The availability is still being affected by the Long Beach port problems from a few months back. A lot of unfinished Kubotas were floating around on container ships the last time I spoke with my local dealer a few weeks ago. The
M59 engine & chassis, possibly loader too, come in from Japan in a container which then goes to the Georgia plant where US made tires, backhoe, hoses and electrical go into final assembly and gives some Americans a steady job. If a guy just wants the B part of the hoe to look at in your driveway without the rest of the M59TL part you could probably get one in a week. My dealer said there was no word on when this would get caught up yet and after he sold the last one in the PNW a couple months ago nobody can find a new one for sale. If a guy was looking at one now, used at a lower price would be the way to go, especially with the emissions stuff coming up. I was contacted by a member here with questions about my
M59, so I will just copy the reply I sent him into here for other potential buyers to read as well.
I have no idea what other machines out there these days can do, but I know I don't really care.
The things I can say about the
M59 from experience are as follows.
General thoughts: It is a very stable machine with loaded rear tires and the hoe on. When you switch out to lighter 3pt stuff you have to be a lot more careful as it can get pretty tippy. It is a beast of a machine for it's size and very reliable. 14 gallons of fuel will typically get me 14-16 hrs of operating time, but I also rarely run the throttle over 1500rpm for backhoe work as that seems the best balance of power/fuel usage that also doesn't sound very loud. The
M59 isn't like the smaller tractors that have no power until you bump them up against the governor, it has plenty of power between 1500-2000 rpm. The HST works extremely well with plenty of grunt. I can load a full bucket going into a soft dirt/rock pile in medium gear/low range no problem. I do my bulldozing/groundbreaking in low/low and most of my rolling around with a loaded bucket in high/low or high/high unless I hit a steep grade, then it is medium/high. Having six gears to choose from is very handy, the auto shift from low/high range in each of the three gears is very nice. The creep feature is very handy for backhoe work. The rear remotes are very handy for the wood splitter, hydraulic back blade, top n tilt, etc. The front remotes are great for the grapple, and worked the splitter fine the one time I tested it but I have not tried anything else with it yet. In winter when it is windy is about the only time I wish I had a cab, but the rest of the time I find it would just get in my way with all of the hopping on/off and switching the seat front/back. I am still on my original glowplugs and battery since 2009 when I received this 2008 machine with 69 hrs on it. I now have 1040 hrs on it.
Design: There is just enough room for my size 14's to go whereever they need to in any position while seated and my 36" inseam legs have no issues with room either. I couldn't see myself getting by with a smaller machine, but I don't find myself wanting a bigger one either. I don't see where 10 more horsepower would help me in any way other than to burn more fuel, the turbo powered 59hp motor gets the job done just fine with the stall guard turned on. The filters are all easy to get to and change, nothing in a goofy or hard to reach spot. The grease zerks are all logically placed/protected, the hydraulics are all pretty safe other than the last hoses for the hydraulic thumb on the hoe, but one learns quickly he should not be bumping into trees to hit them anyhow. The turning radius is very tight, the 4wd works great, the diff lock helps when needed and the balance, visibility and layout of controls are all just about perfect.
Backhoe: I probably have the hoe on 80-90% of the time as with the hydraulic thumb it is very useful around my place with taking down/moving/lifting/planting trees, pulling brush, digging up stumps, mining gravel, breaking down/shaping clay mounds for loading, picking up engines, trenching, backfilling, leveling, packing, extracting yourself from a risky spot, recovering stuck vehicles, etc. I could come up with a lot more I have used it for, but that is a good start. For a machine that weighs less than 40% of what the big hoes do, it will do about 80% of the same jobs just a little slower. The quick change bucket works very well, I just don't have any other buckets for it yet. The 18" I do have seems just about perfect 90% of the time, not too wide, not too skinny, not too heavy. The 12' reach is pretty darn useful and with the creep I very rarely wish I had an extend a hoe option. The hoe is strong enough to lift the rear end with just the front bucket edge on the ground, shifting left/right is no problem if 2/3 extended or less. Once you know what you are doing, removing the hoe is about a 3 minute job, hooking back up is about 5. Hooking up 3pt stuff takes much longer than the hoe, but is not too bad for the versatility it provides. Having an industrial grade machine that can do farm tasks is much better for me than a farm machine that struggles at industrial tasks.
Loader: There are some things it just can't do like pick up more than 4,500 lbs, but it is very rare that I find myself in a spot where I need anything bigger or stronger. I can load full height dump trucks from ground level to the truck tires, though if it has extended walls it is a little tricky if you can't dump the air on the rear suspension. The 7 foot bucket will easily load 2/3 yd on a struck bucket and almost a full yard when piled up. There is nothing I have loaded in a heaping bucket that the loader won't lift, so it is very strong. I can stab two 1400 lb round bales with pallet forks and take them off of a trailer, but not lift them due to how far out in front they hang and the weight of the forks. Since acquiring a square bale spear (3 spear) this year I can lift two 1400 lb square hay bales stacked on each other without any trouble at all. I can just barely pick up the front of my 8500lb solid axle pickup with the forks when I need to. Fully loaded pallets are no problem to lift. The quick attach works perfect with every skidsteer mount implement I have run across so far and is adjustable for the pieces that are out of spec. I am considering a bulldozer blade, auger and a few other goodies in the future as the options seem wide open.
The 41 hp pto has plenty of power to run my 8" wood
chipper but that is all I have for it so far. I am debating on a snowblower one of these days if I can find the right deal on a lorenz.
Over all, I can say this machine is perfect for my needs and the few times it seems like it might not work, I find that a little creativity goes a long ways. It still surprises me sometimes at the things I can do with such a light backhoe, the just under 10k weight allows me to go places without sinking/sticking myself nearly as easy as a 25k machine would. I love being able to haul the
M59 around with a flatbed one ton dually and a 30' gooseneck trailer so I look like a farmer rather than a commercial rig, even though my setup is technically over 26k. A lighter truck and trailer would fix that, but a 30' deck lets me bring in more hay in one shot and haul a crewcab longbed comfortably. I can load the
M59 up front on the trailer and then use the hoe to load my hydraulic backblade onto the trailer behind it and still not have the ramps movement interfered with. The
M59 would fit on a 22-24' deck just fine, maybe even shorter if a guy had it set up right. If I were to use it for a business I would look into either a tandem dual dump trailer big enough to carry the
m59 in the box or a dumpbed on my truck with a shorter/lighter flatbed trailer. Kubota hit it out of the park with this design and it is slowly catching on in popularity, though why it took so long I have no idea. My local dealer just sold the last one available in the pacific northwest a couple months back and they have no idea when more will get delivered with the long beach port fiasco a while back keeping a bunch of them floating offshore. The engine and chassis are all made in japan, then the assembly with the rubber, hoses, hoe and electrical wiring are done at the plant in Georgia which keeps a lot of Americans working.
I can't really think of anything else at the moment, but I can't say anything bad about this machine that it's size/weight would justify and I highly recommend it. The
M59 is a machine I swear by, not at.
Thanks,
Tim
