I'm near Houston.
Picked up a 2538 at J5 Tractor last month. Guy who delivered it said they're selling quite a few of them in the area and I had not seen any information on them at all online.
I believe these tractors are built by TYM in South Korea as the key has the TYM logo and I'm willing to bet they share a lot of the same parts as the TYM 354 or similar, just with the mCRD engine dropped on the chassis.
This is a no frills tractor as that's exactly what I needed for my land at the right price. They had the 15 series on the floor but for a couple grand more it wasn't worth it. Sure the steering mechanism is in front of the axle, sure there's no cupholder, sure the seatbelt doesn't retract, sure the 3PH doesn't have a lift height setting device, none of this was important enough to spend another few thousand on a different tractor. I believe all the 2538s are HST only (not sure, someone correct me if I'm wrong), so not for you Gear or Shuttle people. I'm not going to spend enough time on it to gain an appreciation for those perks and I don't plan on grinding through heavy growth and cutting lines and such underneath the chassis, I like my forest the way it is.
The weight of the tractor is what sold me at around 3000lb w/ a 900lb FEL. My biggest problem with getting a CUT was that the weights were all way too low for the HP these things put out. I don't like the idea of filled tires so I went with the heaviest machine I could get local to me and the 2538 was the one for me. I'm going to go and find a heavy box blade to throw on the rear end just to add a little
ballast and some more weight, probably an Armstrong Ag medium duty from Normangee Tractor.
I'm going to look into a backhoe for it as I've got a comm tower foundation project coming up so we can get access to a WISP. Got the MD cutter and post hole digger with the tractor. Got a bunch of 1-2 inch saplings around the property and a slip clutch cutter is pretty much a necessity with all the hidden stumps. Going to putting in a couple thousand feet of fence in soon as well, hence the digger.
Put about 8 hours on it so far, 3 hours of that was cutting and the rest moving material at different RPMs and I've barely burned 1/4 tank of diesel. I haven't put enough time on it nor have I worked it hard enough to give any heavy duty users a decent impression. Can't give an impression on it with ground engaging equipment but I did smooth out some spots with the bucket and I was able to dig in the sandy soil pretty deep with the diff locked for a full bucket.