For a number of years now, one has been able to choose whether to buy several specialized vehicles for a wide range of tasks or a multifunctional device carrier that can be used for a wide variety of purposes by changing the attachments.
The advantage of the multifunctional vehicle is initially clear: Instead of setting up a street sweeper, a winter service vehicle, a ride-on lawnmower, a van, a watering vehicle and so on, all of these tasks can be carried out with a basic device carrier and corresponding interchangeable kits.
If you ask smaller building yards or service providers, you usually get the answer that mostly multifunctional vehicles are used. The investment is lower and less storage space is needed. Because the tasks rarely occur all at the same time and can be carried out with 2-3 multifunctional equipment carriers instead of 5-6 special vehicles.
This is different at larger building yards, as reported by bauhof-online.de in March 2020. In the interview, several managers of large building yards report that they prefer single-purpose devices because they could use them all at the same time anyway. The change-over times, which many manufacturers state to be 2 hours, were seen as problematic, but at the latest when the devices are no longer brand new, it would take more than half a day. In addition, the performance of many multifunctional vehicles was criticized.
This is surprising when you consider that the JungoJet 3500, a multifunctional implement carrier, came onto the market as early as 2008, with which the implement change can be done within 15 minutes and which in terms of performance was not inferior to the special machines. The vehicle concept is still offered under changing names today.
Obviously there are also many devices on the market that do not deserve the name “multifunctional”, even though they advertise it. Because with half a day of set-up time, the device is more in the garage than it is on the road. At best, this would make sense if you switch between sweeping and winter service only twice a year.