John Deere 320 P-Tier vs. 325 P-Tier: The Wheels-vs-Tracks Decision Inside Deere's Own Lineup
Most contractors shopping John Deere's compact loader lineup run into this decision earlier than they expect. You've outgrown your first small skid steer, you've got the budget and the job pipeline to step up a size class, and you discover that the next machine up the ladder isn't just bigger — it might not even have wheels. The 320 P-Tier skid steer and the 325 P-Tier compact track loader sit right next to each other in practical shopping terms, close enough in capacity that a lot of buyers cross-shop them without realizing they're comparing two different undercarriage philosophies at the same time as a real jump in lifting power.
Neither machine is strictly the "upgraded version" of the other — they're not direct model-number siblings the way a 325G and 325 P-Tier would be. But they occupy the same real-world decision point for a growing contractor, which is exactly why this comparison matters more than a lot of same-brand pairings.
The Two Machines, Side by Side
John Deere 320 P-Tier (skid steer, wheeled): 66 gross hp, 2,190 lb rated operating capacity (ROC)
John Deere 325 P-Tier (compact track loader, tracked): 74 gross hp / 70 net hp, 2,590 lb rated operating capacity, 9,500 lb operating weight
That's roughly an 18% jump in rated operating capacity moving from the 320 to the 325, plus a real horsepower increase, bundled together with a switch from wheels to tracks. A buyer comparing these two side by side on a dealer lot isn't making one decision — they're making two at once, and it's worth untangling them before you sign.
What Actually Changes Between Wheels and Tracks
This is the part contractors overthink the most, and it's simpler than the forum debates make it sound. Tracks spread the machine's weight over a much larger footprint, which drops ground pressure and lets the machine work on soft, wet, or finished ground — turf, mud, loose fill — without rutting it or getting stuck. Wheels concentrate the same weight onto four contact patches, which costs flotation but buys speed, lower operating cost per hour, easier tire replacement versus track replacement, and generally less damage to a paved or compacted surface the machine travels over all day.
Neither undercarriage is objectively better. A wheeled machine on a wet grading job spins, ruts the site, and burns a day fighting for traction it was never built to have. A tracked machine on a concrete yard or asphalt lot wears its rubber tracks faster than it needs to and costs more per hour to run on ground that never needed the flotation in the first place. The right choice is entirely about where the machine actually spends its life, not which one looks more capable in a brochure photo.
The Maintenance Cost Difference You're Actually Signing Up For
The wheels-versus-tracks decision doesn't end when you drive the machine off the lot. It shows up every time you write a maintenance check for the rest of the time you own it, and the two undercarriages have genuinely different cost profiles. A set of skid steer tires is a known, relatively modest expense, and tire wear is easy to inspect at a glance — you can see tread depth and sidewall condition without a trained eye. Rubber tracks cost meaningfully more to replace than a set of tires, and track life depends heavily on the ground you actually run on: abrasive surfaces like concrete rubble, asphalt millings, or sharp gravel chew through rubber tracks far faster than dirt or turf ever will.
That cuts both ways in this comparison. If you buy the 325 P-Tier for its flotation on soft ground and then spend half your hours running it across a gravel yard because that's what's convenient, you're paying premium track-replacement costs for a benefit you're not using most of the time. Conversely, running a wheeled 320 P-Tier on ground that's borderline too soft for it accelerates tire wear and bogs the machine down in ways that cost you in lost productivity even before a tire needs replacing. Matching the undercarriage to the ground you work most isn't just a performance decision — it's a maintenance-budget decision that compounds every year you own the machine.
The Capacity Jump Nobody Mentions
Because the undercarriage conversation gets all the attention, the capacity difference between these two machines gets glossed over, and it shouldn't be. Going from a 2,190 lb to a 2,590 lb rated operating capacity isn't a rounding error — it's the difference between needing to top off a pallet fork load carefully and being able to run a genuinely heavier attachment, like a grapple bucket loaded with debris or a larger auger, without working at the edge of the machine's tip-over limit on every cycle. If your business has grown to the point where you're routinely fighting the capacity ceiling on a smaller machine, that upgrade alone is worth evaluating independently of the wheels-versus-tracks question.
