Skid Steer Drive Problems in India: One Side Slow, Pulling or Not Moving

A skid steer drive problem is when the machine will not move, moves only on one side, or will not run straight, while the engine keeps running and the loader arms still work normally. On every skid steer sold in India the wheels are driven by oil, not by a gearbox, and each side of the machine has its own pump section, its own motor and its own chain case. That is why a skid steer so often fails on one side only, and why the side it pulls towards is usually the side that has gone weak.

This guide explains how the drive is put together, how to read what the machine is telling you, and which checks are worth doing yourself before you call a mechanic. It is written for an owner or a small contractor standing next to the machine on site, not for a workshop technician.

How does a skid steer drive system work?

A skid steer has no steering wheel, no clutch, no gearbox and no differential. The engine turns pumps, the pumps push oil to motors, and the motors turn chains inside a sealed case on each side, which turn the two wheels on that side together. To go straight you drive both sides at the same speed. To turn, you run one side faster than the other and the tyres scrub sideways across the ground. That scrub is the “skid” in the name, and the full mechanism is set out in the guide to how skid steer loaders work.

For fault-finding, what matters is that this is a hydrostatic drive: a closed oil circuit that replaces the gearbox completely. Of the 11 skid steers listed on DesiMachines, 10 publish a transmission description, and all 10 of them describe a hydrostatic drive by name. Not one machine on the list uses a clutch, a mechanical gearbox or a driveshaft to the wheels. The eleventh machine simply does not publish the field; that is a gap in the spec sheet, not a different kind of machine.

Six of the eleven go further and name a tandem pump, a twin pump, two pumping sections built into one housing, one section feeding the left motor and one feeding the right. This is the single most useful fact on the page, because it tells you where the fault tree splits. A problem in one pump section, one motor or one chain case stops one side. A problem before the pump (engine, drive belt, oil supply, charge pressure) stops both.

Why does a skid steer pull to one side?

A skid steer pulls towards the side that has lost power. If the left side is turning more slowly than the right for the same lever or joystick movement, the machine curves to the left. So the direction of the pull names the suspect side for you before you open anything, and that is the first thing to note down.

Working from the cheapest cause to the dearest, these are the things that make one side lag:

• Tyre size or wear difference. The commonest and cheapest cause, and it is specific to this machine. Because all four wheels are locked to the chains, a smaller or more worn tyre on one side travels less ground per turn and the machine crabs. Of the 11 machines listed, 10 publish a tyre size, and 8 of those run the same 10 x 16.5 fitment, so on most skid steers in India, both sides should carry an identical tyre. Check size, ply rating and tread depth on all four before anything else.
• Tyre pressure. Same effect, no cost to fix. Set all four to the figure in the operator manual and drive the machine again on flat ground.
• Chain case oil low on one side. Each side has its own sealed case with its own oil, and nothing on the dashboard tells you the level has dropped. A weeping wheel hub seal drains one case quietly over weeks. The per-side volumes are listed in the guide to skid steer fuel tank and oil capacities.
• A stretched or broken drive chain. A chain that has stretched slips or lags under load, which shows up when digging or climbing but not on flat ground.
• A worn drive motor on that side. Oil slips past internally instead of turning the motor, so the side is slow under load, weakest going uphill, and usually runs hotter than the other. The same principle is explained for tracked machines in the guide to excavator hydraulic motors.
• A worn pump section, or a control out of adjustment. A lever or joystick that does not return cleanly to the middle can also hold one side slightly driven.

There is one honest catch worth knowing. Every skid steer scrubs its tyres by design, so a machine that has spent its life turning in one direction on a tight site can wear one side faster and drift slightly. A small drift on a well-used machine is not always a fault. A drift that has appeared suddenly, or that gets worse as the oil warms up, is.

Why will a skid steer not move at all?

If neither side drives, work through the cheap and simple causes first, because most no-drive calls end here.

1. The operator interlock. Almost every skid steer refuses to drive unless the seat bar or armrest is down, the seat belt is fastened and the parking brake is released. A machine that will not move but has a light on the dashboard is usually telling you exactly this. It is the single most common no-drive cause and it costs nothing.
2. The parking brake or drive lock is still applied. Release it fully and listen for the click.
3. Hydraulic oil level and temperature. Low oil starves the pump; very cold, thick oil on a winter morning can make a machine feel dead for the first few minutes. Let it idle and warm before judging it.
4. The loader arms still work, but the wheels do not. This is the most useful single test on the machine, and the spec sheet explains why. Four of the eleven machines publish a pump type, and on the ACE SS75 and the Bull AV490 that field reads “Gear Pump” while their transmission is separately described as a hydrostatic piston-pump drive. In other words the loader has its own pump and its own circuit. If the bucket and arms move normally, the engine and the implement pump are both fine, and the fault sits in the drive circuit alone.
5. Charge pressure. A hydrostatic drive needs a small feed pump to keep the main loop topped up. If that fails, both sides go dead together while the engine runs on happily. This one is a dealer job.

