Snow plowing with a UTV

Question for all you guys who plow with your UTV.

Most of them are belt drive...

My snowmobile is belt drive, and when you put a heavy load on it (like towing another snowmobile), you can actually smell the belt getting hot...

On a snowmobile, you can easily go through a belt per year...

Was curious of how many of you have blown your belt on your UTV when plowing heavy snow.

Pushing heavy snow has to be a heck of a load on a machine.

Use mine this past weekend, and it did a great job, was just curious how often the belts go.

Nice machine Westfield!

If something happens to me...my wife is heading to the gulf. lol

The ultimate snow blower machine. I do all my trails and my 600 ft driveway with no problems. The snowblower is 66" you can suck up a lot of snow with that! I bought this so my wife could snowblower safely if something happened to me.

Been plowing since 2010 with a Yam 700 Grizzly. The plow is slightly wider than the machine, I don't recall the actual width of it. I plow my driveway which is 2 cars wide and 40' long. I plow the ground in front of my shop to the street, about twice as much as the drive. I also plow at the cabin occasionally, about 75' to the road. No issues. Still on original belt. I do have ITP tires which are a considerable upgrade over the factory tires on my previous machine.

Will be plowing with my gator this year   Hoping it works as well as I am told it should.  Good to read some of these posts.  

I can echo what 44/45 has said. I have a 2001 Honda Foreman with a 48 inch Moose plow.  I plow a 300 foot asphalt driveway up a hill and it works great.  Heavy wet snows are a challenge for all equipment but it gets the job done.  The sides of my driveway are wide enough that I can knock the snowbanks back late in the season if it has been a hard winter.  I always plow in first gear.  I throw down some salt and the black asphalt and sun make the driveway dry in short order.  The Honda is still going strong after 6 years of doing this with no mechanical problems.  It is 4 wheel drive and I don't use chains.

Last year was t the first year for me with a UTV / plow.

Did the resort driveway, parking lot, and in front of the cabins.  It’s a larger area, and had no issues. 

Granted it was the first year, however, never had a snow storm that was too much for the plow. 

I have an 800, and it did a really nice job.  

I have a 2004 Honda Foreman. I can handle any snow up to 8".  Might not be as fast as a truck, but I can get the job done. The most important thing is to get the snow far enough off of the driveway so you have room for future snowfalls 

Sorry I didn't read the whole post first, but mine is the manual shift type.

Using an ATV/UTV is not the perfect solution for all. They excel in areas where there is a larger surface area to keep clear. If I personally relied on a snow blower for the task. i would easily spend upwards of 3 hrs to open up the drive. Even after clearing the drives and aprons, still have a bit of shovel time around the buildings and doorways. 

Not a perfect scrape either, even with concrete. Asphalt is at an advantage as it warms up nicely and bakes the rest off.   

They probably work fine with dry snow but with wet snow it seems they don't have the weight to get down to the road surface and they ride over some of snow. My friend does his driveway with one and it looks like hell all winter. One day he came over and did mine and I had to shovel  for an hour to get it smoothed out. 

Did quite a bit of plowing at the resort last year, really impressed with how much snow a UTV can push around!  Definitely a great investment! 

Kind of what I was thinking, that the clutches must be different.  I have done some light plowing with issues with my Ranger.

I plowed snow with a 2006 Mule 610 for 11 years and never had to replace a belt and rarely used low gear

I've plowed many years with my Polaris Ranger. Never had a belt issue. ALWAYS plow in low gear however. 

Thanks Fowler!  Appreciate the insight!

Brent, if your unit has a CVT transmission, i wouldnt expect any belt issues any time soon. 

Ive been pushing snow for decades without any belt issues. Another example is the belt on my Mud Buddy surface drive, expected to last a lifetime. 

I know what your saying regarding snowmobile drive/clutching. Seems to be a whole different can of worms.