Buying Advice Cab or no cab?

[LouNY]

Unless you can find a JCB. That’s exactly why I got rid of mine and didn’t buy another.

Yep, JCB and Volvo or a telahandler.

 

[EddieWalker]

I think that for your situation, and your needs, an open station tractor with a loader is ideal. I have open station tractors and I bought my first cab tractor last year. The cab tractor has been awesome. It's allowed me to mow my land in the heat of the day, after I've done all my other chores, and be refreshed when I'm done mowing. My productivity has increased significantly.

But that doesn't mean you need a cab tractor. Here in East Texas, we get some brutal heat with horrible humidity. I'm guessing it's similar to your area of Florida. I can get a lot done in the morning, and early afternoon before it becomes horrible. Before I bought my cab tractor, I did most of my tractor work in the morning, and I was fine. Bugs where an issue, but I sprayed myself down and wore a ball cape to fight them off if they became aggressive. Otherwise, it wasn't too bad.

TYM bought out Branson. Century used to be Branson. My first tractor is a Century, which is now under TYM. I need a starter. TYM wants over $1,700 for a starter for my tractor. I understand that it's a 20 year old tractor, but that amount of money for a starter is insulting. For that reason, I would never recommend TYM to anybody.

 

[2manyrocks]

Can the starter be rebuilt or is it so proprietary that the only option is to pay $1,700 or try to find a used one?

$1,700 is outrageous, IMO.

 

[Yander]

Reading all of these reviews I don't necessarily disagree with any of them. But if you read them carefully each of them give a different response based on their particular use.

Only you know what your uses are. We are just giving you recommendations based on our experiences.

I would say reading through them and assess which of them is most likely going to be your use.

If you think you will be lifting heavy logs, for sure bigger tractor heavier.

If you think you will be taking it into and underneath the canopy and not lifting things that are heavy, smaller tractor.

I think if I was in Florida I would want a cab tractor. Ohio weather is fairly mild in the summer and I use the cab tractor in the winter.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

Can the starter be rebuilt or is it so proprietary that the only option is to pay $1,700 or try to find a used one?

$1,700 is outrageous, IMO.

The only thing I can think of that would be proprietary is the plate that attaches the starter to the tractor. A good shop that does motor rewinding should be able to repair the motor for considerably less than $1700.

 

[5030]

I refrained from commenting because cab or no cab depends entirely on the end use. Every situation is different.

 

[2manyrocks]

I can relate to being tired of bugs and humidity in Middle Tennessee, but understand Florida is much worse. Going from no tractor at all to a 25hp cab HST tractor would be appealing for just working on your own place at your own pace provided you can live with maxing out your rotary cutter to no more than 5' and having to slow down when cutting thick vegetation.

 

[tacticalturnip]

For the work that you described needing to do, I think you're 25 horsepower is fine.

There is quite a lot you can do with that size tractor. if you would have said you're clearing your woods that's a whole other story.

We have a 50 horsepower tractor on the farm with a cab and we have woods. No way am I taking that tractor into the woods.

I always use my Yanmar SA425 in the woods. It is open station and can do an incredible amount of work for its size.

My recommendation would be a Yanmar SA 425 or 325 with the front grapple. They do have a cab model. I would also look at the Kioti mentioned above.

A lot of guys on here recommend horsepower based on your acreage. I feel like basing your horsepower needs on your usage is more accurate.

If you're going to direct him to the SA425, you should toss a hat in for the 425DHX!

 

[bigtiller]

My first tractor was a 35hp open station but in the summer heat, humidity and bugs of middle Tennessee it could get brutal sometimes and fatigued which is not good when operating a tractor. I also needed a little more horse power so I could run a stump grinder. So I got a 50hp cab Kioti and never looked back.

You must be a professional stump grinder if you can do it without looking back.

 

[TN8Man]

You must be a professional stump grinder if you can do it without looking back.

I can look back and see what I'm doing.