I recently purchased 10 acres of land. Would I be better served with a UTV or a used pickup for general farm work and getting around the property? My current vehicle is a ford escape and cannot be used to haul materials from town to property. What are your thoughts on the best purchase I can make for ~$10K?

Used Nissan frontier.

10 acres? Walk.

But if you are seriously looking to haul from town to property you need street legal. Used beater of a pickup.

Zero turn mower

Both.

UTV for property work and a decent truck for everything else.

This is not a can you can kick down the road too long with anything over 1 acre.

Cheap pickup and a small tractor

Japanese KEI truck

We have 7 acres.

I have a BMW x5, 16ft flatbed trailer to haul materials and equipment around property, 48v John Deer Gator, and a pull behind wheel barrow/chore cart.

Can also pull the chore cart around with the zero turn. I assume you will have a zero turn to maintain it. So you will need a trailer anyway....and you can pull the chore cart around with the zero turn.

I do not miss not having a truck at all. Much easier to haul materials I need with that trailer.

I had two Escapes (Mercury Mariners but same thing). Towed my trailer with em just fine.

Im on 10. There are times I miss my truck and it hold be useful but I have gotten by with SUV's and a utility trailer to haul stuff around. I have a riding mower also.

But by far the most useful thing has been a small tractor with a front loader with a grapple attachment.

There are times when a UTV might be slightly convenient but no place on my property is more than 400 yards from any other place with the exception of the flagpole driveway. To me for those to be useful you either need a disability that limits your ability to walk a little ways or have some real big acreage where you need to cover ground by wheels to use your time batter.

Is it a rule that if you have over 1 acre and 10 or less you have to drive a midsize SUV? Crazy. Just an observation, not a dig at all.

Jeep Cherokee XJ is the right answer here. The inside can haul, you can tow a trailer, and you can drive it around the property.

Also, where are you located? Guessing fairly flat land because there aren't many places on our property I could get to with anything bigger than a UTV.

Cant imagine trying to own property without a pickup.

Find a single cab chevy 2500 6.0, work truck trim, with 150k miles. Cheaper than a UTV. Will last another 100-150k miles. If you ever want to rent a dump trailer, skid steer, etc then you're already set up to pull it. Id do 4wd but not a must have if you want to save.

Depends on the land. If it is muddy and prone to flooding then UTV. Truck can get bogged down and stuck being so heavy. If not, truck is probably less expensive.

The land is a little hilly but really open land with no trees. A UTV seems more fun while a used truck seems more practical.

barstoolexpert said:

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A UTV seems more fun while a used truck seems more practical.

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You hit the nail on the head on the UTV. Might also consider safety if there are kids around. Lots of deaths and injuries.

barstoolexpert said:

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The land is a little hilly but really open land with no trees. A UTV seems more fun while a used truck seems more practical.

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Used TJ or XJ sound perfect. Can still pull a trailer and drive on road, but also more safe and still just as fun as a UTV on the property.

An old beater street legal 4x4 vehicle is usually cheaper than a UTV. Even with used car prices so inflated, I think UTV prices are also inflated too.

I had an old Chevy 2500 long bed until an 18 wheeler totalled it. It was nice to have to tow or just toss stuff in the bed.

If I need to get around the property on wheels, my Xterra does that easily. We also have our old beater suburban as a farm truck and my wife's expedition EL is a 4x4, though it is heavy and gets stuck fairly easily.

I have had this debate before

My experience is a beater 4x4 does everything and can get you to town when you need to haul something etc. However a truck can beat you up as you go over bumpy roads/trails on the property and now your ranch truck that bangs all over the property is also the vehicle you put trust in to get you to town.

Riding ranches in SxS is great. Suspension handles bumps better and if you are getting in and our of vehicle a lot, that is way easier to do in SxS rather than opening a truck door and climbing down.

There are +/- to both.

If there is way to get both, I would do that.

I would sell escape and get a truck every day driver and buy a $10K SxS if that option is available to you.

I have 38 acres in Matagorda county. I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee, a12 ft utility trailer, a small 3'x5' pull behind garden "trailer" and an Orec riding brush mower. Have debated whether to get a UTV but comfortable doing a lot of stuff on foot. UTV would have certainly made a lot of my chores easier to accomplish

Have not worked much on a place have you? Hard to walk across 10 acres carrying a 80 lb bag of Ouickcrete to fix a corner post. ,

I have for years always had a UTV and a ranch truck. My choice of truck was a 1986 F250 4WD gas. It had heavier suspension for loads and set up a little higher for ground clearance.
Nice to have AC and Heat.
After moving to the Ozarks I was not using the truck as much as I did on the Texas ranch. I sold it a year ago.
Wish I never would have done that. Lots of times my Can Am Lonestar and flat bed trailer don't cut it.
When you need it you need it.

Am old 4x4 ford ranger would work well. It's not much heavier than a SxS and does not have as much of an inflated price as the tacomas do.

Kei trucks for sale

Pick it up in Houston. I believe there is legislation to make street legal in TX.

Gunny456 said:

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Have not worked much on a place have you? Hard to walk across 10 acres carrying a 80 lb bag of Ouickcrete to fix a corner post. ,

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Used the 80lb bags on my one acre lot at the time. We didn't use quickrete for the ranch fence lines I worked on. Not economical. Got cement mix. Got sand from the river. Got water. Mixed our own. I'll put my ranch life up against most on here. 10 acres doesn't need anything special.

