John Deere 4120 V.S. Kubota Grand L4060 w/ prices

[GManBart]

Got the LS,

21k with the Tires juiced. Have about ten hours on it mostly mowing. 3 point stabilizer arms bent up when the pin came out. Bent them back and put a locking pin in there no problem. Dealer is giving me new arms as it is. The 3 point hydraulic speed control spun out as the lock nut must have been loose and shot about 5 gallons of hydraulic oil out. The dealer sent a guy out with oil and a new o-ring on a Friday afternoon before the 3 day weekend. The head and dash lights went out the other day. It's not the fuse. Dealer is sending a guy out.

When the hydraulic oil spewed out and I was waiting on the repair a used JD 4120 came up on craiglist with 190 hours a back blade and a 6 ft brush hog for the same price I paid for the LS. The loader cycles faster than I thought it would. Lifting a bunch of railroad ties lifted the back tires off the ground I will have to try that again with the hog on the back.

Got the 42" quick attach forks from palletforks.com with the 60" extensions. Really like the forks. Jury is still out on the extensions.

Only time will tell if I made the right move on the LS. The commercial nursery next door swears by the brand and the dealer. It will work fine for now. I hope it lasts years and the company grows and is around for a long time. We will be buying smaller tractor in about 5 years to get up and down the narrow rows to spray etc. Hopefully I can buy an LS with confidence.

That's the first I've heard about issues with the lights, or 3pt lockout, but I definitely don't like the style pin they use on the 3pt stabilizer bars....I just put graded bolts in mine.

Loaded tires help, but that really isn't what you need for doing serious loader work, and all but the heaviest brush hogs are too light. I run a 1300lb counterweight, and I can finally max the loader without lifting the rear tires. 500-600lbs on the 3pt was nowhere near enough. For comparison, Kioti specs a bit of 1000lbs on the 3pt for their similar (slightly higher lift weight).

Even if loading the rear tires would keep them on the ground while doing loader work, you would still be (or coukd be) overloading the front axle. Only 3pt weight can fix that....makes the rear tires a fulcrum point, like a teeter-toter, and takes weight off the front axle.

Good luck with it!

 

[arlen4720]

I agree that you need 1000+ pounds back there to max the loader out. I use steel plate in my ballast box. Sounds like your dealer is taking care of your minor warranty repairs.
I'm sure you made a good decision, and the tractor will be fine after a few kinks are worked out.:thumbsup:

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

I keep hearing that a brush hog hanging off the back doesn't give much ballast. I'm not so sure about that. If you think about it, a typical ballast box may only be 3 - 4 feet from the centerline of the rear axles, while part of a 6' mower will be 8 feet or more from the rear axles. Even if the mower weights 800 pounds vs. a 1200 pound ballast box, I suspect the fulcrum effect of the weight hanging further from the rear axles might be greater than we think.

I'm not an engineer, so I can't run the calculations to prove or disprove my thoughts. It would be interesting to find out, though.

 

[arlen4720]

I keep hearing that a brush hog hanging off the back doesn't give much ballast. I'm not so sure about that. If you think about it, a typical ballast box may only be 3 - 4 feet from the centerline of the rear axles, while part of a 6' mower will be 8 feet or more from the rear axles. Even if the mower weights 800 pounds vs. a 1200 pound ballast box, I suspect the fulcrum effect of the weight hanging further from the rear axles might be greater than we think.

I'm not an engineer, so I can't run the calculations to prove or disprove my thoughts. It would be interesting to find out, though.

It may be enough weight, but a mower IMO makes poor ballast because it is very unwieldy and swings and shifts around allot.

 

[GManBart]

I keep hearing that a brush hog hanging off the back doesn't give much ballast. I'm not so sure about that. If you think about it, a typical ballast box may only be 3 - 4 feet from the centerline of the rear axles, while part of a 6' mower will be 8 feet or more from the rear axles. Even if the mower weights 800 pounds vs. a 1200 pound ballast box, I suspect the fulcrum effect of the weight hanging further from the rear axles might be greater than we think.

I'm not an engineer, so I can't run the calculations to prove or disprove my thoughts. It would be interesting to find out, though.

Because the weight is transferred through the 3pt connection (it serves as a pivot), I'm not sure that the additional length of a mower makes it an actual arm (as in physics calculations).

