Physical SIZE says it best! I own and 4540, which I gave an initial review of in a seperate post in this forum.
The 4540 shares the same chassis, transmission, FEL, tires, and operator platform as most of the smaller Mits engine powered, Shuttle trans, Montana compact series. The 4540 engine is bigger then it's smaller brothers and therefor it has more power. Most everything else is the same, except weight of course which is heavier due to the bigger engine.
From what I understand the UTILITY size 4340, 4740, and 5740 share the same chassis, FEL, transmission, tires, and platform. They are bigger then the compacts. Completely differnt user station latyouts. Bigger front end loaders, heavier, bigger tires, different transmissions, etc.
In brief:
Reasons for getting 4540 or smaller COMPACT:
* 6' or less tall
* Mowing
* Light to medium FEL work.
* Box blade work
* Light ground engaging work.
* Working in tight spaces "barns"
Reasons for getting a 4340 or bigger UTILITY:
* Over 6' tall
* medium to heavy FEL work.
* medium to heavy ground engaging work.
* moving heavy round bails by FEL and/or 3 point
* It still will do everything a compact will, it's just heavier and bigger, so manuevering and foot print will be worse.
As for pricing, you should be able to get a 4540 with FEL for about $18k and a 4340 with FEL for under $19k
It appears the 4540 has went up some since my purchase and the 4340 has came down. Less then 1K spread in them now from what I'm seeing.
Hope this helped...
James