Radial Lift vs. Super Boom: Why New Holland Kept One Radial-Lift Skid Steer in an All-Vertical-Lift Lineup

Sep 23

5 min read

Walk New Holland's current L-Series skid steer lineup and you'll notice something that isn't obvious from the spec sheets alone: four of the five models — the L318, L320, L328, and L334 — run New Holland's patented Super Boom vertical-lift linkage. The fifth, the entry-level L316, runs a radial-lift boom instead. That's not an oversight or a budget cut on the small end of the line. It's a real engineering trade-off, and understanding it will save a contractor from buying the wrong machine for the work.

Two Different Arcs, Two Different Jobs

The difference between radial lift and vertical lift comes down to the path the bucket travels as the boom rises. A radial-lift boom pivots on a fixed point, so the bucket swings through an arc — moving away from the machine as it lifts through the middle of its range, then curling back in toward the machine near full height. Maximum reach happens at roughly mid-lift, not at the top, which is exactly the geometry you want for digging, dozing, and ground-engaging work where the bucket needs leverage low and out in front of the machine, not high overhead.

A vertical-lift, or Super Boom, design uses a more complex multi-link geometry that keeps the bucket traveling in a straighter, closer-to-vertical path as it rises. Reach and height both stay near their maximum at the top of the lift, which is exactly what you want for loading trucks, hoppers, and stockpiles — the bucket clears the sidewall of a dump truck box and can still dump well past it, instead of curling back toward the machine right when you need reach the most.

The Real Numbers

On the L316, radial lift delivers a maximum dump height of 84.8 inches with 18.5 inches of dump reach at that height — plenty for loading a pickup, a small dump trailer, or working below chest height on grading and landscaping work, running 60 gross hp and 1,600 lb of rated operating capacity at 50% tip load.

Step up to the L328 — New Holland's mid-flagship, running 74 gross hp and 2,800 lb ROC — and the patented Super Boom vertical-lift linkage delivers 100 inches of dump height with 31.9 inches of dump reach, a real difference that matters the moment you're loading over the side of a standard dump truck box rather than into an open trailer. The raise cycle on the L328 runs 4.5 seconds versus the L316's 3.2 seconds — a small trade-off in raw cycle speed for the added linkage complexity, which is a fair exchange for the extra reach and height most contractors running this size class actually need.

Why New Holland Didn't Just Go All-Vertical

It would be easy to assume vertical lift is a strict upgrade and radial lift is just the budget option, but that's not quite right. Radial-lift linkages are mechanically simpler — fewer pivot points, less to maintain, and typically a lower purchase price for the same horsepower class. For work that's fundamentally ground-engaging rather than truck-loading — landscaping, grading, snow pushing, utility work in a trench — the radial-lift arc actually puts more usable leverage on the bucket lower in the lift range, right where that kind of work happens. New Holland keeping the L316 as a radial-lift entry point isn't a compromise; it's recognizing that not every buyer in the 60-hp class needs, or wants to pay for, the Super Boom's truck-loading geometry.

A Third Way to Think About It: Attachment Compatibility

Lift geometry also shapes which attachments make the most sense on each machine. Pallet forks, material-handling arms, and anything that needs to clear a stake-bed or flatbed trailer at height perform noticeably better on a Super Boom machine, because the forks stay level and close to the machine through the top of the lift instead of curling the load back toward the cab. On the radial-lift L316, ground-engaging attachments — box blades, rakes, dozer blades, and root grapples — get more usable down-force and leverage through the working part of the lift range, which is exactly where that attachment needs strength, not height. Matching the attachment plan to the lift geometry, not just the horsepower class, is worth doing before the purchase order goes in rather than after.

Matching the Machine to the Trade

Landscaping and hardscape contractors doing grading, material spreading, and below-grade work are well served by the L316's radial-lift geometry and lower cost of entry. General contractors, site-development crews, and demolition support outfits that spend real time loading dump trucks and hoppers — where every inch of dump height and reach reduces spillage and repositioning — should be looking at the L318 through L334 Super Boom range instead, sized to the horsepower and ROC the job actually demands. There's also a visibility consideration crews notice in daily use: because the Super Boom linkage keeps more structure in front of the cab through the lift cycle, some operators find the L316's simpler radial-lift boom gives a cleaner forward sightline at full height — a small but real factor on tight residential or landscaping sites where visibility around the machine matters as much as raw lift capacity.

Renting Either Type Still Costs You Long-Term

Whichever lift geometry fits the work, renting a skid steer for recurring jobs is the expensive path every time. Every rental dollar spent is gone once the job wraps — no equity, nothing a lender will count toward the next piece of equipment, and no guarantee the exact machine, or lift type, you need is sitting on the yard's lot when the next bid comes in with a tight mobilization date. Financing an L-Series skid steer, radial or vertical lift, means that machine is working your jobs and building ownership, not renewing someone else's fleet.

BFC structures financing differently than a lot of lenders in this space, too. Plenty of financing companies want a machine paid off in full — five years or more — before they'll talk about the next piece of equipment. We don't work that way. If you're mid-payment on an L316 and the next bid needs a bigger Super Boom-equipped machine or a compact track loader to round out the fleet, that's a conversation we can have now.

What a Deposit Actually Looks Like

Down payment structure depends on credit profile and how established the business is. Strong, well-established credit can mean little to nothing down. Newer businesses or thinner credit files should expect a deposit in the 20-30% range, sometimes higher depending on deal structure. For a lot of approved buyers, it comes down to a first payment to get the machine working.