smartascii
Member
I'm yet another of the newbies making a decision in the next week about my first tractor. I've been reading through these forums and trying to absorb all the various advice available here, but I'd like to see if anyone wants to weigh in on my particular situation.
I'm closing next week on a house on a little over three acres of land (which is fairly flat and has a total of seven trees). The house itself is not quite a tear-down, but it's going to need an extensive remodel. So the purpose of this tractor is maintaining the three acres, loader work to remove literal tons of junk left strewn around the property, keeping snow off the 100-foot driveway and parking area (this is in Ohio, so the amount of snow is variable but not extreme), and re-contouring some of the land/digging a pond, etc. And, at least for the duration of the remodel, moving pallets of building materials from the trailer to the house.
My initial thought was to buy a SCUT, but given the general advice on buying more tractor than you need, combined with the prices they command, I've moved up a class or two. Currently, I'm looking at two options from a dealer in North Carolina. I'm leaning towards a shuttle-shift because most of the work will be straight-line mowing and because they're cheaper. The first is a TYM T394 for $17,999 with loader, and the second is an LS XG3140 with loader for $18,200. Both are new.
I've read the advice to get a dealer close by, but doing that requires going with John Deere, and the equivalent tractor from them is a minimum of $6k more, with fewer features, and honestly, I wasn't all that impressed with the Deere. If I stick with my price point I can get a 3025E with no options, and that felt very cheap, to be blunt.
So, first question: I don't make my living with this machine, so down time isn't the end of the world. Is a nearby dealer really that important?
Second question: Do I need this much horsepower? That same dealer will sell me an LS XG 3025 for $14,888. It's the same frame size as the larger tractors, but you give up about 500 lbs of loader capacity in addition to the HP. Would you spend the extra $3500-ish for the extra power?
Final question: Would you buy new implements? I don't care if it's pretty, and I'm assuming that the cheaper new implements offered by the dealer aren't very high quality. Should I troll Craigslist for an older bush hog, finish mower, and pallet forks? Any additional implements you'd recommend?
Thanks for any thoughts!
I'm closing next week on a house on a little over three acres of land (which is fairly flat and has a total of seven trees). The house itself is not quite a tear-down, but it's going to need an extensive remodel. So the purpose of this tractor is maintaining the three acres, loader work to remove literal tons of junk left strewn around the property, keeping snow off the 100-foot driveway and parking area (this is in Ohio, so the amount of snow is variable but not extreme), and re-contouring some of the land/digging a pond, etc. And, at least for the duration of the remodel, moving pallets of building materials from the trailer to the house.
My initial thought was to buy a SCUT, but given the general advice on buying more tractor than you need, combined with the prices they command, I've moved up a class or two. Currently, I'm looking at two options from a dealer in North Carolina. I'm leaning towards a shuttle-shift because most of the work will be straight-line mowing and because they're cheaper. The first is a TYM T394 for $17,999 with loader, and the second is an LS XG3140 with loader for $18,200. Both are new.
I've read the advice to get a dealer close by, but doing that requires going with John Deere, and the equivalent tractor from them is a minimum of $6k more, with fewer features, and honestly, I wasn't all that impressed with the Deere. If I stick with my price point I can get a 3025E with no options, and that felt very cheap, to be blunt.
So, first question: I don't make my living with this machine, so down time isn't the end of the world. Is a nearby dealer really that important?
Second question: Do I need this much horsepower? That same dealer will sell me an LS XG 3025 for $14,888. It's the same frame size as the larger tractors, but you give up about 500 lbs of loader capacity in addition to the HP. Would you spend the extra $3500-ish for the extra power?
Final question: Would you buy new implements? I don't care if it's pretty, and I'm assuming that the cheaper new implements offered by the dealer aren't very high quality. Should I troll Craigslist for an older bush hog, finish mower, and pallet forks? Any additional implements you'd recommend?
Thanks for any thoughts!
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