Cub Cadet Hauler Boxes. One box for the Hauler. Two smaller boxes for the optional accessories. I’ll spend a little time going through the assembly, the features and then compare it to a few other carts.
UpDate June 2018. My wife still uses this cart everyday. It’s great!
I’ve been using the new Cub Cadet Hauler that MTD Products, Inc. sent me to review for a few weeks now and overall it fits my expectations of a strong yard cart that stores easily. Like every yard cart currently on the market it has it good features and a couple that I personally don’t like. This article is intended to help you decide if the Cub Cadet Hauler is the best yard cart for you.
MTD Products sent me this cart. I did not pay for it. I will use it for this review and continue to give it a long term test. When I am done with it I will donate it to a worthy cause.
CUB CADET HAULER Features:
- Four collapsible sides, the Hauler can be folded flat for larger loads.
- Side access allows for easy unloading,
- 10 cu. ft. offers plenty of space.
- When folded flat, it takes up 70% less space than a typical cart. You can stand it up in a corner – out of the way.
- Good utility tires. 15 in. x 6 in. pneumatic air filled tires included with sealant to help protect against punctures and leaks up to 1/8 in.
- Heavy powder coated frame, 3/4 inch axle.
- High-density, high-strength polyethylene tub won’t dent or rust
- Foot pedal dump release makes dumping fast and easy
- Bed folds flat and has molded locations for securing tie down straps
- Fold-out side panel allows convenient access for loading or unloading
- Molded-in groove allows for a board to be placed inside the cart creating a partition for separating contents
- 10 cu. ft. load capacity
- 800 lb. load rating
- Optional Handle Kit turns the cart into a wheelbarrow
- Optional shovel rack.
You can buy the Cub Cadet Hauler at Home Depot and other retailers online or at your local Cub Cadet Dealer.
Cub Cadet Hauler @ Home Depot: Hauler Tow-Behind Dump Cart
Optional Handle Kit: Home Depot: Optional Handle Kit
Optional Tool Holder: Home Depot: Optional Tool Holder
I’m a connoisseur of utility carts.
Like me, I know you are tired of buying crappy yard carts. Carts that rust. Carts that vibrate apart. Carts that bend or warp when filled with a “normal” load. I have listened to hundreds of you state, ” I just bought this cart and the first time I used it the tires went flat!”
You know I use a 40-year-old cart every day just because the new carts won’t hold up to the jobs I do around my one-acre yard.
1969 John Deere 80 Yard Cart & Husqvarna 970. Still In Use Today!
I have had enough different carts to know what works for me over the years and what doesn’t. I despise the $100-$200 carts the box stores sell. They are good for hauling dry leaves and that’s about it. Don’t even get me started about the tires on these cheap carts. I’ve seen birthday balloons that are thicker and last longer. The $250-$400 carts at Sears, Lowes, Home Depot and Amazon are not a whole lot better. Most of them have a u-channel tongue made of the same thickness metal as the side of your toaster. They work fine for a while but as soon as you try to pull a load of firewood out of the timber and go through a drainage rut the tongue deforms. Once that happens it never latches right again. So does this Cub Cadet Hauler have those faults?
Do I Recommend the Cub Cadet 10 cu. ft. Hauler? Yes.
Why? The Cub Cadet Hauler is a well-built cart and is a great solution for anyone who does not have a lot of room to store a bulky cart. I recommend it to anyone who needs a cart for yard clean-up, leaves, branches and even hauling firewood. It is strong enough to handle more weight than you should pull with your lawn tractor or ZTR. I like the self-sealing tires. I also like the optional handle kit. I have a feeling that this cart will have the handles installed a lot. If you leave your cart outdoors you will like the fact that it does not hold water. It can rain and whatever you leave in the cart does not end up waterlogged.
Cub Cadet Hauler Assembly. Open the box, pull out the hardware bag, install the wheels and you are done. No tools needed. The hardware bag has four large washers for the wheels, 2 snap clips to hold the wheels on and grease to lubricate the axle the first time. The wheel rims do have grease zerks so you can add grease later on.
Cub Cadet Hauler Assembled. Once you look at the picture directions and realize this is a simple job it will take you less than 5 minutes to assemble the hauler.
Cub Cadet Hauler in the storage position. The pictures in the manual are not quite clear. To store it you remover the trailer tongue – just one pin. Then you tip the cart on it’s nose to store. The trailer tongue slides into the square hole above the axle after you tip the hauler up on its nose when stored.
Cub Cadet Hauler optional handle kit. Remove the trailer tongue and use the trailer tongue pin and the hitch pin to hook up the handle kit. It’s very simple and strong.
Cub Cadet Hauler with handle kit and tool holder installed. I really like the handle kit. It turns this yard cart into a very nice wheelbarrow for hauling, debris, bags, dirt, and gravel around.
