Bill: the tier4 motor certainly isn't what sold me on the tractor, I looked at several new Kubotas with the tier3 and they were either clear across the country so the freight was going to be a killer and negate any price savings that there might have been, I was sold on the idea of a CUT for my small 10 acres and for manure and snow plow work and an occasional post hole or field mowing, the LS CUT tractors didn't come out until September '13, the JD 3520 is what I settled on, couldn't find a used one that was a reasonable price, the new ones were scarce and the dealers were holding the price on them, the horse/ farm/ranch discount program from John Deere seems like dart board with no exact program, the used cab Kubotas I looked at were well used for not having many hours on them, I looked at Tym, Branson and Kioti, heard and read all of the horror stories about parts availability, service/ repair work, electrical problems etc, then I discovered LS, we had a Montana, Tym dealer about 2 miles from the house, he was a weirdo and never did much business( just like the JD dealer across the hwy from him) I looked those Montana's over pretty good, watched what was in the shop all the time which were the Tyms and across the hwy was the JD 3000 series, the new JD dealer 9 miles away, is a guy that I have done business with for 30+ years for Ford, NH Kubota and Cub, well he also owns a JD dealership in Colo Springs, JD forced him to drop everything to have two JD dealerships, now you see a lot of the 3000 series in the shop for work, not maintenance, but work. So I took a while to study LS, found out that they are a division of a big Korean conglomerate, which happens to have ties with Hyundai, which perked my ears up since I have been a factory rep for them for 24 years! I researched their quality, service problems (actually lack of) talked to my counterpart with LS ( who used to own two small town JD dealerships!!) and went and visited the two closest LS dealers in CO. The closest one to me is just south of Colo Spgs, he had two XR3720's and one XR4040 and a P series cab tractors and a lot of open station tractors in stock, he used to be a Montana rep, had dropped both Jimma and Tym for the LS franchise, where his dealership is located is about the same altitude as where I live, 6300 feet, the 4040 is nice and beefy, about the same size as the old 3000 I sent to my 60 acre horse farm for my daughter and son in law, I did some trading and bought it, it barely went under the doorway to our barn, so back to look at the 3037, he swapped me out, saved me some $$, it has plenty of power with the turbo and less overall weight. I am also considering adding an XR4046 later for the kids farm. Now to your original questions, the tier 4 has the very proven Shibaura motor that NH used for years, it's very reliable, plenty of power etc, I can't really tell if fuel consumption is a lot worse than my old NH, for the amount of hours that I use a tractor, I keep the tank fuel full going into fall, keep a few 5 gal cans full in the shop and add when they get to about 3/4 full, the 3037 now has 6 hours on it, I have added about 3 gallons for about 4 hours of use in plowing snow, the only thing that I don't like on either the 4040 or the 3037 is the DPF light coming on in the dash to tell you that it's working, something that I'm just not used to, the trade off for the cab and heater and the $12 to $14k less that I spent with a lot more extra equipment ( front and rear aux lights, rear wiper, radio, engine block heater, rim gard, two hydraulic outlets all included) makes me smile when I watch my neighbor down the road get on his JD 3520 that I know he paid $35,500 for (it was a Denver stock show demo, 'cause I looked at it and he bought it when I didn't!!) and listen to him and the JD dealer tell me my LS won't appreciate in value! Ha, I still have my first used tractors that I bought in1982!!! Sorry for the very long post, but, I think that I did my homework well after about 7 months of shopping and researching everything. Good luck in your descision! Rohn
