nknelsen
Bronze Member
I'm not trying to say anything bad about Kubota or Yanmar, but I would encourage you to look at a Kioti CX2510 CUT. In my area these Kiotis are about 3 to 4 thousand cheaper then Kubota and 15000 cheaper then John Deere. For full disclosure I have had trouble with Kubota and removed them from contention when I purchased my CX2510 late last year.Hello all, long time lurker, first time posting.
The CFO has given me the green light to purchase a tractor in the next couple of months and I have narrowed down my choices between two Japanese manufacturers. I am not considering any of the South Korean brand names due to my affinity for Japanese products/quality and I realize this limits my options. I am also shying away from Deere since I can't stomach the "green premium".
We currently have a smaller property that needs a lot of work with future plans of purchasing 5-20 acres to build our retirement home on. I am still relatively young, so that will be some time in the future. Our current property is a hilly 1 acre lot 80% lawn and 20% wooded.
The type of work I'm looking to do with this machine:
Break ground and move a lot of heavy clay to prepare for concrete slabs, run a tiller for a small garden, pull deck/patio posts, install posts for new deck/patio/privacy fence, material moving, cleaning up felled trees/brush in our wooded area, putting in retaining wall (once I get a BH), planting trees, pulling a box blade at my in-laws to maintain a 400ft gravel driveway, and helping out at other friends' family properties. I have no interest in mowing and do not want this thing anywhere near my leach field/septic tank - I have a dedicated ZTR for mowing so the mid-PTO is not a concern.
I realize my property is a little small for the L2501 and probably the LX2610, but I want something that doesn't leave me wanting for more during a specific job. The soil here sucks and most of it is very dense clay, I'm afraid a big SCUT might have a tough time digging/grading this stuff. I read on here to buy the most tractor you can afford, so I'm keeping my spend at or below $25k mark to remain conservative and allow for a dump trailer and backhoe purchase in the future without breaking the bank too much.
I really like the LA525 loader on the standard L vs the LA535 on the LX... It's interesting that the SA424 loader supposedly has the same lifting capacity.
As far as dealer networks go, there's a Kubota dealer pretty much everywhere I look and only two Yanmars within 80 miles. I do a lot of my own maintenance so I'm only interested in the dealer network for warranty repairs and/or replacement parts.
Should I go big or go home with the L2501/LX2610SU Or keep things slow and practical with the SA424 SCUT?
I believe the Kubota still has the cast aluminum rear axle assembly instead of the usual cast iron on most brands. I worked for a company in Canada that had a sidewalk snowplow contract a few years ago. Dealer made a mistake and ordered our 20 brand new Kubota 30/30 tractors with the "Wide" wheel kit instead of the narrow wheel kit. Dealer placed another order for the correct wheels and asked us to use the tractors until the new narrow wheels arrived.
This led to much more sod damage and springtime repair but that was the least of our problems.
On 2 separate snow events within the same week I had 2 of these new tractors suffer catastrophic rear axle failures on 2 separate routes with 2 separate operators. Both incidents where virtually identical.
When passing a firehydrant while plowing the left wheel brushed up against the 1" "nut" on the sidewalk facing cap. The leading edge of the wheel was able to withstand the rub but when the nut contacted the rim on the other side of the rim the entire rear axle broke, disabling the tractor and dumping all of the hydraulic oil on the sidewalk. You could see the impact of the nut on the rim if you looked very closely as it barely damaged the paint.
I came to 2 conclusions after these 2 incidents. I didn't ever want to buy a tractor with an aluminum rear axle and 2 an aluminum rear axle wouldn't provide much in the way of weight on the rear of the tractor. Since most tractor applications benefit from increased weight, this aluminum axle would provide no benefit to the tractor or the use of the tractor.
This also caused a much bigger problem for Me since neither the dealer or Kubota wanted to repair these 2 tractors under warranty since it was due to a collision on our part. In my opinion this collision and subsequent damage wouldn't have happened if 1. The proper wheel had been installed before delivery and 2. The rear axle had been Cast Iron.
The dealer eventually agreed to repair 1 free of charge and the other at a substantially reduced rate.
Maybe this issue will never be an issue for someone buying a SCUT or CUT and maybe you'll get years and years of trouble free service from a Machine with an aluminum axle.
But I certainly won't risk it and I truly believe that Kioti is a better unit then Kubota and comparable to a green tractor. I wouldn't buy a green tractor for the simple reason of their proprietary FEL quick attach system which excludes the much more common bobcat quick attach system. And the price of a green tractor is also significantly higher.
Sorry for rambling.