Re: my new tractor manual vs hydro
Bob, I respectfully disagree about the emergency situation but perhaps it's because you are not familiar with HST, particularly that on the Kubota.
HST is as good and in most situations better then brakes. Why, because when in 4WD all four wheels stay tied together in the hydraulic braking inherent in HST and engine braking. I so rarely use my brakes on HST that I know they will never need replacing (pretty much just use a parking brake when my loader and boxscraper are up and on a hill). In an emergency situation, I will always stop better then a manual tractor of which I also have and 2 more that I use on a routine basis. Why? Because it is natural to remove your foot from the HST much as it is in a car to remove it from the gas. That in and of itself will stop a HST tractor very quickly even with no brakes applied, apply the brakes and it works even better. The other reason is as I mentioned, the fact that the front and rear axle are both tied, on a manual, even in 4WD, the second you depress the clutch you just took the front and rear wheels out of the engine braking effort. This is serious when you have a bucket filled with material and really bad when you are pointed downhill and depress the clutch to change gears as engine braking is lost until your back in gear with the clutch out. On top of all that, I can immediately force the tractor into reverse even if traveling forward on my Kubota, you will not make a mistake as to which pedal to press here, there is only one and it involves the heel of ones foot to operate it. In an emergency, you will not get it mixed up with side by side pedals. Of course, even in an emergency, I don't think the side by sides will be a problem either since removing your foot just tackled the biggest task. I would like you to show the link to the website you mention where these guys mentioning bloodshed have their comments, it might be interesting for those of us with HST to see. While HST is super especially with lots of loader work, it certainly is not for everyone. You do loose power to the wheels and PTO, no doubt, to maintain a constant speed will require electronicly equipped cruise control, most of us rarely would need to be that accurate. For certain applications, having a standard gear tractor will work best, I don't argue that. It costs a little less, it uses less diesel because of the efficiency, its easier to get a speed in the 7 mph and up area that you just don't get with HST that can also do any amount of work. On the Kubota, the brakes are where most manuals have them, you won't mash down on the brakes and accidently hit the HST pedal, one goes down while the other moves forward. It won't be long and the manual clutch on the Kubotas should disappear as it so rarely gets used and is going to be more of a safety issue if anything thing since depressing it automatically removes all the benefits of hydrostatic braking. Anyway, I too am rambling and have had this discussion so many times I should just do a cut and paste from past HST VS Manaul discussions, all of which have some huge misconceptions. While my current tractor is HST, I am going to consider GST from Kubota because now my needs are mowing huge areas and I simply want to do it faster. By the way, I still feel the Kubota HST is arguably the best made/designed even though I believe the others to be good. Rat...
