I need a tractor, help me choose well

I’ll chime in with my 2 cents . Many times after I’ve bought something I think and say would I buy it again . My Kubota L4701 , heck yes . My Hearthstone Heritage , NOPE

You would be surprised how much you can do that you haven’t done before with a tractor .

The OP said he would could do 25 k .
Here’s what I got just for over 25k .....
New Kubota L4701 , hydro ( yes you want that ) , front end loader , land pride forks , land pride 12” post hole digger , and remote with installation for future grapple . The 4701 is the big brother of the L series tractors . I didn’t want a cab so the Grand model was out . I find I can maneuver this size tractor thru the woods and still have plenty of power to drag / grapple logs out . BTW , a grapple makes short work of clearing those dang vines ect so trail maintenance is easy .

I wouldn’t load the rear tires . Beet juice is a mess if your gonna use this as a woods tractor and you get a leak . The OP mentioned moving firewood , with tires that are not loaded you won’t make nearly the ruts in the backyard if your going over sod . Add a rear ballast box , ($200) and you can easily have all the weight you need when it’s needed . The stump bucket would be a nice boulder bucket . It’s not nearly as heavy as a grapple and has “ teeth “ so you can easily get under boulders .


I bought my 6ft grapple with twin cylinders from Tomahawk Attachments, also picked up a stump bucket from them . Very well built stuff and priced affordable. I drove down to Indiana at the factory and picked up .

 

Good call. Add chains to R3s iffin it gets real nasty.

 

I went with turf tires. They're a little soft for going off the trails in the woods, but if you have a decent lawn and don't want to tear it up they are the way to go.
Soft as in they get cut easy. I've had to replace the fronts although I guess I could go with tubes and patch tubes. ( was a farm here so sometimes I don't know what I ran over or if I'll find it again )
They've been surprisingly good in the snow, although a bit slippery on pine needles, on a hill, but what isn't.

Course, I have a backhoe that I've never taken off as the weight comes in handy in the snow and everyone I know that has one laments what a pain in the azz they are to get back on, especially the first time where you learn all the tricks to help get it back on.
Some day I'll get a (another) three point implement I really want to use.

 

It looks like I will miss any end or year specials. Oh well, we'll kick this down the road a little. I am currently thinking used over new. Sometime in 2020, hopefully before summer.

I've dropped completely any idea of a backhoe, unless it just comes as part of the deal I find.

Thanks for all the input! I'll keep looking at CL.

 

John Deere 2032r with a loader and r4 tires would be good small hydrostatic drive for good control hydro steering yet big enough for your tasks but it comes at a price...

 

Kubota L2501

 

I own farms... i also run a very large contracting company with tons of equipment.

i had access to buying green at discount as well as kubota.

i looked at all lf the brands, hard.... salesmen’s worst nightmare. I had them putting on the backhoes, running the whole scenarios for everything id use it for.

i bought a kioti, ck30hst and it does everything i wanted it too and more.

green in this class are toys, plain and simple.

kubota is decent, but you had to remove the 3pt everytime to install tlb? Dumb...

a tractor is all about spec’s... weight is a great thing... lift capacity is a great thing, and hyro flow is huge as well. JD looses at all of them, plus their proprietary hookups...

Again, Kioti won at all categories in this class... i went in expecting to buy the Kubota and was surprised.

 

i got tym 554 like it for in woods about right size for me it was 12,000 cheaper then kubota same size knock on wood 230 hr this year on it nothing happened yet less then 80 gal of fuel threw it royal king rk55 same tractor just no stores around me

 

I looked at the Kioti’s as well before I bought my Kubota but with less than a handful of dealerships in the entire state of Michigan I was concerned about service and parts . The Kioti and Kubota prices when comparing tractors were almost identical as well .

 

dealer support and parts availability should be a high priority on everyones list...

especially a JD hahahahahahagagaga

sorry, had too hahahaha

 

I’ll just echo wishlist said.. when I bought mine 2008 Financial crisis, I was more concerned about the value of the companies that they would be companies in 5 to 10 years. At that point in time I thought Kubota had a stronger financial structure than kioti

 

Daedong, which is kioti has a $134B market cap.

Kubota has a cap at $96B

if you go back 10yrs, the gap was even larger... Daedong is a very large international company supported by foreign currency markets, Kubota is not.

 

True enough for parent company BUT I was more concerned about the division that operates the sales of the Dardong product inside United States was worth because a product I can’t get parts for where I live is kind of moot

 

Dealer support is everything with any piece of equipment. Buy from someone you’re comfortable with that’s been around awhile and looks like they will be for some time. Broken machine without parts available is just an expensive boat anchor. Based on specs and price I was very interested in the Kioti CK2610, but dealer support around this area is sketchy at best, and the closest one to me was switching to Mahindra at the time because of their dissatisfaction with how Kioti handled warranty issues and parts availability. I have a much lower opinion of Mahindra, and when I saw this happen I realized Kioti might not be as good as advertised. JD had nothing to compare imho so I bought Kubota. No regrets yet in 2 years. I already own a JD X530, but it’s a glorified lawn mower not a tractor. JD owns that category I believe but they miss the boat in compact tractors, although I did look.
Kubota parts are everywhere in the US, same with JD unless you have a model they stopped producing parts for. That’s a problem when you assemble and sell mongrel machines made by a bunch of different manufacturers. Kubota builds their own engines, etc. now but did use Daedong engines previously.
Resale value is a final consideration for many, and around here a JD or Kubota demands top dollar used and go quickly. Enough so that I think I did better buying new considering a 6 year warranty and zero percent financing.
YMMV