I take it easy on the skidder and still break ****.
The skidder I run is about 30 years old, a 648D. It's certainly "loose in the hips", but I like it better than the much newer 648GIII we also have.
The worst I had was one Sunday I decided to go out and try and catch up a bit to the buncher. Was by myself, just went with my car, so no tools or anything.
Was the last couple pulls, almost getting dark. Pulling a pretty good hitch and all of a sudden I lose power and it stalls. Try to restart and nothing, just the clunk, clunk of the starter.
I was still recovering from a lung infection that past spring (I almost died from it) so not exactly breathing great. Thankfully I was dressed for the weather, it was maybe 5*.
The skidder was at the bottom of the property, so uphill the whole way, a good 1/2 mile. Enough of a slope that it's hard pulling for the skidder. Walking it will make your legs burn.
Took me a solid hour to get to my car. Walk 50-100ft until I was wheezing real bad and rest a few mins. Thankfully I had a skid trail to walk on at least, so the snow packed down for the most part.
Got back to town and we headed back out there with some fuel and tools. By this point it was about -10* and getting colder. We didn't want to leave it cause it would have been tough to get it going again.
Ended up being that it ran out of fuel and the battery connections had come loose. Well, actually wasn't really out of fuel, just low. The angle I was pulling was steep enough that it sucked in air.
Lost a tire on it last spring, that ended up being pretty expensive. Was able to find a place up north that deals with big equipment and got a pair of tires barged in from the L48 for reasonable.