I promised in another post I would write a review of my new TYM T1003 once I had a few hours on it. Hopefully this will be of some help to anyone else out there who is also looking at this tractor as I know I spent a lot of time looking for reviews and peoples thoughts before I made a decision to purchase a TYM.
I know there are a lot of Americans on this forum so let me firstly say that I'm in Australia so some of my terminology may be a bit different. But you yanks do have a funny way of speaking
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Okay, firstly I'm not a dealer, just a dairy farmer in the southern part of Australia where we have 122 hectares (300 acres) of top quality dairy farming land with no snow a mild climate and plenty of rainfall. Well most of the time. My last tractor was a Duetz Agrotron 80 so I suppose I will be drawing comparisons to it at times.
CAB: Now anyone who has been in a Duetz Agrotron will know they had lots of space in the cab, so when I went looking for a new tractor cab space was important for me. While not as roomy as the Duetz the TYM is good, I can get in and out of the cab without any problems like having to move the steering wheel which is more than can be said for some of the other brands of tractor. Behind the seat there is plenty of room for a few odds and ends and there is even a small tool box which is handy to put linkage pins and the like in. The seat is excellent, with high back support and comfortable to sit in for several hours at a time. Air conditioning works well, but yet to test it in really hot conditions. Four vents above the front window can be swivelled in any direction, so you can have them blowing in your face or onto the front or side windows which is handy if the windows start to fog up. You can also close off as many of the vents as you wish. The floor of the cab is nice and flat making it easy to sweep out.
CONTROLS: One thing I don't like that much is the position of the FEL joystick, it should be located just at the end of the arm rest but is mounted to the right of the gear lever meaning you have to reach over each time to use it. The gear lever is one of those ones with a long shaft which is okay but I'd prefer a short gear lever. Gear selection is reasonably smooth but when in 2nd gear the lever tends to be beside your right knee and in the way a little. Range selection lever is down beside the seat and a little difficult to reach but it's not something you need to be reaching for all the time. The position of the switches for engaging 4WD, diff lock and a few other settings are slightly behind and to the right of your seat, I probably would have preferred them on the front dash but where they are is quite workable and the touch sensor switches are excellent with no chance of dust getting into them and causing problems. Also lights and wiper controls on the right hand pillar is a little strange but once again touch switches are good. Three point linkage controls are good and simply to operate once you work out what all the little symbols mean and the 3 controls for remotes aren稚 a problem. Haven't had a need to use the PTO yet but can't see any issues with that.
IN USE: Firstly this tractor is a pleasure to drive with plenty of power. Visibility is excellent except for the FEL but I will talk more about that later. For just driving from one end of the farm to the other mostly I can leave it in high 1st or if in a hurry high 2nd which still powers up a steep hill. I have a trailing hydraulically operated fertilizer spreader which I can put 2 tonne of urea in and this tractor barely knows it's there. The spreader requires a high oil flow of 60lt/min and the TYM handles that without a problem. For the past couple of weeks I've been doing some cultivating and re sowing of pastures. I have an old set of 3PL offset discs which have never worked all that well on smaller tractors as they tended cause the tractor to move around too much. On the TYM they work a treat as it's got the weight and power to hold a straight course. With all these tasks I never have to take the TYM out of high 1st gear. Power shift has a high and low range and the difference between the two seems to be just right but when the tractor is under load shifting from low to high is a bit jerky. Hitching up to the 3PL is excellent with quick release on the lower linkage arms. The stabilizers on the arms are the good type being threaded at one end and pin lock system on the other end means you just have to pull the pin to have full movement of the arm when hitching up. Then to tighten up just screw the threaded end until the holes line up and put the pin back in. No need to push and pull the implement to get everything tight. All tractors should have this setup. The top link has a nice long handle on it for adjusting the link so plenty of leverage for fine tuning the position of the implement. It also it tucks away neatly when finished with, again best system I have seen for a top link. Outside controls for lifting and lowering linkage on both mudguards is very handy. If doing a lot of night work I would be looking to upgrade the lighting. With super bright LED's available these days I'm surprised they still use the halogens on this tractor as they are really like glow worms compared to a good set of LED's. A big mistake has been made with the bull bar on the front of the tractor as the bottom bar lines up with the bottom third of the headlight thereby blocking some of the light. Simply placing the bar 50mm lower would have prevented this problem. However I don't think this would be a TYM problem as I suspect the bull bar would have been added here in Australia.
