“Metal Pless plows are too expensive”, we hear this phrase all the time. But expensive is a relative term.. Metal Pless plows have the fastest return on investment (ROI) in the industry when appropriately implemented. Here are some stats and comparisons that we have compiled from our commercial snow and ice operation as well as some of our customer’s operations over the past 5 years.
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You will save as much as 50% on salt and abrasives by using Metal Pless Live Edge technology compared to a standard trip edge or rubber edge blade or box.
For sake of “safe” analysis, let’s say you only save 30%. Do the math in your operation. How much are you spending on salt, abrasives, and other deicers? Now take 30% of that number and that will show you your immediate return on deicers. Often times for a well utilized plow in a 30+ inch snow market, each plow will recover 1/3rd of its purchase price annually just in salt savings.
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You will save 70-80% on wear parts replacement.
The carbide edges on a Live Edge plow will last 8-10x longer than standard AR400 cutting edges and shoes. Yes, the carbide parts do cost more to replace than AR400 parts, but remember, it’s not just the cost of the parts. It’s having to pull a plow out of service (potentially during a snow event) to replace parts. It’s the risk of damaging your plow due to running those worn down parts “just a little bit longer." It's having to transport the plow to and from the site and it’s the labor to swap out the parts with the rusted solid nuts and bolts.
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With a hydraulic wing plow you will double your productivity when compared to a fixed push box, straight blade angle plow or even a Kage style system.
In our commercial snow and ice operation we used to run Kage systems with the removable box ends. Our productivity literally doubled when we switched to Metal Pless hydraulic wing plows. This meant that we could do twice the work with the same number of guys. Or the same amount of work with half the guys, whichever way you prefer to look at it. In the grand scheme of assessing ROI, this is the biggest win by far. Now you can take your labor (which is expensive and hard to find these days) and machines (which are scarce and rapidly rising in price) and get twice as much out of them.
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Uptime, uptime, uptime!
These are the heaviest built plows on the market. From the design, to the serviceability, to the heavy and hardened steel and parts and components used, these plows are as close to bullet proof as you will find. We all know that there is nothing more devastating to a snow and ice operation than downtime, especially when it's 4am and the snow is coming down fast. Metal Pless has truly designed these plows to withstand the test of time, cold, snow and anything else that you can throw at them. Talk to anyone with a Metal Pless plow and they will tell you how durable and well built they are.
In summary, YES, Metal Pless plows are expensive, but they will pay for themselves very quickly and many times over. There is a reason that over 90% of first time buyers become repeat buyers and convert over entire fleets to Metal Pless hydraulic wing plows and LiveBoxxes.
