Buying Advice Is the Kubota HST+ really a plus?

[lhansman]

I owned two HST Kubota's (B21 and B26) prior to purchasing my L45 with HST+ in April. The L45 has all the HST+ features except cruise control and I love it.

Auto throttle is on all the time except when I first start the tractor. I try to remember to turn it off when I shut the tractor off for the day in order not to over rev the engine on a cold start.

The adjustable HST response dial is pretty much a set it and forget it for me. I have played with it but for me I find the middle setting is just fine.

I do a lot of backhoe and loader work and really like the stall guard when using the loader. The auto Down Shift is also a great feature with the loader and even more so on my property as I have a steep hill that I am constantly going up and down. With Auto-DS I just leave the selector in mid range and never have to shift gears.

The one caution I would give you is when loading the L45 on a trailer I always turn off auto throttle and auto DS. Early in my ownership I was loading the L45 and it slowed down going up the ramps and then down shifted and took off like a scalded cat. I got everything under control before any damage was done but the lesson has stuck with me.

I would never buy a tractor without HST and now that I have HST+ it would be very difficult to give up its enhanced features.

Lauren

[PandDLong]

Thanks for the info. I go test drive today, but no matter how much I play around in the lot it won't tell me as much as your hours in the seat.

[94BULLITT]

Thanks for the info. I go test drive today, but no matter how much I play around in the lot it won't tell me as much as your hours in the seat.

Thats right, you will not truly appreciate it til you get to actually work it with a implement.

[94BULLITT]

Thanks for the info. I go test drive today, but no matter how much I play around in the lot it won't tell me as much as your hours in the seat.

Thats right, you will not truly appreciate it til you get to actually work it with a implement.

[PhilY]

I've got the L3540 with HST+ and it is worth every penny. Like many have said, the electronic HS/LS shifter is great. Use it all the time. I can just about leave the tractor in Med. range and just use this elect. shifter for all my work.

The HST response control is great. No jerking going from Fwd to Rev. Mainly leave it in the middle, but is nice to turn quicken the response for some loader work or down if I have something tipsy on the forks.

Stall guard is great. Don't really use the Auto Throttle. I use the Auto DS about 20% of the time.

The cruise control is a great std feature compared to the JDs w/o it, and having all metal hood and fenders has been great. No worries about cracking anything. Overall, I would say the L3400 is probably comparable to the JD3520, but if you want these extra features, than there really isn't anything else on the market. I also think the L3540 is a bit more HD compared to the L3400.

[skipperbrown]

HST Plus is really a plus. You won't fully appreciate it until you have about 100 to 200 hrs on the machine and figger out how to make it work for you.

[Gary Fowler]

I think New Holland had / has and HST similar. I dont know what they call it but my brother in law has one with a high low push button in each range. His is a couple of years old, so I dont know if they still use that feature.

[TripleR]

I think New Holland had / has and HST similar. I dont know what they call it but my brother in law has one with a high low push button in each range. His is a couple of years old, so I dont know if they still use that feature.

I didn't see any mention of it on their website, but may have missed it, I do think some others offer some of the features like auto-throttle, maybe the JD eHydro, but I'm not sure.

[94BULLITT]

I think New Holland had / has and HST similar. I dont know what they call it but my brother in law has one with a high low push button in each range. His is a couple of years old, so I dont know if they still use that feature.

I know a guy with a TC45 New Holland, the tractor has a 2 range hydro. It also has is HI/LOW in each range. He said high does not have any power and low is really too slow. He said there is a switch on the loader joystick and on the dash I think that you can use to switch from high to low.

[rjwerth]

When I was test driving tractors, I liked the HST+ of the Kubota and now that I'm doing a bunch of loader work with my Kioti with a standard 3 speed HST, I can see where it can be handy. Unfortunately, the price difference between the Kubota and my Kioti was so wide, there was no way I could justify it. No matter, I'm doing just fine with the standard HST. Whenever I get envious, I just remind myself that I could be trying to do all this loader work in the woods with a gear tractor...yikes!