Still, it takes a heavy duty cutter to get to 800lbs in a 6' model....most are 6-700lbs.

I found that even a heavy box blade made for an annoying counterweight....even though it's much smaller than a brush cutter, it was always bumping into things, or getting hooked on stuff. A compact, heavy counterweight is much better in that regard.

 

[arlen4720]

Because the weight is transferred through the 3pt connection (it serves as a pivot), I'm not sure that the additional length of a mower makes it an actual arm (as in physics calculations).

It would. you would need to find the center of mass on the mower, so if it stuck out 8 feet, the center of mass would be somewhere INSIDE of 4 feet because most of the weight is closer to the tractor. The 3 point pivot doesn't matter, the whole system just resolves into a simple lever and point mass with the tractor axles as the pivot points.

 

[TripleR]

I keep hearing that a brush hog hanging off the back doesn't give much ballast. I'm not so sure about that. If you think about it, a typical ballast box may only be 3 - 4 feet from the centerline of the rear axles, while part of a 6' mower will be 8 feet or more from the rear axles. Even if the mower weights 800 pounds vs. a 1200 pound ballast box, I suspect the fulcrum effect of the weight hanging further from the rear axles might be greater than we think.

I'm not an engineer, so I can't run the calculations to prove or disprove my thoughts. It would be interesting to find out, though.

My rotary cutter and box scraper weigh pretty close to the same LP RCR2672 at 1046 and Land Pride HR3584 at 1119 and the rotary cutter "seems" to be more effective as to weight, but as mentioned is pretty unwieldy, I still use it a lot as I hate swapping implements.

 

[OrangeGuy]

Got the LS,

21k with the Tires juiced. Have about ten hours on it mostly mowing. 3 point stabilizer arms bent up when the pin came out. Bent them back and put a locking pin in there no problem. Dealer is giving me new arms as it is. The 3 point hydraulic speed control spun out as the lock nut must have been loose and shot about 5 gallons of hydraulic oil out. The dealer sent a guy out with oil and a new o-ring on a Friday afternoon before the 3 day weekend. The head and dash lights went out the other day. It's not the fuse. Dealer is sending a guy out.

When the hydraulic oil spewed out and I was waiting on the repair a used JD 4120 came up on craiglist with 190 hours a back blade and a 6 ft brush hog for the same price I paid for the LS. The loader cycles faster than I thought it would. Lifting a bunch of railroad ties lifted the back tires off the ground I will have to try that again with the hog on the back.

Got the 42" quick attach forks from palletforks.com with the 60" extensions. Really like the forks. Jury is still out on the extensions.

Only time will tell if I made the right move on the LS. The commercial nursery next door swears by the brand and the dealer. It will work fine for now. I hope it lasts years and the company grows and is around for a long time. We will be buying smaller tractor in about 5 years to get up and down the narrow rows to spray etc. Hopefully I can buy an LS with confidence.

Oh my...This much trouble in the first couple of days and I would have sent the tractor back to the dealer for a refund. Three Kubotas in 20 years (over 2500 combined hours) and I have yet to make the first repair (outside of normal maintenance). It looks like the OP was on the right track until this forum steered him onto another brand. I hope it works out for him.

 

[PoorPlowboy]

Don't go giving the guy buyers remorse over minor things. My new orange 7040HDC with 49.5 hours just spent 4 weeks in the shop diagnosing a faulty fuel filter/primer housing leakdown that resulted in a no start condition. It didn't hold enough pressure to keep the high pressure fuel pump primed. Any color tractor can have a bug or two and it sounds like his dealer is taking care of him.

 

[ovrszd]

I would agree with PoorPlowboy in a normal discussion. But, this thread has been nothing close to normal discussion. It's been 250 posts of arguments/discussions/rants about how great an LS tractor is. There's a thread over on the LS forum doing the same thing. "Great tractors, no one ever has a problem".

So, I'm with Orangeguy. The OP is already having remorse. Especially after he found the used JD at a great price.

What's a shame here is that this discussion drifted totally away from the OP's initial question. He politely tolerated all that influence. In the end bought a tractor to save initial cost versus the two tractors he already had in mind. Hopefully the bugs can get worked out and he can have a lengthy, enjoyable relationship with his new tractor. To do that he'll hafta stop looking at Craigslist.....