Used Skid Steer Inspection Checklist: What to Check Before You Buy

Buying used · 8 min read

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A skid steer is the farm's jack-of-all-trades: feeding cattle, cleaning pens, loading fertilizer, moving bales, running augers and snow blowers. Because they get used for the roughest jobs, used skid steers take more abuse per hour than almost any other machine on the farm. That makes inspection matter more, not less. Here's a systematic checklist to work through before you buy a used skid steer.

Start cold: engine and cooling

Skid steers live in dusty environments, and cooling systems pay for it. Do a cold start before the seller has a chance to warm the machine up. It should fire within a few seconds with the glow plugs doing their job. Long cranking, heavy white smoke that doesn't clear, or a starter that sounds like it's straining all point at issues worth digging into.

Let it idle and walk around. Listen for knocks and rattles. Watch the exhaust as it warms: light haze that clears is normal, blue or black that stays is not. Then pull the side panels and look at the radiator and oil cooler. On a used skid steer these are almost always packed with chaff and dirt unless the owner was disciplined about blowing them out. A clogged radiator means an engine that's been running hot its whole life. While you're in there, check coolant level and condition, engine oil level and color, and look for oil weeping from the turbo, valve cover, and rear main area.

The quick-attach: where neglect shows first

The quick-attach plate is the skid steer's most-used wear point, and it's where sloppy maintenance shows up first. Run it through its full cycle: lock and unlock it several times. The locking pins or levers should engage fully and seat firmly, with no bent handles and no sticking halfway. Engage it with a bucket on: it should clamp tight with no rocking.

Look at the pin bores and the plate itself. Egg-shaped bores, cracked welds on the plate, or a plate that's been built up with weld and ground back down tell you the attachment was dropping or shifting under load. That's abuse, not age.

Bucket and attachment pins and bushings

Pick up a bucket and shake it. A skid steer bucket sees constant twisting loads, so play at the attachment pins shows up as clunking and side-to-side rocking. Look at the quick-attach wedges and the bucket's receiver: gouged or rounded surfaces mean it was run loose. Check the tilt cylinders and their pins the same way — tilt pivots take the brunt of prying and back-dragging, and a bucket that chatters when you tilt it has worn tilt bushings.

While you're there, inspect the cutting edge. An edge worn thin or burned through, or a bucket floor with holes patched or plated, tells you the machine did a lot of dirt and concrete work. That's fine — just know it.

Hydraulics: auxiliary lines and drive motors

Skid steers are hydraulic animals, and the hydraulics see hard service. Check the hydraulic fluid level, color, and smell. Dark, burnt-smelling fluid means a system that's been run hot or neglected. Look at the filter area: a recent filter is a good sign, but filter changes without fluid changes are cosmetics.

Test the auxiliary hydraulics, because most buyers use them constantly. Couple and uncouple the aux lines — couplers should connect cleanly with no leaks at the fitting. With an attachment connected if the seller has one, run the aux function both directions and feel for smooth, even flow.

Inspect every hose. Skid steer hoses rub against each other and against the boom; look for chafed spots, bulges, and weeping at the crimps. Cracked or leaking drive motor seals are a stop-the-deal finding on a wheeled machine: look for oil pooling around the wheel hubs or on the inside of the wheels.

Lift and tilt: the working test

Cycle the lift arms through their full range, empty first, then with a load if the seller has something to pick up. Movement should be smooth from ground to full height with no stuttering or jerking. Park the arms mid-travel with a load and watch: drift down over a minute or two means cylinder bypass or valve leakage.

Tilt the bucket through its full range at several heights. Listen for popping or cracking at the tilt pivots — that usually means dry or worn bushings. Check the lift arm pivot pins at the rear of the machine: these carry the whole machine's working load, and play here shows up as the boom swaying when you raise it.

Drive system: the skid-steer test

Drive it on a surface that lets the tires skid — gravel or dirt, not pavement. Run both sides forward and reverse, then counter-rotate: one side forward, the other back. Each side should pull evenly with no lag, shuddering, or one side dragging behind the other. Uneven drive is the classic sign of a tired drive motor or chain-drive problem on one side.

