I cannot believe that summer is over and fall is here already. Every summer we need to get between 13-15 cords of wood chopped, split, and stacked for the coming winter. When we first moved here 4 years ago, there were 4 of us that did this daunting chore, but this year, with the kids now moved into their own apartment and my husband waiting for a liver transplant, I found myself trying to tackle as much as I possibly could alone.

Well of course, the old pickup truck decided not to start after my 5th cord of wood and I just threw up my hands, kicked it (ya know like men do), said a few unkind words of its misbehavior and then looked around for Plan 2.

That is when I spotted a wheelbarrow and the Rubbermaid Tractor Cart. Okay, I hooked up the Rubbermaid cart with our MTD Riding Lawnmower which was simple since it just attaches to the mower by way of an L shaped bolt with a cotter pin at it's base. All you do is line up the holes on the cart and the tractor, slip the bolt through, attach the cotter pin on the bottom of the bolt and presto, we are now hitched!

The Product

The model we own is Rubbermaid 5662-61-GRAY. The cart can hold weight up to 750 pounds. It measures 60 inches x 39.3 inches x 25 inches. It holds up to 8 cubic feet when heaped, and level capacity is 6.75 cubic feet. The tongue and body are reinforced. The body is made out of some heavy plastic – we all have seen and felt the Rubbermaid products – so this will not rust.

The sides pull off the cart and converts to a flatbed. This becomes very convenient when you want to haul heavy bags such as topsoil or fertilizer to the garden or salt bags to your water softener. It sure saves the pain in your back of lifting and throwing it over. The sides slide together "tongue in groove" style and have two extensions at each base that slide into slots in the cart's bed.

What do I Think?

Well, since it was easy to hitch it up and it is light in weight, I really like it. It pulls behind the MTD Riding Lawnmower quietly which I think is due to its larger tires. We have owned the metal carts with the smaller wheels and they bounce around and bang around and they do rust unless they are well taken care of. With the metal ones being about the same price as this one that is going to last longer, this is a much better choice by far!

I was able to throw quite a bit of wood in the cart before hauling it behind the house to stack and it along with a regular wheelbarrow solved my problem of being without a pickup truck. For those of you who don’t know a cord of wood equals 4 feet x 4 feet x 8 feet.

The only thing that I see a problem with is due to its larger tires, when the side panels are off, you are limited to the space only between the tires since the tires are higher than the bed, but you still have the space at the end of the cart that is unlimited to long items.

I think this one should last a long time due to its construction and it did take some heavy abuse from me throwing in large heavy pieces of wood and it did not suffer any harm.

I also used this when hauling all of our potassium tabs (which are 40 pound bags) for our water softener to the garage, our salt granules for salting the road in the winter and it sure saved a lot of time and a hurting back.

For those of you who want to know about the old pickup? It wanted new spark plugs. Go figure!

Want a great reliable log splitter? Try this one: MTD Yard Machine Log Splitter


Recommended: Yes