I selected it for rental because I knew it would do what I wanted to do and the price was 1/4th that of a Case 580. The T5C model has a 20 horsepower twin cylinder Kohler engine and hydrostatic drive. On the right side rocker pedal. Tip it forward with your toe and the machine goes forward, rock it back with your heel and it backs up. Release the pedal and a you stop. It is a little difficult to get used to at first unless you have operated a hydrostat vehicle before. Maximum Torque or Power is available with minimum movement of the pedal. Pressing the pedal to it's stops produces maximum speed, but minimum torque. This is typical of any hydrostat drive.

I found the machine to be productive with only a couple minor design blemishes. I tend to look at everything from a engineers prospective. The space for the operators feet in the backhoe mode was much to small. My size 12 boots would just almost fit the area that was allowed. Being a big guy, I had trouble getting from the "Tractor" position to the "Backhoe" position. On a Case backhoe you lift a lever under the seat and spin around 180 degrees to the backhoe position. On the Terra-Mite a big guy parks the machine, and for safety I turn off the motor, climb out of the seat, pull the release lever, spin the seat 180 degrees, climb back into the seat and restart the machine. 

The Terra-Mite is butt ugly, mostly of a fabricated design making it look crude and unsophisticated but looks are deceiving in this case. The rental company I use charges $160 a day or $240 for a Saturday morning to Monday morning period. The first time I used it I put 19 hours on its hour meter from 8AM Saturday morning until the following Sunday. I was an hour or so late returning it, just because this half-century old body was damn sore, but since I cleaned it up so well (power washer) they gave me a discount on the $240.00. They were a little shocked that I run it for 19 hours in just two days, but I did a lot of work with it in that period, including scraping up 25 Tons of white rock into a pile (relocated my driveway), cut the grade, removing the sod for my new driveway, moving about 20 Tons of top soil, spreading my 25 Tons of white rock, plus having 22 more tons delivered and dumped, which needed spread and leveled. Removed the sod and cut to grade the soil under the garage floor, and after using the Ditch Witch, I gathered the soil removed by that machine and relocated it. Then I spread about 40 Tons of topsoil in my front yard and re-contoured it. AND only used 10 gallons of gasoline!