FEL: I have lifted 1 tonne bulk bags of urea to full height of loader without any sign the loader was struggling. However, I am somewhat disappointed with the loader, but not with build quality or power. Visibility is no-where near as good as my old Duetz was. With a set of forks on the front of the Duetz I could see and pick up just about anything at ground level. With the TYM I'm struggling to even see the ground let alone get the forks under something to pick it up. Now I have to admit part of the problem is the new set of forks that came with the loader are just made wrong as the top bar obscures my view quite a bit. My old forks which I made myself had the top bar a lot higher allowing an unobstructed view. So I think I'll get to work sometime and modify them to fit on the TYM with its eruo hitch. But the old Duetz with its steep sloping bonnet was I believe one of the best FEL tractors around for visibility.
BUILD QUALITY: First impressions are that this tractor is solid and after using it for some time now this view hasn't changed. Now I'm no mechanic but I reckon even I could service this tractor without a problem. All the oil filters, fuel filters and air filters are easily accessible and only a few grease points to worry about. If any control cable should need replacing it would appear to be a simple process as there is plenty of space between the bottom of the cab and the transmission to get to all the cables that come from inside the cab.
VALUE FOR MONEY: In a word "Excellent". While it may not have all of the fancy features of some tractors, as far as I'm concerned it has all that the average farmer requires. When comparing the TYM to other tractors with similar specs it came in at $10,000 to $15,000 lower in price, but that lower price certainly doesn't seem to be because of poorer build quality. I'm guessing the company can keep prices lower because they don't have an extensive dealer network around the country. This was somewhat of a concern for me but times are changing and dealerships probably aren't as important as they once were as these companies have mechanics on the road travelling wherever they need to. I also have no doubt that a local diesel mechanic could repair this tractor if needed. Trade in value might be lower, but so was the purchase price so I can't see that I will lose much there.
SUMMARY: Am I happy with my purchase? Yes, without any doubt. While there may be a few things I think could be improved, overall I think this is a very good tractor and I feel I could recommend it to most farmers. Maybe if you do a lot of contracting working and have special requirements you may need to look at a different brand but for the average farmer that just wants a good reliable tractor I don't think you could go too far wrong with the TYM T1003.
I hope people find this review helpful and I'm happy to try and answer any questions that you may have.
I know there are a lot of Americans on this forum so let me firstly say that I'm in Australia so some of my terminology may be a bit different. But you yanks do have a funny way of speaking
.Okay, firstly I'm not a dealer, just a dairy farmer in the southern part of Australia where we have 122 hectares (300 acres) of top quality dairy farming land with no snow a mild climate and plenty of rainfall. Well most of the time. My last tractor was a Duetz Agrotron 80 so I suppose I will be drawing comparisons to it at times.
CAB: Now anyone who has been in a Duetz Agrotron will know they had lots of space in the cab, so when I went looking for a new tractor cab space was important for me. While not as roomy as the Duetz the TYM is good, I can get in and out of the cab without any problems like having to move the steering wheel which is more than can be said for some of the other brands of tractor. Behind the seat there is plenty of room for a few odds and ends and there is even a small tool box which is handy to put linkage pins and the like in. The seat is excellent, with high back support and comfortable to sit in for several hours at a time. Air conditioning works well, but yet to test it in really hot conditions. Four vents above the front window can be swivelled in any direction, so you can have them blowing in your face or onto the front or side windows which is handy if the windows start to fog up. You can also close off as many of the vents as you wish. The floor of the cab is nice and flat making it easy to sweep out.
CONTROLS: One thing I don't like that much is the position of the FEL joystick, it should be located just at the end of the arm rest but is mounted to the right of the gear lever meaning you have to reach over each time to use it. The gear lever is one of those ones with a long shaft which is okay but I'd prefer a short gear lever. Gear selection is reasonably smooth but when in 2nd gear the lever tends to be beside your right knee and in the way a little. Range selection lever is down beside the seat and a little difficult to reach but it's not something you need to be reaching for all the time. The position of the switches for engaging 4WD, diff lock and a few other settings are slightly behind and to the right of your seat, I probably would have preferred them on the front dash but where they are is quite workable and the touch sensor switches are excellent with no chance of dust getting into them and causing problems. Also lights and wiper controls on the right hand pillar is a little strange but once again touch switches are good. Three point linkage controls are good and simply to operate once you work out what all the little symbols mean and the 3 controls for remotes aren稚 a problem. Haven't had a need to use the PTO yet but can't see any issues with that.
