There Is No Single "Right" Attachment Setup
I've been handling equipment orders for a Bobcat dealer for roughly nine years now. In that time, I've personally made (and documented) six significant mistakes, totaling somewhere around $14,000 in wasted budget. Now I maintain our team's attachment selection checklist specifically to stop other people from repeating my screwups.
Here's the thing nobody tells new owners: there is no universal answer to "What should I buy?" The right setup for attachments for Bobcat skid steer machines depends entirely on three questions—what are you actually doing, how often, and how much does downtime cost you?
I'm going to break this into three owner profiles. Find yourself, read that section, ignore the rest.
Owner Type A: Homeowner or Weekend User (Under 100 Hours/Year)
You bought a used Bobcat mostly for your own property. Gravel driveway, some tree clearing, maybe snow removal in winter. You don't take jobs for money.
For this profile, you need exactly two things: a standard bucket (66–74 inch, teeth or no teeth depending on whether you're grading or digging) and a set of pallet forks. That's it. Don't buy anything else for the first year.
The mistake I made—and I've watched dozens of people make since—was buying a bobcat backhoe attachment because it "seemed useful." I paid $4,600 used for a BH-series unit in 2019. Used it exactly three times in eighteen months. Sold it for $3,900. The math on that experiment wasn't catastrophic, but it was $700 plus storage space plus maintenance I didn't need.
Unless you're routinely digging trenches or foundations, that money belongs in your pocket or your fuel tank.
Owner Type B: Multi-Use Contractor (200–800 Hours/Year)
You do landscaping, light grading, materials handling, maybe some snow work. You bid on whatever comes through the door.
This is where the attachment math gets interesting. You need versatility, but each attachment also has to earn its keep. We've caught 43 order errors using our pre-purchase checklist in the past 18 months—maybe 47, I'd have to check the log.
For this profile, I'd look at a bucket (one smooth edge for grading, one toothed edge for digging if possible), pallet forks, a grapple bucket for brush and debris, and an angle broom if you're doing any parking lot or road work.
Here's the hard truth about the bobcat backhoe attachment for this group: it's a $7,000–$9,000 purchase that sits idle more than it runs. A mini excavator will outperform it on every single job. But a mini excavator also costs more, needs its own trailer, and doesn't fit on the machine you already own.
So the question isn't "Is the backhoe good?" Put another way: does it make financial sense to have digging capability on the machine you already own? For many contractors, the answer is yes—not because it's ideal, but because the alternative is turning down work.
I learned this the hard way in 2021. Turned down three trenching jobs in one month because I didn't want to rent a mini excavator. Lost roughly $6,800 in revenue. The used backhoe attachment I eventually bought cost $7,200. It paid for itself in eleven months.
I'm still not 100% sure I made the optimal call. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just rented. But the certainty of having the capability on-site whenever I needed it was worth something that doesn't show up on a spreadsheet.
Owner Type C: Specialist (Single Application, High Volume)
You do one thing: demolition, snow removal, agriculture, whatever. You're running 800+ hours a year in one discipline.
For you, the answer shifts again—you need one or two attachments optimized for your specific task, and you should ignore everything else. A demolition contractor doesn't need pallet forks. A farmer doesn't need an angle broom. A snow removal outfit doesn't need a backhoe attachment.
The specialist trap is buying "one of everything" because it feels safer. It isn't. Every attachment is maintenance, storage, and capital that isn't earning a return.
If this is you, I'd look at the highest-quality single-purpose attachment you can afford. A premium bucket with reinforced edges will outlast three cheap ones. A hydraulic breaker matched to your machine's flow requirements will solve problems that a cheaper "universal" unit can't.
This is where the time-certainty equation really matters. When you're on a deadline—a snow event, a demolition schedule—paying more for an attachment that's proven and available right now beats saving 15% on something that ships in six weeks. I've made that mistake. The numbers said go with the discount supplier—15% cheaper with similar specs. My gut said stick with the local dealer. I went with the numbers.
It arrived late, didn't fit properly, and I lost a $3,200 job because of it. The "cheap" option cost me roughly $4,000 more than the "expensive" one would have. I get why people chase the lowest price—budgets are real. But the hidden costs add up in ways the quote doesn't show.
How to Figure Out Which One You Are
Ask yourself these three questions:
- How many hours do you actually put on your machine per year? Check the hour meter. Be honest.
- Have you turned down a job in the last six months because you lacked an attachment? If so, what specifically?
- What does one day of downtime cost you? If the answer is "a lot," you need reliability, not variety.
If your answers point to under 100 hours, stick with a bucket and forks. If you're between 200–800 and taking varied work, build a kit gradually—one attachment at a time, each one paying for itself before you buy the next. If you're over 800 hours in a single application, buy the best single-purpose tool you can find and stop second-guessing.
One more thing—before you order anything hydraulic, verify your machine's flow and pressure specs. I've never fully understood why so many people skip this step. My best guess is they assume "Bobcat attachment" means "fits any Bobcat." It doesn't. Older machines and newer attachments often need adapters, and some high-flow attachments won't run on standard-flow machines at all.
And if you're wondering what is a fuel pump doing in an article about attachments—nothing. Different problem entirely. Unless your machine won't start. Then it's the only problem.
Look, I've spent weekends researching things that turned out to be pointless—including, once, whether a crane fly landing on a hot engine block indicated a mechanical issue. It doesn't. It's a bug. But that rabbit hole is what happens when you don't have a clear framework for what you actually need.
Build the framework first. Buy second.