Cub Cadet Hauler assembled. This cart will not hold water so if you leave your cart outside it won’t be full of water after every rain. This is actually a benefit for my wife and I because we tend to leave yard waste in the cart until it’s full and then go dump it in the compost pile. With a cart that holds water that debris can sometimes get pretty rank and waterlogged if it rains.
Cub Cadet Hauler with side panel folded down. I’m not sure if this is a big feature or not. I like the fact that you can pull up alongside a garden or flower bed and drop the side but with the side dropped the cart feels very flimsy. So I would use it for lightweight mulch and debris but I wouldn’t use it for heavy loads like sand, dirt or rocks. I’m going to use this cart all summer so if I do break it I’ll tell you here.
Cub Cadet Hauler tipped. This is the main reason why I still use my old John Deere cart almost every day. I’ll explain in a later picture.
Cub Cadet Hauler Construction, The trailer tongue, bottom frame and axle support is the standard way they are building yard carts nowadays. The two large yellow levers are for locking down the sides of the cart when you fold it for storage.
Cub Cadet Hauler Tongue Latch. You step down on the latch with your foot to release the cart to dump. I thought this latch was cheaply made when I first looked at it but… After assembling the cart I see that the axle is placed farther back on this cart than most. This puts more weight on the tongue so this latch does not have to be extremely strong to hold the load if you put the weight too far back in the cart. In other words, the latch works and I expect it to last for years.
Cub Cadet Hauler latch. The bottom slot is where the trailer tongue latches into. The top slot is for the optional handle kit. Nice thick steel here.
Cub Cadet Hauler full of yard debris. The 10 cu ft. trailer is just the right size for most yards. You can get a lot of leaves, etc. in the box. The tool holder is very nice. It will hold hand tools and string trimmers.
Cub Cadet Hauler Dumping. Here is what nobody gets. When you dump a load it would be really nice if you could jump back on the lawn tractor or ZTR and the load would cleanly slide out of the bed. With tapered backends that ALL of the poly trailers have you have to bring along your rake and pull the stuff out.
Cub Cadet Hauler Dumping. Even if it does fall out there is still something always left so that you have to get back off the tractor and clean the trailer out. The tailgates on today’s steel boxed trailers are no better. Yes, you can remove them but you lose half the capacity of the trailer. If use them like they are designed the metal is so thin that it bends and won’t work after 2 or 3 loads of dirt. A combo split door and dump gate is a reasonable request in my opinion.
Cub Cadet Hauler Folded. The tool holder snaps off so you can carry larger loads. There are slots along the bottom that you can use to strap boards and other long stuff to the hauler.
Cub Cadet Hauler with 1000 lbs. I thought I might as well try and break the hauler. Here are 1000 lbs of rocks. Looks good so far.
Cub Cadet Hauler full of rocks. Another picture of the load. I made a big mistake when I unloaded these rocks. I thought I would just loosen the rear panel let it drop and then use the tilt. Wrong! the panel drop in such a way that you can’t get the trailer to tilt. The trailer is not designed to have the rear panel unhooked.
Cub Cadet Hauler. The trailer is only rated for 800 lbs and you can see I have enough in it that the sides are starting to bend. The latches that hold the side up did not bend, break or pop loose.
Cub Cadet Hauler Comparison. Here is the old John Deere cart. The two carts are the same cubic capacity. The old JD has a higher load rating because it uses 1-inch axles. Today’s new carts like this Cub Cadet Hauler use a 3/4 inch axle. Take a look at the following pictures to see what different loads weigh.
250 lbs load of 2 by 10’s
15 bags of Mulch! 300 lbs
500 lb load of sand/black dirt
1000 lbs of rocks. It is really easy to overload your tractor and trailer hauling landscape bricks, rocks, and sand.
Home Depot has the best price I have seen on the Internet
Cub Cadet Version: Home Depot: Hauler Tow-Behind Dump Cart
Optional Handle Kit: Home Depot: Optional Handle Kit
Optional Tool Holder: Home Depot: Optional Tool Holder
wral
I bought a “Cub Cadet Hauler” three years ago. Two flat tires now after light use. Seems that the product isn’t as rugged as it is expensive.
Paul
Hi Wral, Interesting. I’ve had one flat in six years so I am almost ecstatic over that fact. Almost all other yard cart tires are cheap, but the ones on the hauler are a lot better than those cheap tires. Suggestion, buy a quart of slime and divide it between the two tires. You won’t have any more flats. You can get it in many places including Amazon: Slime
Scott
HI Paul, thanks for your insights – much appreciated. This looks perfect for my lands.
I live in Australia and can’t find this hauler anywhere and can’t seem to buy from the US. Does anyone have any ideas?
Cheers,
Scott
Paul
Hi Scott, It’s also sold as Arnold EZ Stow Hauler. Arnold is MTD’s parts brand. Here is a link to the Amazon U.S. so you can start tracking it down. https://amzn.to/3bYZPkS
Bruce Lowry
Hi Paul. I bought my daughter a Cub Cadet XT1 Enduro LT 42 in. 547 cc Engine with IntelliPower Hydrostatic Gas Front-Engine Riding Lawn Tractor. Will this hauler hook up to that model properly?