Did you get your gravel from the river too? Or did you have your own gravel pit? When we did our large fencing project I had a skid steer mounted cement mixer that would hold about 10 bags at a time. We had a flat bed with a water tank on it and two pallets of sac Crete.
The mixer had a chute on the side that was hydraulic controlled the dumping right into each hole that we dug 4' with a Beltec. It worked well for us over the 4 miles of fencing.
We thought about bulk sand and gravel but would have been a PIA hauling the material all the way across the fence line path….. as we did not have a river for sand nor our own source of good gravel. Some of it was a challenge due to terrain just for the skid steer and flatbed.

It was only a matter of time before someone made this a pissing contest to show how tough they were. Haha work smarter not harder. I'm with you Gunny

Gunny456 said:

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I have for years always had a UTV and a ranch truck. My choice of truck was a 1986 F250 4WD gas. It had heavier suspension for loads and set up a little higher for ground clearance.
Nice to have AC and Heat.
After moving to the Ozarks I was not using the truck as much as I did on the Texas ranch. I sold it a year ago.
Wish I never would have done that. Lots of times my Can Am Lonestar and flat bed trailer don't cut it.
When you need it you need it.

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Gunny, thought I saw you in TN yesterday (j/k).

Congrats on getting your piece of land! I'm sure you have worked hard for it. It don't matter if it's 2 acres or 20,000 acres……it's your piece of God created heaven that is your domain and you can have fun getting whatever your heart desires to enjoy it your way….. and don't pay attention to those who criticize you for what you dream of having on it or doing with it.
I believe it is indeed special because God ain't makin more of it.
Have fun with it and make some good memories turning it in to your all your wishes sir.

Ha. I have not owned a car my entire life! I'm old but not that old!!.
Yesterday I was in my shop building a fence stretching tool in the Ozarks watching it rain.
Wish I had that license plate though.
.

I'd suggest that you just rent a truck (and trailer) when needed - you can get a 3/4 crew cab from enterprise for $99 day or $250 (for fri - sun). Think at most you would need this is 10 weekends a month. No insurance no maintenance etc.

Spend the $ on a zero turn mower or 1 -2 series JD tractor with front end loader and a wagon/trailer that fits it

Most of what you buy for the farm can be delivered there also, so no need to haul

I've just bought a place and what I can share is it's best to have a little patience before pulling the trigger - my place is loaded with stuff that just does not get used

JeremiahJohnson said:

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It was only a matter of time before someone made this a pissing contest to show how tough they were. Haha work smarter not harder. I'm with you Gunny

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OP asked for advice. I think experience counts. The entire outer fence line is 1/2 a mile. Getting a fleet of vehicles and machines to maintain a 10 acre lot is not needed. I mean, sure it would be fun.


A small tractor for shredding. A UTV to put around the property and fence line. Hell - I'd have a road around it and use the UTV to check the fence and spray. Rental for anything else. A small flatbed trailer to haul tractor and UTV would be nice too.


First, I'd focus my money on getting it cleaned up - depending on the OP's age of course. Older you are the more you buy since you can't do as much.

Gunny456 said:

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Did you get your gravel from the river too? Or did you have your own gravel pit? When we did our large fencing project I had a skid steer mounted cement mixer that would hold about 10 bags at a time. We had a flat bed with a water tank on it and two pallets of sac Crete.
The mixer had a chute on the side that was hydraulic controlled the dumping right into each hole that we dug 4' with a Beltec. It worked well for us over the 4 miles of fencing.
We thought about bulk sand and gravel but would have been a PIA hauling the material all the way across the fence line path….. as we did not have a river for sand nor our own source of good gravel. Some of it was a challenge due to terrain just for the skid steer and flatbed.

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A bit of both. Sometimes we would grab some if it looked good (changes each flood) but there are a couple of quarries on the ranch and a neighbor friend has a giant pit they sold gravel out of to the county. He'd give us a pickup load for free anytime we wanted. The sand we usually got in five gallon buckets as way of measuring the amount. A lot of the fence I built was <4 miles from the river so we could get sand and gravel quickly. Large water tank on the flat bead. The mixer fit behind that but we took it off for stability when running it.

Overall our setup had the mixer on the ground and we'd move it as we went. After getting about a hundred yards away. Wheelbarrow in between. Lucky we had the bobcat with an auger. First few years of fence building I did was with post hole diggers because my grandfather was cheap.

Roger that. Cool that you had the river and the quarries on the place. Can't tell you how many yards of concrete I have mixed in a wheel barrow.
In fact just mixed 20 80lb sacks last week in a wheel barrow back at a remote new water gap we are building.
Sure made me feel my age!
We were poor growing up and we did all our mixing of both concrete and mortar by hand.
And I became very familiar with a breaker bar and hand post hole digger building fence on our home place in the hill country. Hell we could not have afforded gas for a tractor, much less own one.
My dad said the hard work built character….. I don't know.

Some great responses. I think a lot depends on your terrain, creeks, wet spots, etc. I have some land (not huge, but more than 10 acres) and a truck, tractor and utv are all useful. If I had to pick one, I would pick a small 4WD truck. Tractor next and UTV last. But depending on what you are doing, one of the three is likely much better than the other two.

What are you planning on doing while you are on the land? If everything was equal (which I am sure it is not) that is like 640 ft x 640 ft. Unless you have money to burn and want to get something just stick with whatever you are mowing with or a tractor with attachments for both. UTVs are awesome and can be fun but they cost as much as a used pickup these days. We have UTVs since we have more land and don't want to tear the ground up.

If you don't have a truck or SUV already I would get a truck so that way if you have to run into town you don't have to change shoes if you are dirty. Get some rubber floormats and be done with it