Cabs are for wimps

[LoneCowboy]

I mean, i've been on and off tractors since I was 16 years old (20+ years ago), never had a cab, never needed a cab. Just put on a hat and be a man.

But, this winter, while removing snow from the big blizzards, it got a wee cold after being on the tractor for 8+ hours. So, when I ordered my new TN75, I figured we could have at least one tractor with a cab, since this one is big enough to do commercial snow removal.

So, ordered it with a cab and it finally came in about 2 weeks ago. Since then, we've been mowing fields like crazy both with it and the smaller platform tractor

Well, what a difference. I can sit in the cab for 10/11 hours in 90 degree heat and just be slightly tired. 5 to 6 hours of the platform and I'm toast.
Make a huge and dramatic difference in comfort. i was wrong. We're seriously considering getting a compact with a cab (see skid steer vs compact thread below) because it's such a huge difference.

it does make it so you can't get real close to trees (which you shouldn't be doing anyway) and it's definately feels tippier on slopes but overall, dramatic difference.

I was wrong, I like my cab, it's worth the extra money.

 

[VABlue]

I bet you do like it. I don't have anywhere near your experience on tractors, but have renovated a couple of fields back in the day. Even then, much younger, I felt it in the heat. Can you get a cab for your other machine without buying new?

 

[N80]

I'm a wimp then! Spent Saturday afternoon in 97 degree heat plowing a dusty little food plot on an open station CUT. AC and iTunes would have been real nice.

But, not only could I not afford a cab, and there isn't one for my model anyway, I do a lot of work in and around woods so a cab really isn't an option.

My farmer neighbor, about 50 now, has no cabs on any of his machines. In fact his larger tractor, which he bails and pulls a spreader with, doesn't even have a canopy...or ROPS for that matter. It would be so much easier on him if he would get something newer with a cab. The older he gets, the harder it gets on him. Cold isn't a big deal. It's mostly the heat and the dust.

 

[redlevel]

I can sit in the cab for 10/11 hours in 90 degree heat and just be slightly tired. 5 to 6 hours of the platform and I'm toast.

Every one I know who has farmed down here probably has thousands of hours at 95 degrees plus, mostly sitting astride a hot transmission without even a canopy.

Two out of the last three years I had to stop the tractor and get in what shade the baler offered after baling hay for several hours in 100 degree plus temps. I had a canopy and plenty of water, but in both instances, I suddenly got dizzy and didn't think I could make it to the barn.

Ninety to ninety-five degrees is just good peanut plowing weather. When it gets much above 95, it starts getting serious. I admit, however, if I was going to farm for a living now, I would have cab tractors.

I guess I'm just not the man I used to be. To tell the truth, I never was.

 

[EastTexFrank]

I must be getting wimpier as I get older. I've reached the time in life where I don't do things the hard way anymore just because I can. Unfortunately, around the house, there are just way too many trees to have a cab, but it sure would be nice. Where we need a cab tractor is at the farm but that's not going to happen any time soon. My M-I-L and S-I-L don't want a cab tractor for some reason. They like to see me covered in dust and chaff, sweating like a pig and picking bugs out of my teeth. For years I used a MF275 with a cab but no functiong A/C until it got to the stage where I got too old and refused to use it. They had no idea what it was like spending 6 or 8 hours in a mobile greenhouse and they wouldn't let me take a cutting torch to it or remove all the glass. I took a thermometer in it with me one day and it went offscale at 120 degrees. Eventually they did replace it with a new Kubota and they did put a canopy on it for me. I argued long and hard for that cab but lost out in the end. Ah well, maybe soon I'll join the rest of you "gentlemen farmers", sitting in a cab with COOL air and the radio blaring. It gives me something to dream about when it's a 100 degrees outside.

 

[Jay4200]

I was wrong, I like my cab, it's worth the extra money.

Wimp.

JayC

 

[riptides]

Heat is a major factor for me, Bugs are the secondary cab desire.

-Mike Z. (wimp wanna-be)

 

[mikeyd]

Then call me a wimp....I love my cab, especially when it's below zero and the wind is howling. Nothing like plowing snow in a tee shirt.

 

[VABlue]

I gotta say, growing up in Michigan and visiting my grandparents in the Thumb region, I never saw a tractor without a cab. Well, not anything you would take into a field, anyway. I know why, too... Many a Friday night I spent listening to tractors harvesting beats and combines picking corn while freezing my butt off at football games. No way would anyone want an open platform on a cold October night in Michigan!

 

[Z-Michigan]

I'm in Michigan. I didn't shop cabs at all due to price and being my first tractor. Got it in February and I can deal with the cold while moving snow off my 1000' driveway. Working now and I can usually work around the heat. But if I choose to work at 11am on a sunny day I get fried. Much worse, when I'm mowing it seems no combination of allergy meds keeps me from having a sneezing fit that lasts hours. My next tractor will definitely have a cab.

I have four "real farmer" neighbors within a mile. All have an assortment of cab and non-cab tractors. Seems the non-cabs are being used for planting and utility work, and the cab models, which are mostly bigger 150+ hp, are being used for the tilling, spraying and other tasks.