JD 5205 MFWD Review
Model Year: 2002
I bought this tractor at my local dealer with a MX-6 cutter for under 20K. Very clean, low hours, looked great. Had all manuals & records. I have around 100 acres to mow & ten to plant a food plot in, also some light FE loader work to do. First, the good: tractor starts right up, runs great & has plenty of pulling power. Will plow like a beast, if you get any wheel slip, go to 4WD & problem solved. Now the bad: It runs out of gears pretty quick with the 8spd tranny, I knew this going in, I don't bale hay so it wasn't a big issue. More troublesome is the hassle it is do work on ANYTHING on the tractor. With the plastic hood open & plastic side panels removed it's next to impossible to remove/work on anything. It was just not engineered for servicing with the loader attached in my opinion. The first day I had it I went over the tractor top to bottom, greased everything, checked all fluid levels, etc. I drained the fuel water separator (according to the manual) and went to start it, air in the system, would not start. Tried bleeding the system & bleeding with the hand bleeder for hours-no go. Dealer came out, worked on bleeding a couple of hours, replaced the hand pump (which as far as I can tell does nothing) & finally got it going for a small sum of 250.00. I've since tried to drain the radiator, petcock won't open (dealer said it's an issue with those plastic radiators). Oh, did I say PLASTIC again? Lots of it on this rig. Now the water pump is leaking from somewhere & that is my next bill. This unit is no longer in production, if you are looking at one, my advice would be to keep looking.
Pros: Good power.
Cons: Hard to work on, reliability issues, expensive parts.