IN USE: Firstly this tractor is a pleasure to drive with plenty of power. Visibility is excellent except for the FEL but I will talk more about that later. For just driving from one end of the farm to the other mostly I can leave it in high 1st or if in a hurry high 2nd which still powers up a steep hill. I have a trailing hydraulically operated fertilizer spreader which I can put 2 tonne of urea in and this tractor barely knows it's there. The spreader requires a high oil flow of 60lt/min and the TYM handles that without a problem. For the past couple of weeks I've been doing some cultivating and re sowing of pastures. I have an old set of 3PL offset discs which have never worked all that well on smaller tractors as they tended cause the tractor to move around too much. On the TYM they work a treat as it's got the weight and power to hold a straight course. With all these tasks I never have to take the TYM out of high 1st gear. Power shift has a high and low range and the difference between the two seems to be just right but when the tractor is under load shifting from low to high is a bit jerky. Hitching up to the 3PL is excellent with quick release on the lower linkage arms. The stabilizers on the arms are the good type being threaded at one end and pin lock system on the other end means you just have to pull the pin to have full movement of the arm when hitching up. Then to tighten up just screw the threaded end until the holes line up and put the pin back in. No need to push and pull the implement to get everything tight. All tractors should have this setup. The top link has a nice long handle on it for adjusting the link so plenty of leverage for fine tuning the position of the implement. It also it tucks away neatly when finished with, again best system I have seen for a top link. Outside controls for lifting and lowering linkage on both mudguards is very handy. If doing a lot of night work I would be looking to upgrade the lighting. With super bright LED's available these days I'm surprised they still use the halogens on this tractor as they are really like glow worms compared to a good set of LED's. A big mistake has been made with the bull bar on the front of the tractor as the bottom bar lines up with the bottom third of the headlight thereby blocking some of the light. Simply placing the bar 50mm lower would have prevented this problem. However I don't think this would be a TYM problem as I suspect the bull bar would have been added here in Australia.
FEL: I have lifted 1 tonne bulk bags of urea to full height of loader without any sign the loader was struggling. However, I am somewhat disappointed with the loader, but not with build quality or power. Visibility is no-where near as good as my old Duetz was. With a set of forks on the front of the Duetz I could see and pick up just about anything at ground level. With the TYM I'm struggling to even see the ground let alone get the forks under something to pick it up. Now I have to admit part of the problem is the new set of forks that came with the loader are just made wrong as the top bar obscures my view quite a bit. My old forks which I made myself had the top bar a lot higher allowing an unobstructed view. So I think I'll get to work sometime and modify them to fit on the TYM with its eruo hitch. But the old Duetz with its steep sloping bonnet was I believe one of the best FEL tractors around for visibility.
BUILD QUALITY: First impressions are that this tractor is solid and after using it for some time now this view hasn't changed. Now I'm no mechanic but I reckon even I could service this tractor without a problem. All the oil filters, fuel filters and air filters are easily accessible and only a few grease points to worry about. If any control cable should need replacing it would appear to be a simple process as there is plenty of space between the bottom of the cab and the transmission to get to all the cables that come from inside the cab.
VALUE FOR MONEY: In a word "Excellent". While it may not have all of the fancy features of some tractors, as far as I'm concerned it has all that the average farmer requires. When comparing the TYM to other tractors with similar specs it came in at $10,000 to $15,000 lower in price, but that lower price certainly doesn't seem to be because of poorer build quality. I'm guessing the company can keep prices lower because they don't have an extensive dealer network around the country. This was somewhat of a concern for me but times are changing and dealerships probably aren't as important as they once were as these companies have mechanics on the road travelling wherever they need to. I also have no doubt that a local diesel mechanic could repair this tractor if needed. Trade in value might be lower, but so was the purchase price so I can't see that I will lose much there.
SUMMARY: Am I happy with my purchase? Yes, without any doubt. While there may be a few things I think could be improved, overall I think this is a very good tractor and I feel I could recommend it to most farmers. Maybe if you do a lot of contracting working and have special requirements you may need to look at a different brand but for the average farmer that just wants a good reliable tractor I don't think you could go too far wrong with the TYM T1003.
I hope people find this review helpful and I'm happy to try and answer any questions that you may have.
