Shuttle versus HST

[TripleR]

Yep, I was thinking of you in this discussion Larry, knowing you regularly operate both kinds. I only ran my Brother's L3240 intermittently. I was always reaching for the shuttle lever to change directions.

You should see me and my son when we work together and swap between tractors, we pull up door to door exchange tractors then sit there a minute with blank looks on our faces while figure out how ti get them rolling.:laughing:

I bet we had our 8540 for six months before we stopped instinctively using the foot clutch like on our old Case synch shuttle.

As mentioned previously, I think a lot has to do with how much and how often you use a machine. My use of all our tractors has decreased and operation is no longer as good or instinctive and won't approach that of a frequent user. I can sure tell the difference from when I was farming.

 

[David Devuono]

As a hobby farmer, I am not in a hurry. My HST rarely goes back to any sort of neutral. With saftey switches your always fumbling with the pedal to find the sweet spot were your tractor won't stall when you get off the seat. With my suspension seat installed and seat switches offline, the tractor will creep along without me on it. With my geared tractors, when they are in neutral, they do not move. I mean how many of us have sat on our HST's trying to get them to start, checking PTO levers, fumbling with the HST pedal, jumping up and down on the seat. True though if you are in a hurry you can sure do the 3 point turns in a hurry, loader work is faster except that I have never been stuck so much now that I have my HST. You try to fill the bucket and as soon as you break traction the tires speed up and dig. With my geared tractor, the tire speed is constant and you have much better control filling the bucket. Cruise control is nice with HST but not needed with a geared tractor. My wife does prefer the HST though and sometimes that is an important factor.

 

[paulfun9]

You really think your getting stuck more with HST? I don't have a problem with that at all. Actually its just the opposite for me once I get the sweet spot of a good HST unit I can get a full bucket every time and rarely spin the wheels, I have watched some folks run a HST with their foot too hard on the go pedal and have results like you talk about.

I really don't know what your talking about with having to figure out why it wont start. A proper shut down will net a easy care free start up every time.

If your pedals wont return the tractor back to neutral then you need to adjust something

 

[ovrszd]

Dave an I must be near the same age. Paul must not be. Or maybe Dave and I just learn slow. I've been thwarted by many a safety switch. Totally due to my negligence of course.

 

[D7E]

I much prefer hyd . shuttle over hydrostat . Foot throttle and shuttle for loader work .

Absoluteley . We load several thousand round and big square bales each year and I find nothing is as fast loading or as accurate for feathering and touching the load up as mechanical shuttle and foot throttle , I wont buy a tractor without a foot throttle .

 

[Grant1]

I am in the market for a new tractor. Currently have around 32 acres of fields to brush hog, want to plant some food plots, and I am putting in a ~1100 ft gravel driveway. After reading a lot of post I figured I needed to be in the 35-45hp range for a tractor and want one that comes with a FEL. With prices and considering the dealers, I have narrowed it down to the Kioti DK40 or DK45. They have 2 in stock, the DK40 is a shuttle shift and the DK45 is the HST, both have FELs that come with them.

Given mostly will be using this for what I posted in the first sentence, what are the advantages/disadvantages to each of these? Besides the obvious that the shuttle is more manual.

BTW...pricing given to me today was $22K for the DK40 and $25K for the DK45.

Thanks!

I currently have a Kioti CK30 gear drive tractor that I have over 2000 hours of seat time on. I just recently bought a Kioti DK45hst because I wanted a bigger tractor. I have about 43 hours on it so far. I am going to be in the minority but I am much more comfortable on the gear drive than the HST. You also have the issue of the Hyd filters every 200 hours at a little over $100. I got a super deal on my DK45 at $20,000 as it only had 22 hours on it and looked brand new. I do tractor work for a living and put alot of hours on my tractors. The HST is superior for mowing and I am sure in time that I will get used to the HST. However if there had been a DK45 gear model at the same price that is what I would have gone with.

 

[big bubba]

imho...hst is useful in close quarter repetitive work. but if the operator is in good shape all around, so is the hyd shuttle w/gear. really, it's the condition of the user that makes the decision. the demographics of this forum is (i think) made up of smaller private compact tractor owners getting ripe in their years, so i see a lot of favor for hst. not for me to say what's better. better for you to look closely at your particular application (therefore size of tractor) and also how agile you are to handle repetitive clutch depressions vs hst pedal (easier) actions (how are your knees holding up? . whatever it is, smart move to ask on the forum ....plenty of opinions. if your tasks are large...ask yourself why don't larger m series (kubota) tractors have hst? all the best

 

[tractormans]

I have had my McCormick hst 50 hp which is similar to kioti 50 hp hst. I drove the kioti shuttle and hst. Glad I went with hydrostatic. Really simple for my wife. But depends on the user. Hst is by far the easiest to teach if you have multiple operators

 

[Trent Hickford]

After 22 years of manual gears, I switched to HST due to advice from members on this forum. I am so glad I did. I do all the same work in less than half the time with a quarter of the fatigue compared to previous gear tractor. I am so much more productive and almost 3 times faster with every single job compared to the previous tractor.

I have a Kubota L3200 (32hp) 4wd HST. I have 12 different attachments excluding trailers. I plan to ad a FEL, third function valves and a few more attachments next quarter.

I use a 6' bush hog mower, medium gear in 4WD, nonstop mowing 2-4' of grass for 10hrs a day, one tank of fuel, approx 5 gallons and always have some reserve left.

Was it a power reverser? I find that I can get work done the same speed if not faster with a power reverser over HST although a shifting gears like on a JD 3005 would be slow as **** in any application.

 

[paulfun9]

Dave an I must be near the same age. Paul must not be. Or maybe Dave and I just learn slow. I've been thwarted by many a safety switch. Totally due to my negligence of course.

Age has nothing to do with it except for maybe some patients that I didn't have when I was younger.

I learned on a gear and have worked many different tractors and heavy equipment over the years. I actually prefer a shuttle for the most versatile machine but have absolutely no problems with the HST. Productivity is about the same with some tasks taking just a little longer and others taking less as compared with the gear or the shuttle they also have their ups and downs making it a wash for me. I would have to say for me which I would choose really depends on the task but having a few different machines to choose from I am not limited to being forced to use one machine for all tasks.