Since I'm planning on moving to Colorado soon, I ordered my F450 with the PTO and snow plow prep. I'm moving out there with no real "career" in mind, since I'll be retiring from my present one. So, I was thinking about utilizing my truck in the winter to make some extra cash.

Question is, does anyone else do this in the winter months? If so, how do you charge for plowing? By size, by road, or just make up an amount? It seems like a no brainer way to make money. Being from the northeast originally, I have plenty of winter/snow driving experience. Any insight is welcome.

 

You might want to check out www.plowsite.com. Lot's of snow plowing discussion there.

 

go to www.letstalksnow.com

There are several folks from Colorado there who may be able to help you get started as a sub. (Much better venue than the one mentioned above)

 

Very cool. Thanks for the info guys!

 

We used 8 ft Western Pro Plows on our city's 01 and 02 F250 diesels. The most I plowed at one time was like 12-15 inches covered with ice. The truck had no problems at all with any snow amount. (They did burn up alternators pretty fast though)

Ours were regular cab, 8ft bed XLs with 4x4 and the turning radius sucked. Any more cab and especially duallys would have just made things worse.

Also I don't care what you're plowing with, it will beat the crap out of the vehicle. The frame will get tweaked even a little bit, the steering will get lose, you'll get rattles and squeeks, and pretty much everything that moves on the truck will wear out a lot faster.

I've plowed with F250s up to GMC 8500s with CAT engines. They all get beat to crap. We even went around with grinders and ground down "plow catchers" like manhole covers, gas and water valves, etc. I've had a 28000 lb GMC 8500 dump with 8-10 tons of spreader and material plus about 1000+ lbs of plow on the front come to a dead stop from 15 MPH because the plow caught something. Think about that before using a 50K dollar truck to make a couple extra bucks.

Mike

Edit: It's not all negative though. It is kind of fun and privately I'm sure you could make a lot of money.

I think that most people charge by approximate square feet and number of inches. IE-100ft2 with 1-3 inches is 100 dollars, 3-6 is 200 dollars, etc.

If I was going to do it, I'd use a 95-96 F2-350 diesel auto 4x4 reg cab, long bed. Find one with some miles that is mechanicly sound but not mint on the body/interior.

Oh yeah, your interior will be trashed with snow, ice, water, mud, salt, White Castle boxes, coffee stains, energy drink cans, sand, soft drink cans, auto trader magazines, etc, etc. That's how our trucks looked after a snowfall.

 

I appreciate the info. You gave me some good info I wouldn't have thought of on my own. Hitting manholes, etc. I'd imagine could really f*** things up a bit!