Paul
Hi Bruce, Yes, the Hauler is made for the Cub Cadet XT1 lawn tractor.
Scott
I just got the Cub Cadet Hauler yesterday. It was easy to put together and the size is great but I can’t get the foot pedal to release the latch to dump the cart. Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas on how to fix it?
Paul
Hi Scott, I don’t have problems with this one but it’s fairly common for that type of foot release to stick. So,
Loosen the bolts that hold the pedal bracket to the trailer tongue. Try it. Does it work now? If it does go to the hardware store and get a couple of flat washers and put one on the mounting bolts between the tongue and the bracket. That will raise the foot pedal up just enough for it to work. (You may need two washers on each bolt)
Let me know that works.
Scott
Your suggestion worked to fix the foot release! Thank you!
Ricky B
Thanks for a great article! I own a cub Cadet tractor and this hauler trailer. I love them both. I put them through very heavy exertion, and both hold up really well.
Robert
Hi Paul. I bought this cart about a month ago. I do not use it heavily but when I do it’s been amazing. I actually bought the version of this cart sold by Arnold. Same cart, different logo and about $20 less. I love it and would recommend it to anyone.
Paul
Hi Robert, I glad you like it! My wife has been using this one constantly for the last two years and the only problem she’s had is one flat tire. If you look at the picture you can see the back gate is starting to bow a little but that’s from all the stuff she always has hanging over the back.
Alan
Home Depot has two model numbers of this cart on its shelf: 19A40026100 and 19B40026100. I assume the “B” is a newer model and matches your box pictured above. The “A” looks like maybe older inventory. Do you know if there is any difference in the models? Your links above don’t work anymore, just FYI so you can get the rev sharing.
Paul
Hi Alan, I have one of the first models. I can’t find any differences between the two models. If I had to guess I’ll bet it is just a production run change – not an actual change to the product.
Hurst Gannon
Now that it’s been more than a full year, do you have any updates on the cart? I’m curious about the drop sides and wondering if the hinges have held up.
Thanks!
Paul
Hi Hurst, My spouse uses it daily from March 1st to November 30th. She has it full of landscaping tools, dirt, rocks, Rubbermaid, etc. all the time. She never cleans it or takes care of it at all. We’ve had at least 1500 lbs of 6-10 inch rocks in it and have had over 1000 lbs of Sacrete more than once. She probably puts more wear and abuse on the cart in one year than most people will do in a lifetime.
The only damage she has done to it was to bend the top portion of the hitch once when she turned too short with the ZTR. I easily straightened that back out. I also didn’t pay attention to the air in the tires and one of the “puncture-resistant” tires went flat late last summer. I ended up putting a new Slime/inner tube in the tire.
There are a lot of scratches on the inside from what she hauls but there are no cracks or permanent bends in the poly. I can highly recommend it as a cart that will last.
Brian Bishop
Hi, can you please let me know what the tongue height is? I have a JD x320 and wonder if it will work with that tractor. Thx
Paul
Hi Brian, My cart is buried back in the shed for the winter to get an exact height but it’s a standard tongue height. So it will work well with your X320.
Nathan
Paul,
Its been a month since your post. How is it holding up? The reviews on Home Depot and Tractor Supply are almost hard to believe they are so positive and the price is reasonable. Any updates you can share? As always, Thanks!
Paul
Hi Nathan, It’s holding up well. 500 lbs of dirt got left in it yesterday and then we got 1.5 inches of rain over night. Because the box is not water tight that was actually kind of nice. The dirt was wet but not soupy wet like it would have been with the plastic tub style carts.
I’ve been using it a lot with the optional handles as a wheelbarrow. I’ve been using it as my mixing tub for making potting soil. The flat bottom works great that way.
The price is right!
nick
Hi Paul. I had a question about my portable generator. I have the briggs @Stratton 7000 watt elite series and was wondering about how many hours I can get out of it I have herd everything from 500 to 2000 ? thank you Nick
Paul
Hi Nick, I’m no mechanic and I don’t know exactly what engine they put in that generator except it looks similar to their best snow blower engines. Based on that I would guess if you changed the oil every 50 hours or every year if you are not using it. If you changed the air cleaner and used fuel stabilizer it should last 1000 hours.
Robert
Enjoyed this article and the one about the OxCart. Of the two which do you feel is the better cart?
Paul
Hi Robert, I can’t make up my mind. I like the fact that I can fold up the Cub Cadet. I really, really like the optional handles. I actually like the fact that it won’t hold water. (I have a full load of dirt sitting in the OxCart right now getting waterlogged!)
I hate the swivel feature on the OxCart but I love the hydraulic assist. I like the self sealing tires on both of them. I like the extra clearance on the OxCart when running around in the timber. Did I say – I can’t make up my mind?