OakHillFarmer
Member
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2005
- Messages
- 38
- Location
- Pepperell, MA
- Tractor
- Kubota L4330 HST, R4's, HD Quick Attach bucket
Firstly, I'm glad I found this forum and thanks to all that post here. I've gained a lot of knowledge while browsing here the last few weeks and I will continue to do so.
My wife and I bought a horse farm earlier this year, 18 acres, 12 stall barn, indoor and outdoor riding arenas and 14 stalls added but unfinished to the arena building. My wife cares for the horses and I do the maintenance and other heavy lifting when I'm not working at my 2nd shift, high tech job. Things are running smoothly with our average of 10 horses and now we're going to start finishing the additional stalls and expand our business.
I have a lot of tractor work coming up - grading work, brush and tree clearing for turnout, drainage and utility trenches, driveway maintanence, fencing etc. I'm also a licensed builder (previous career) and do-it-yourselfer so I look forward to the upcoming challenges. Knowing nothing about tractors and having only recently found this site, I bought a lemon a few months ago and have been fighting with it since. It got me through the light loader work and arena maintanence up to this point but I recently made the decision to buy a new machine to last me a long, long time. I'll trade in my lemon or donate it to the Diesel dept of a local school for the write off and be done with it. Selecting the new machine has become a difficult task as I want to get it right this time around.
As helpful as this site has been, I was having an extremely hard time choosing the right machine because of all the differing opinions and myriad statistics for comparison. However, I think I found the solution. I created a comprehensive spreadsheet to compare a multitude of brands, models and prices in the 40 to 50 HP tractor range. I'm looking for some input to help finalize the comparison criteria so I can confidently use this tool to pick my tractor.
I realized that most features and stats are measurable in some way, but what is important to each person differs. I decided to put each model side by side, compare the stat/feature and rank them in comparison to each other. For example, HP is very cut and dry - 43 HP is more than 40 so 43 gets a higher rank. Some of the categories are more subjective. An example of this is my ergonomics category. For me, the NH was slightly more comfortable than the Kubota but that may not be true for someone else. I think you get the point.
I've included some categories that are relatively pointless but I want to measure as many things as possible. For instance, I feel that displacement is far less important than HP or PTO HP but I kept it in the spreadsheet anyway.
One thing I'm struggling with is how much weight to give each category I'm comparing. I know price is much more important to me than how much hydraulic steering flow a machine has but I'm measuring both. To get around this, I'm assigning more weight to each category that I feel is more important. In other words I want the very important categories to count more than the less important ones. In this way, I think I can even compare higher horse power tractors with lower ones (within reason). Thus, because although the JD 4520 beats the Kubota L4330 in HP giving it a higher HP rank, the Kubota is far less expensive giving it a higher price rank, so the scores reflect this kind of difference. When the ranks for all the categories are added, the total will be the score for that machine. The highest score wins! As long as the machines are in the same basic product family, I think I can measure and score their features.
As a side note, I've decided to only shop the big 3 because I don't want any issues with maintenance or parts when the tractor gets old. The lemon I bought was a Long 610 which was a rugged workhorse 30 years ago but I'm wrenching on it constantly now and it takes me over a week to get a part. I can't afford that kind of downtime while trying to run a business. Luckily, I have at least 2 dealers for each big 3 brand within a 30 minute drive and many more within an hour. When I narrow down the tractor I want, I'll buy it from the dealer that has the best score in my comparison.
So, I'm opening this up to get some input. The following categories are important to me, some more so than others. Please chime in if you think I should consider some other categories. Also, let me know which categories you think are the most or least important. All responses are welcome.
Disclaimer: This may seem over the top to some, but with so many choices of brands, HP and models, I need something concrete to base my decision on. Based on the threads I see from a lot of first time tractor owners, I don't think I'm alone in feeling confused about this buying decision. Some may disagree with my logic. There are some flaws with this method but by and large I'm beginning to believe in it. Plus, all the research I'm doing is really fun. When forced to study every category, you learn a lot about each model and brand. I think I will ultimately know exactly why I bought one model/brand over another which will make me a happy tractor owner. When I finalize my comparison spreadsheet, I will post it for everyone to critique, use or delete.
Finally, here are the categories I'm working with so far:
Type of Motor (aspiration or turbo)
Displacement
Engine Horse Power
PTO Horse Power
Transmission Type (HST etc.)
Implement Hydraulic pump flow
Steering Hydraulic pump flow
Hydraulics Operation (this is subjective to how the "felt" to me)
Torque Stats across RPM ranges
Fuel Tank Capacity
Noise Level (having a hard time finding these numbers for all models)
Hitch Capacity (all measurements will be from 24" behind ball eyes)
Loader Capacity (all measurements will be 19" forward)
Tire type (will all be the same but I left it in anyway)
Warranty (standard warranty figures will be used, not extended)
Weight
Color and Style (subjective to what I find attractive)
Ergonomics (subjective to how comfortable I felt in the tractor)
Online User Feedback (I've scoured these forums for feedback)
Quoted Price ** (as of now, this will carry double the weight of all other categories)
Financing Terms (I will likely finance for 5 years, so I'll compare 5 yr rates)
Dealer rating categories:
Willingness to serve
Promptness with feedback (returning calls etc.)
