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Financing Attachments With Your Bobcat T66: What Gets Bundled and What Doesn't

1 day ago
7 min read

A Bobcat T66 compact track loader rolling off the dealer lot with a general-purpose bucket is a capable machine. The same T66 leaving with a bucket, pallet forks, a grapple, and a hydraulic angle broom is a genuinely different piece of equipment on paper, even though it is still one serial number. That stack of attachments can add a meaningful amount to the total deal, and how skid steer financing treats that add-on spending, bundled into the same loan as the base machine or financed separately, changes both your monthly obligation and what actually secures the lender if something goes wrong.

This is a question almost every T66 buyer runs into, because the T66 is built around Bobcat's Bob-Tach attachment system specifically to make swapping implements fast, and a loader that changes tools in under a minute tends to accumulate a real attachment fleet over its working life, not just the one bucket it shipped with.

Why Attachments Are a Different Financing Conversation Than the Base Machine

The T66 itself, rated around 74 horsepower with a rated operating capacity in the neighborhood of 2,400 to 2,450 pounds depending on undercarriage configuration, holds its resale value reasonably well because it is a high-volume, widely traded compact track loader with an active secondary market. A bucket or set of pallet forks does not carry that same resale depth. Attachments depreciate faster, have a thinner resale market, and in a liquidation scenario are frequently worth far less proportionally than the base loader. That difference is exactly why a lender thinks about attachment collateral differently than base-machine collateral, even when both show up on the same invoice.



Three Common Ways Attachments Get Financed Alongside a T66

  • Bundled into one loan, one blanket lien. The most common approach for attachments purchased at the same time as the base T66: everything goes on a single note, and the UCC-1 financing statement covering the deal typically describes both 'the loader' and 'attachments thereto' as collateral. This is simplest administratively and often the only practical option when the attachments are purchased new alongside the machine as part of one package deal.

  • Financed on a separate, shorter-term note. Some lenders and dealers will split out attachment financing onto its own note with a shorter term that roughly matches the attachment's faster depreciation curve, rather than stretching a bucket's cost across the same term as the loader itself. This keeps the amortization schedule more realistic for an asset that will not hold value as long as the base machine.

  • Paid in cash or on a revolving line, while only the base machine is financed. A contractor with available working capital sometimes chooses to finance just the T66 and pay cash for attachments, or run them through a business line of credit instead, keeping the equipment loan's collateral description simple and the attachments unencumbered.



Why the Collateral Description Actually Matters Later

This is not just paperwork trivia. How attachments are described in the loan and UCC-1 filing matters the day you decide to sell, trade, or add new attachments down the road. If a bucket and set of forks are bundled into the same lien as the T66 itself, selling just the attachments separately from the loader, or trading the loader while keeping the attachments, requires the lender's cooperation to carve those items out of the collateral description. If the attachments were financed or purchased separately and never pledged against the loader's note, you have a much freer hand to sell or swap them independently.

It also matters for insurance. A loader and its attachments are sometimes covered under the same physical damage policy, sometimes scheduled separately, and a lender reviewing proof of insurance on a T66 financing file will want the attachments that are part of their collateral actually reflected on the policy, not left off because the contractor assumed only the base machine needed coverage.


What Changes When You Add Attachments After the Fact

A T66 purchased with just a bucket today and a grapple added eight months later is an extremely common pattern, and it raises a slightly different question: does the new attachment get added to the existing loan's collateral, financed as its own small note, or just bought outright? Most lenders are not going to reopen and re-paper an existing loan every time a contractor buys a new bucket. In practice, a later attachment purchase is usually either financed as a small standalone transaction, often through the dealer's own financing program, or paid for directly, and it typically does not get folded into the original T66 note unless the amount is large enough and the timing lines up with a planned refinance or upgrade of the base machine itself.


A Practical Way to Think About It Before You Buy

  • If you are buying the T66 and a full attachment package in one transaction, ask upfront whether the attachments will be bundled on the same note or itemized separately, and get the collateral description in writing before you sign.

