I had R4's on both tractors but the DK's tires are more aggressive and have less surface area, coupled with the fact the DK is heavier, it tears up my yard more. I wish I had gotten the 'turf' tires. Even with loaded rear tires they spin easier tearing the yard up more and I find I have to use 4wd more often to prevent it. Although flipping a switch to engage the 4wd is much nicer than fighting with the lever on the CK. The FEL doesn't seem to lift that much more, even though it is spec'ed to lift twice as much. DK stalls easier. When I take my foot off the forward pedal... the tractor keeps driving forward. This leads to stalling often when moving piles of dirt and it is worse in winter moving snow. I have even pressed on the reverse pedal and the tractor keeps driving forward for a moment. I prefer the single pedal HST control of the CK vs the dual pedal of the DK. After 48 hrs, I keep pressing the wrong pedal and going in the wrong direction. I have damage to my tractor hut to repair due to this. The single pedal was much more intuitive to me. I feel the FEL is painfully slow compared to the one on the CK. When I move the FEL control to 'dump' the bucket... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I found the CK just generally more maneuverable than the DK. I put a Woods BH90x backhoe on the DK, it doesn't seem much more powerful than the Kioti BH that was on the CK. Between the DK upcharge and the Wood BH.. at the moment I feel I threw away $20k. The DK will be going in for its 50 hr service in the spring, I am really hoping some of these issues will be fixed then.
Sorry your bummed about your new machine.
I'm sure it is frustrating having a new tractor delivered and things not adjusted right.
The whole idea with hydrastat is
infinite control of your speed and direction...and you don't have that, tough to get any kind of technique down, and seat of the pants feel for traction when things are working as you described.
Before you take your tractor in for the 50 hr service and to get things fixed, check your rear tires and figure out how much ballast they put in them.
With the valve stem at 12 o clock, the fluid should be just above the wheel.
You can check this by knocking on the side of the tire, or use a infrared point and shoot thermometer, or simply push the valve core in with the stem at 12 o clock and see if any fluid comes out...but by doing it this way if for some reason the valve core sticks down, it will be spitting fluid until you can get it back up.
Tire companies and tractor dealers are famous for filling tires 1/4 to 1/2 full of liquid....(why bother) make sure you got what you paid for.
I'm very happy with the performance of my DK, I do have a sneaking hunch that my reliefs may be set on the low side, I will find out when I get a guage set and service manual, I asked my dealer to get me one and he never came through
These compact backhoes are never going to perform like a full size hoe, beats the heck out of a shovel though