Trades That Should Lean Toward the 320 P-Tier
The wheeled 320 P-Tier is the better fit for work that happens on finished or semi-finished surfaces, where speed and low running cost matter more than flotation. General contractors moving material around a paved laydown yard, interior demolition crews working on slab, and landscape contractors doing hardscape installation on compacted base all tend to be better served by a wheeled machine — it moves faster between tasks, costs less to maintain tire-for-tire than a tracked undercarriage, and does its job without the added weight and complexity of tracks it doesn't actually need.
Trades That Should Lean Toward the 325 P-Tier
The tracked 325 P-Tier earns its keep the moment the ground gets soft, uneven, or sensitive to rutting. Site-prep and excavation support crews working raw dirt, landscape contractors protecting a client's existing turf while regrading a yard, land-clearing operations working brush and debris on unimproved ground, and utility contractors working wet right-of-way corridors are all exactly the kind of work where a wheeled machine either gets stuck or tears up ground it shouldn't. The extra capacity is a bonus on top of an undercarriage choice that, for this kind of work, isn't really optional.
A Simple Way to Decide
If you're still genuinely torn after reading the above, a useful test is to think back over your last twenty jobs and count how many of them involved ground that was wet, loose, sloped, or finished turf you couldn't afford to tear up. If that's a small minority of your work, the 320 P-Tier's speed and lower running cost are the better bet, and you can always rent a tracked machine for the occasional job that needs one. If soft or sensitive ground shows up constantly, the 325 P-Tier's flotation isn't a nice-to-have — it's the difference between finishing a job on schedule and fighting the site all day. Horsepower and rated operating capacity matter, but they're the second question. The ground you actually work is the first one.
What Changed From the G-Series — The Predecessor Comparison
Both of these machines replaced G-Series predecessors — the 320G and the 325G — as part of Deere's broader P-Tier generational update across its entire compact loader lineup. That update wasn't about horsepower races between generations; it centered on the cab and controls. Across the P-Tier line, Deere moved to a pressurized cab, added a 25-button control panel, brought in Surround View camera systems for better jobsite visibility, and introduced Attachment Manager, a system that lets the machine recognize and preset hydraulic flow and pressure settings for different attachments instead of the operator guessing at a dial every time they swap a bucket for a grapple. If you're comparing a used G-Series machine against a new P-Tier 320 or 325 on price alone, that's the real gap you're giving up, not raw digging or lifting power.
A Word on Resale
This decision also follows you to trade-in day. Tracked machines in the compact loader class have generally held resale value a bit better than their wheeled counterparts in recent market data, largely because used buyers shopping the tracked segment are often contractors who specifically need the flotation and are willing to pay for a well-maintained unit. That's not a reason to buy tracks you don't need — a 325 P-Tier run hard on abrasive ground with worn-out tracks will still sell for less than a clean 320 P-Tier with good tires — but it's worth factoring in if you're genuinely on the fence and expect to trade the machine in within four to six years rather than running it to the end of its useful life.
The Rent-Versus-Own Problem This Decision Exposes
This is a comparison where renting actively works against you in a way that's easy to miss. A rental yard stocks whichever undercarriage turns over fastest for its broadest customer base — usually wheeled skid steers, because they're cheaper to maintain across a rental fleet and fit more jobs on paper. If you rent "a skid steer" for a job that actually needed tracks, you find out the hard way, mid-job, when the machine starts rutting ground it shouldn't or losing traction on a slope a tracked machine would have handled without drama. You pay for that mismatch in lost time, not in a line item anyone bills you for.
Owning — or financing — the machine that actually matches your most common ground conditions removes that gamble. Some contractors who split their work fairly evenly between finished and unimproved ground even end up financing one of each, running the 320 P-Tier for yard and hardscape work and the 325 P-Tier for anything that touches raw dirt or turf, rather than compromising on one machine that's wrong for half the jobs it gets sent to.
Financing Either Machine — or Both
Whichever undercarriage actually fits your ground, the financing decision underneath it is the same: match the term and structure to how the machine earns, not just to the sticker price. Our equipment financing programs are built to finance the 320 P-Tier, the 325 P-Tier, or both together for a contractor splitting work across ground types, with terms sized to seasonal cash flow rather than a one-size-fits-all payment schedule.
For more on financing John Deere's compact equipment lineup specifically, see our John Deere equipment financing programs page, or apply directly below once you've settled on the machine that actually fits the ground you work.
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