  • If you expect to add attachments gradually over the next year or two, ask your lender or dealer what their standard process is for financing a later attachment purchase, so you are not surprised by the terms when that day comes.

  • If an attachment is unusually expensive relative to the base machine, a hydraulic mulching head or a heavy-duty grapple, for example, consider whether a shorter, separate term that matches its own depreciation makes more financial sense than stretching it across the T66's full loan term.

  • Keep a simple written inventory of which attachments are financed, which are owned outright, and which loan or lien each one sits under. It sounds basic, but on a fleet with several loaders and a shared attachment pool, this is exactly the kind of detail that gets lost until a sale or an insurance claim forces the question.

The attachment question sits alongside other skid steer financing details worth understanding before you buy, including how private-party skid steer financing changes the paperwork on a Bobcat S76-2 and how residual value insurance protects a skid steer lease's end-of-term value, both of which touch on how collateral and value are handled differently depending on how a T66 deal is structured.


The T66's Attachment Ecosystem Is Part of Why This Question Comes Up So Often

The T66 is built around Bobcat's Bob-Tach system standard on every unit, with Power Bob-Tach, hydraulic bucket positioning, a high-flow hydraulic option, and rear hydraulics all available to run more demanding implements. That combination is exactly why a T66 buyer tends to accumulate more attachments over the life of the machine than a loader without that flexibility. A high-flow hydraulic package in particular opens the door to attachments like cold planers, mulchers, and augers that draw significantly more hydraulic power than a basic bucket, and those higher-output attachments tend to carry higher price tags, which is precisely where the bundled-versus-separate financing decision starts to matter financially rather than just administratively.

It is worth noting that a T66 configured with the high-flow option and a full attachment set is a meaningfully more productive machine than the same loader running a single general-purpose bucket, since that one chassis can now functionally replace several single-purpose pieces of equipment across a job. That versatility is real value to a contractor, but it also means the total capital tied up in one serial number can be considerably higher than the base machine's price alone suggests, which is exactly the gap that skid steer financing has to account for.


How Lenders Think About Depreciation Mismatch

A core reason lenders treat attachments differently comes down to depreciation mismatch. A T66 base unit, financed over a multi-year term, is generally expected to still hold meaningful resale value at the end of that term because compact track loaders in this size class trade actively in the used market. A bucket or grapple financed over the same term is a different story: implements see heavier wear relative to their cost, have a much thinner resale market, and in many cases are worth a small fraction of their purchase price by the time a multi-year loader loan matures. A lender stretching attachment financing across the same term as the base machine is effectively financing a fast-depreciating asset on a slow-depreciation schedule, which is part of why some lenders prefer a shorter attachment-specific term, or a higher deposit on the attachment piece of the deal, to keep the loan balance from outrunning the collateral's actual value partway through the term.


Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to finance attachments through the same lender as the base machine? No. Many contractors finance the T66 through one source and attachments through a dealer promotional program or a separate lender, particularly when a manufacturer-sponsored rate applies only to attachments purchased in a specific window.

Does adding attachments to the loan increase my deposit requirement? It can. Because attachments carry a thinner resale market than the base loader, a lender may ask for a higher proportional deposit on the attachment portion of a bundled deal than on the machine itself, depending on credit profile and the specific items involved.

What happens to financed attachments if I trade in the T66? If they are bundled under the same lien, the dealer and lender typically work out the attachment value as part of the trade. If they were financed or owned separately, you have more flexibility to keep them and move them to the next machine instead.

If you are putting together a skid steer financing package for a T66 and a full attachment lineup, the clearest way to see exactly how the numbers and collateral will be structured is to start an application with BFC Equipment Loans and walk through the specific attachments you are planning to add.


Ready to Move Forward?

Whatever financing mechanic applies to your next purchase, BFC Equipment Loans structures the deal around your business, not a one-size-fits-all rate sheet.

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