truck, well, is a breeze. The control pad takes a light touch. I hook up my plow the same way, on my ancient Meyer set up. We pull up to the blade. Hook the lift chain on, and raise the blade. It lifts the rear mounts off the ground. We then drive up, and drop the plow into the mounts. Put the pins in, put the blade on float, and rehook the lift chain. Meyer's new undercarriage for say 90 & up, or their quick mount (Which came out thereabouts) mounts in front of the ends of the framerails, since the headgear sticks out so far. This makes putting the pins in much easier. <br>I really don't have a hard time hitching up my Meyer either. I guess the headgear sticking out so far may be a problem. Though, if my brother hasn't destroyed it yet in 5 years, chances are most people won't. He even did $3,000 in damage to a Ford Escort, with the plow on. Hmmmm, maybe that's how his A frame got bent. I don't like the touchpad control Meyer uses with the E 60. It's too sensitive. Not a smooth fluid motion, unless there's snow in front of the blade. Otherwise, it just jerks too fast, in my opinion. I know, it takes getting used to, but I get used to controls quickly. Today I can drive an excavator, tomorrow a Case 580E, and the next day a dumptruck. Like I said, I get used to controls quickly.<br>A friend plowed with us for 2 years. he bought a Western Pro Plow. The fool wouldn't listen, and put it on a 1/2 ton. A 1995 Silverado 1500 extended cab, 6' bed, 305 motor, 5 speed manual trans, 10 bolt rear, to be exact.<br>He wore off half the underside of the A frame, from turning into driveways, and hitting low spots.<br>I installed the plow for him. Brand new. I never did plow with it. He didn't like to plow, so the second year he plowed twice. The first time he had to plow, he was way late. We called him, and he was having problems mounting the plow. It was on pavement, but not flat. Seems he bent the kickstand. He ended up having to torch it off. He said without it, and a big pry bar, he could get it mounted faster. Sorry for the long winded post guys, but that's what this forum is for, discussion of our experiences!!! Glad to see so many posts!<p>~Chuck<p>----------<br>Chuck's Chevy Truck Pages - Snowplowing Central<br>http://members.aol.com/csmith669/plowcentral.html
The guys that are driving the v-plows love um. For the job they are doing they are best setup. The v-plows are used for small parking lots, with not a lot of places to put snow. So the scoop setting works good for moving snow to where their is room. The thing i can't understand is one v plow is on a 97 F 350 dump body, and the other is on a 97 F 350 pick up. The opperator in the pickup claims he can plow quicker, and move more snow then the dump truck. <p>Geoff
Sorry if my post was a little rude, I wasn't really thinking about what I was writing, what I should have said was does hiniker make a good snowplow. The only reason I posted that was because I don't see many people in my area with them. I just wanted opinions on them. I apoligize if my message was mean. Sorry,<p>Bryan
Hinikers are very tough and dependable in my opinion.been using them for 5 years very few problems. they are very interchangeable to. For instance if you have a v-plow and a straight blade you could use either one with the same truck. Same mount different wire harness.
Theres no faster hook up than a hiniker you just drive the forks in and hook hook up the lines and go takes about 30 seconds
Not to get off the subject but Diamond snowplows have not been manufactured in Maine for at least 10 years. They are all made at the Meyer plant in Ohio. They used to be made in Lewiston and ceased production when they moved to Damriscotta(spelling???)