Listen while you drive. Whining that changes with speed, clunking on direction changes, and a machine that drifts or won't track straight all deserve a closer look. On wheeled machines, check the chain case oil if there's a service port — milky or low chain-case oil is a bad sign. On tracked machines, read the track section below.

Tires: wear patterns tell the story

Tires are a major wear item on skid steers, and wear patterns say more than tread depth alone. Even wear across all four is fine. Feathered or cupped tires point at worn drive components or a machine that spent its life pivoting on concrete. Check sidewalls for cuts and stubble damage, and look at the rims — bent rims and cracked welds at the wheel center are common on loader machines.

Note whether the tires match. A skid steer with mixed brands, sizes, or tread types across the axles was maintained on the cheap, and mismatched tire diameters make the drive system fight itself on every turn.

Tracks, if it's a compact track loader

Track machines need their own checks. Inspect every track for cuts, chunking, and exposed cords — a track with cut cords is on borrowed time. Look at the tread lugs: worn lugs cost you traction, and uneven lug wear across the track means alignment or idler problems.

Check the undercarriage. Rollers and idlers should spin freely with no grinding and no wobble. Look for missing or damaged rollers — some owners run with failed rollers until the track de-laminates, and by then the bill multiplies. Sprockets should engage the track windows cleanly; hooked or worn sprocket teeth mean the drive lugs are wearing with them. And check the track tension: sagging tracks derail, and derailed tracks wreck the undercarriage.

Cab, controls, and safety gear

Climb in and work every control: pilot joysticks or hand-and-foot controls, whichever it has. Controls should be smooth and responsive with no dead spots, stiffness, or sticking. Test the parking brake, the seatbelt, the lap bar or operator-presence system — these machines have real rollover and crush risk, and bypassed safety interlocks are common on abused units and a reason to walk away.

Test every light, the horn, and the backup alarm if it has one. If it's an enclosed cab, test the HVAC hard — heat and AC — because a cab that won't stay cool in August or warm in January is a daily problem. Check the door glass and seals; dust infiltration in an enclosed cab means the seals are gone or the door's been off and on too many times.

If the machine has high-flow hydraulics, confirm the high-flow option is actually there and works — sellers advertise high-flow machines that aren't.

Cross-check the hours

Read the hour meter, then sanity-check it against the wear. A 1,500-hour skid steer with a sloppy quick-attach, cupped tires, and worn-through pedal pads is lying about something. Check the ECU or display hours if the machine stores them separately — stored ECU hours that don't match the dash meter give a doctored meter away. Compare the meter against service records and the serial-number year.

Records to ask for

Ask for service records and any major repairs. Specifically for a skid steer, ask: when were the hydraulic fluid and filters last changed, when was the chain case or drive oil last serviced, what's been replaced in the drive motors or undercarriage, and has the engine ever been overheated. Ask what it did: a skid steer that fed cattle in a bedded pack lived an easier life than one that ran a forestry mulcher or a concrete breaker all day. Attachments it ran with tell you the same story — mulcher and breaker hoses leave a signature.

The live test run

Do the whole inspection, then work it one more time at operating temperature. That's when leaks, slipping drives, and electrical gremlins show up. Pick up the heaviest thing the seller has and carry it. Cycle the aux hydraulics under load. Watch the gauges the whole time: oil pressure, coolant temperature, and charging all need to hold steady when it's working hard.

Bring a second set of eyes

A used skid steer that's been maintained is one of the best values in farm equipment. One that hasn't is a money pit wearing a fresh coat of paint. If the seller won't let you cold-start it, test the hydraulics, or drive it under load, that's the answer: walk away.

The Used Equipment Analyzer can help before you even drive out — upload the listing photos and get an AI inspection report flagging visible wear, damage, and red flags on the machine you're considering. It's one more filter before you spend a day on the road.