If the machine drives but feels slow and weak on both sides, check the hydraulic oil filter. Metal particles that look like glitter in the oil or in a cut-open filter mean something inside is wearing out, and the machine should be stopped rather than nursed along. Filters and oil grades for the whole circuit are covered in hydraulic system maintenance.

What the spec sheet tells you before you start

Before diagnosing anything, it helps to know what your machine is supposed to do. These are the drive figures published across the 11 skid steers listed on DesiMachines, with the number of machines publishing each one, so you can see how complete the data is.

Two details in that table are worth drawing out. First, the chain case figure is published for six machines and on every one of those six the left and right cases take exactly the same quantity: 6 litres on the CAT 216B Series 3, 8.25 on the MANITOU 1340R, 8.3 on the L&T S315R, 10 on the Bull AV490 and 19 on both the JCB SSL 155 and the SSL 135. The two sides are symmetrical by design, so if one case is low and the other is full, you have found a leak, not a top-up job.

Second, two machines — the Bobcat S590 and S770 — publish their travel speed as a range rather than a single figure, because they are two-speed machines with a low and a high range. On those two, “the machine suddenly feels slow” may simply be a range that has not shifted, and a variable-speed motor stuck in high range gives you speed but very little pulling power. On the other nine, a single published speed means there is no range to blame.

One caveat on all of the above: for these 11 machines the figures come from a single specification store, so there is no second source on the listing to cross-check them against. Treat them as the manufacturer’s published figures and confirm anything critical with your dealer.

How do you tell which side is at fault?

You can narrow this down on site with no tools at all. Do these in order and write down what happens.

• Drive straight on flat, level ground. Note which way it curves. That is your suspect side.
• Try it in reverse. If it pulls the same way forward and back, the suspect side is genuinely weak. If the pull swaps direction, look harder at the controls and linkage than at the motor.
• Compare cold and warm. A fault that appears only after twenty minutes of work points to internal wear, because warm oil is thinner and slips past worn parts more easily.
• Load it. A machine that runs straight empty but pulls with a full bucket is telling you the weak side cannot hold pressure under load.
• Feel the wheel hubs and the chain cases after a run. Carefully, and never on a hot machine. One side noticeably hotter than the other points at that side’s motor or chain case.
• Listen. A whine that rises with speed, or a knock from one side, is a bearing or a chain, and it is a reason to stop rather than to carry on.

At that point you have something specific to tell the dealer: which side, whether it is load-related, whether it is temperature-related — and that is what turns a vague “it pulls” into a quick repair. If you are checking a machine you are thinking of buying rather than one you own, the used equipment inspection checklist covers what else to look at on the same walk-round.

See the full range of skid steer loader models available in India and talk to a dealer about parts or service support.

What can you check yourself, and what needs the dealer?

The dividing line is simple: anything you can see or top up is yours, anything that needs a pressure gauge or an opened casing is not.

Do it yourself: tyre size, wear and pressure on all four wheels; seat bar, seat belt and parking brake; hydraulic oil level; chain case levels on both sides; a look underneath for fresh oil on the ground; the hydraulic filter’s condition and service interval. Keeping to a written interval prevents most of this, and the intervals for the whole machine are in the construction equipment service schedule.

Call the dealer: charge pressure and relief valve testing, drive pump or motor wear, chain replacement inside the case, and any metal in the oil. These need the pressure at the motor port measured against the manufacturer’s figure, and on a closed hydrostatic loop that is not a job to attempt with the machine on site.

Running a skid steer with one weak side is expensive in a way that is easy to miss. The good side does more of the work, the tyres on the weak side scrub harder, and a slipping chain damages the sprockets it runs on. A machine that has started pulling is worth stopping for the same week.

Does this apply to a tracked machine too?

Mostly, yes. A compact track loader uses the same two-sided hydrostatic drive and fails in the same way, with the track replacing the tyres and the chain case. The tyre-matching check becomes a track-tension check, and an uneven track tension produces exactly the same pull to one side. Everything in this guide about the split between one-side and both-side faults holds for tracks as well.

If you are still deciding which machine suits your work, the comparison of a skid steer versus a backhoe loader sets out where each one earns its keep, and the skid steer attachments guide explains which tools need the machine’s auxiliary hydraulics. Full model specifications are listed on the skid steer loader specifications and models page, and the rest of the series sits under the complete guide to skid steer loaders.

Read next: Skid steer fuel tank and oil capacities for the per-side chain case volumes, and the same fault-finding approach applied to other machines in an excavator that will not start and a road roller whose drum stops shaking.

Specification figures in this guide are taken from the machine listings on DesiMachines as of September 2026, and coverage counts state how many of the 11 listed skid steer loaders publish each figure. Prices, specifications and features are indicative, vary by variant, location and date, and should always be confirmed with the official OEM or authorised dealer before any purchase decision. DesiMachines is not liable for decisions taken on the basis of information that may have changed after publication.