So here I am all alone with my new tractor. My 13 year old son comes out and says "Holy cow dad, that thing is big! Will it fit in the garage? Gee, I never thought of that.
So I retract the ROPS and ease her in. The height is fine. With the guard on the deck, there is about 2" clearance on either side. Perfect. I pull in and dump the loader. Time to mow some grass.
I get into position, lower the deck, engage the PTO and start to move. All I could think of was "Man, this thing is big!" I know, you farmers are laughing. But the size difference between the B (and BX) series Kubotas that I came from and this tractor is quite remarkable.
Half way through my mowing, my neighbor comes over on his Home Depot JD and says "man, that thing is ...." well, you know.
After a couple hours of mowing, fiddling with the electronics (whatever all those *match thingies are) and just generally enjoying the day, I parked it back in the garage. My wife arrived home from a day of shopping with her sister, got out of the car, and said, I kid you not, "Honey, that thing is realy big." I always love hearing that.
A few other observations:
Despite its size, the tractor is very nimble handling. I can actually get closer to trees with this tractor than I could my smaller framed Kub. This is probably due in large part to the BIG mower deck sticking out well beyond the tires.
The cruise, max speed, and roll out adjustments on the Ehydro are very nice. More than mere sales gimmicks, they are actually helpful in operating the tractor. Now I have to remember what the different ____ match terms mean.
The 7-Iron deck is a Sherman tank. It is almost impossible to overstate the beefiness of this unit. I honestly wonder if I even need a rough cutter. I tried doing some of my rough areas with the deck raised up a little and it worked like a charm. And, since it is suspended and doesn't bounce and bang along the ground like my last one, it is also much quieter, virtually silent by comparison.
The suspended seat is dreamy. My last two tractors were not equipped with suspended seats. This time of year the ground is rock hard. The difference in the ride quality is like night and day.
After reading all the "tippy" posts about this series, I was prepared to deal with that, and perhaps to move the wheels to their widest position if necessary. As it turns out, even the steepest part of my property is no problem. I am in Michigan.
I put the loader back on just to see if I could do it. I ran it up and down a couple times. It's true. You can lift, lower, curl or dump. Take your pick, but no two at once. Wierd. I also discovered something else by accident. If you remove the loader with the tractor in neutral, it pushes the tractor backwards, rather than sliding the loader forward. No gouges on the concrete floor!
So, I now have 3 hours on the tractor and a decent sense of how it operates and handles. All I can say is very nice. Very nice indeed. Deere did a commendable job of engineering a smooth, refined and nimble machine.
So the only significant unanswered question in my mind is with respect to durability. After having been spoiled by two virtually flawless orange machines, I will be expecting a lot of this one. I will do my part by holding to the maintenance schedule. I hope that in return I will get no leaky seals, flaky rockshaft valves, foggy instrument clusters, schizophrenic fuel gauges, etc. Only time will tell.