Location
Service
Customer feedback
My wife and I bought a horse farm earlier this year, 18 acres, 12 stall barn, indoor and outdoor riding arenas and 14 stalls added but unfinished to the arena building. My wife cares for the horses and I do the maintenance and other heavy lifting when I'm not working at my 2nd shift, high tech job. Things are running smoothly with our average of 10 horses and now we're going to start finishing the additional stalls and expand our business.
I have a lot of tractor work coming up - grading work, brush and tree clearing for turnout, drainage and utility trenches, driveway maintanence, fencing etc. I'm also a licensed builder (previous career) and do-it-yourselfer so I look forward to the upcoming challenges. Knowing nothing about tractors and having only recently found this site, I bought a lemon a few months ago and have been fighting with it since. It got me through the light loader work and arena maintanence up to this point but I recently made the decision to buy a new machine to last me a long, long time. I'll trade in my lemon or donate it to the Diesel dept of a local school for the write off and be done with it. Selecting the new machine has become a difficult task as I want to get it right this time around.
As helpful as this site has been, I was having an extremely hard time choosing the right machine because of all the differing opinions and myriad statistics for comparison. However, I think I found the solution. I created a comprehensive spreadsheet to compare a multitude of brands, models and prices in the 40 to 50 HP tractor range. I'm looking for some input to help finalize the comparison criteria so I can confidently use this tool to pick my tractor.
I realized that most features and stats are measurable in some way, but what is important to each person differs. I decided to put each model side by side, compare the stat/feature and rank them in comparison to each other. For example, HP is very cut and dry - 43 HP is more than 40 so 43 gets a higher rank. Some of the categories are more subjective. An example of this is my ergonomics category. For me, the NH was slightly more comfortable than the Kubota but that may not be true for someone else. I think you get the point.
I've included some categories that are relatively pointless but I want to measure as many things as possible. For instance, I feel that displacement is far less important than HP or PTO HP but I kept it in the spreadsheet anyway.
One thing I'm struggling with is how much weight to give each category I'm comparing. I know price is much more important to me than how much hydraulic steering flow a machine has but I'm measuring both. To get around this, I'm assigning more weight to each category that I feel is more important. In other words I want the very important categories to count more than the less important ones. In this way, I think I can even compare higher horse power tractors with lower ones (within reason). Thus, because although the JD 4520 beats the Kubota L4330 in HP giving it a higher HP rank, the Kubota is far less expensive giving it a higher price rank, so the scores reflect this kind of difference. When the ranks for all the categories are added, the total will be the score for that machine. The highest score wins! As long as the machines are in the same basic product family, I think I can measure and score their features.
As a side note, I've decided to only shop the big 3 because I don't want any issues with maintenance or parts when the tractor gets old. The lemon I bought was a Long 610 which was a rugged workhorse 30 years ago but I'm wrenching on it constantly now and it takes me over a week to get a part. I can't afford that kind of downtime while trying to run a business. Luckily, I have at least 2 dealers for each big 3 brand within a 30 minute drive and many more within an hour. When I narrow down the tractor I want, I'll buy it from the dealer that has the best score in my comparison.
So, I'm opening this up to get some input. The following categories are important to me, some more so than others. Please chime in if you think I should consider some other categories. Also, let me know which categories you think are the most or least important. All responses are welcome.
Disclaimer: This may seem over the top to some, but with so many choices of brands, HP and models, I need something concrete to base my decision on. Based on the threads I see from a lot of first time tractor owners, I don't think I'm alone in feeling confused about this buying decision. Some may disagree with my logic. There are some flaws with this method but by and large I'm beginning to believe in it. Plus, all the research I'm doing is really fun. When forced to study every category, you learn a lot about each model and brand. I think I will ultimately know exactly why I bought one model/brand over another which will make me a happy tractor owner. When I finalize my comparison spreadsheet, I will post it for everyone to critique, use or delete.
Finally, here are the categories I'm working with so far:
Type of Motor (aspiration or turbo)
Displacement
Engine Horse Power
PTO Horse Power
Transmission Type (HST etc.)
Implement Hydraulic pump flow
Steering Hydraulic pump flow
Hydraulics Operation (this is subjective to how the "felt" to me)
Torque Stats across RPM ranges
Fuel Tank Capacity
Noise Level (having a hard time finding these numbers for all models)
Hitch Capacity (all measurements will be from 24" behind ball eyes)
Loader Capacity (all measurements will be 19" forward)
Tire type (will all be the same but I left it in anyway)
Warranty (standard warranty figures will be used, not extended)
Weight
Color and Style (subjective to what I find attractive)
Ergonomics (subjective to how comfortable I felt in the tractor)
Online User Feedback (I've scoured these forums for feedback)
Quoted Price ** (as of now, this will carry double the weight of all other categories)
Financing Terms (I will likely finance for 5 years, so I'll compare 5 yr rates)
Dealer rating categories:
Willingness to serve
Promptness with feedback (returning calls etc.)
Location
Service
Customer feedback