Kioti

[1953NAA]

The big question is: What are you planning to do with it?

I have a 35HP HST CK series Kioti with an FEL. I've had it about 10 years and it's been really reliable without any problems. Comparing them side by side, it appears to be a much beefier design than an equivalent Kubota. The FEL has an easily detachable bucket via a quick-attach plate that allows me to connect to pallet forks- the Kubota did not have this. The roll bar folds down which makes it noce for mowing around trees.

The hydrostatic drive is great for moving snow and dirt as well as mowing with a 6' mower. I added a tooth bar to the bucket and excavated an 18 x 32' area 7' into the side of a hill and the tractor had no problem with that. The bucket is large enough to hold a fair amount but a couple full buckets of shale soil that floated the back end quickly showed the need for a 3 pt mounted counterweight on the back of the tractor to keep it safe.

On the negative side, the HST with 35HP isnt the best for field work unless you move up to a larger tractor to compensate for it. You lose a fair amount of HP due to the HST (35hp becomes 29 or so HP to the wheels) so the tractor bogs down quickly when pulling a 2 bottom plow. This isn't helped by the R4 tires that are useless for plowing. Further, with the HST foot pedal on the right side, there is no way to differential brake to control the tractor and help with turning even though the tractor is set up with differential brakes. A manual transmission and AG tires would be much better if you plan to do field work with this tractor. I'm glad I kept my NAA that pulls my 2 bottom with no problem.

Hope this helps and gives you some items to consider.

 

[paulfun9]

I’ve had both and prefer Kioti over Kubota. You may also want to look at Yanmar. The 10 year warranty and a lower price point are hard to beat if your dealer is decent.

Ditto!
Same here, owned both and prefer the Kioti!

Also didn’t like the treddle pedal, and definately didn’t see any higher reasale value compared on a percentage of original cost to other brands that I have owned and sold.

So as stated before buy what you like and don’t get sucked up in all the ******** everyone pushes to support thier brand.

Those who think it’s worth it to spend thousands more to support thier local dealer in my opinion are nuts. I agree to support them if they agree to support me! By this I mean the should have pricing that is comparable to other dealers within my driving area. If they don’t and won’t at least get close (within a few hundred) of the other lower priced dealer they aren’t supporting me and will eventually not be supporting themselves because they will be loosing more than just me as a customer.

 

[Garson]

The general consensus here in 7 pages of comments is that there is little difference in the Kioti vs Kubota brands and I agree. I had an L275 Kubota for 20 years and it was flawless. Then upgraded to a DS4510 Kioti. I now have a Kioti 7320 that pulls stumps and builds roads like a king.

In Eastern Canada the price of Kubota cuts them out of my tractor possibilities. My 72 HP Kioti was $10,000 cheaper than a Kubota with identical features (after pricing at 2 Kubota dealers and 3 Kioti dealers). Both Kiotis started at -20°C (-4°F) with no help. The 72 HP engine is very fuel efficient and has never demanded a DPF cleaning in 250 hours because I seldom run it at less than 1500 RPM. The hydraulic pump is excellent, running my wood splitter very quickly.

But if I won the lottery I would also look at Kubota. Beware of certain Kubota brands, however. I looked at a 50 HP Kubota (M5000 I think) and the price was great, but after doing a web search, found that many owners advice was, "Do not buy this tractor". So research your final decision to be sure it's not a cheap poorly designed tractor "built to compete on price" within any brand.

Your choice to buy a manual transmission is a good one. Hydrostatic transmissions are great for snow blowing and mowing but when you work the tractor in the woods or fields you will need that extra 25% of the horsepower that is lost in hydro transmissions. A friend offered me to try his 25 HP hydrostatic John Deere tractor to cut a load of wood. The trailer had a cord of green firewood on it and this tractor refused to pull the trailer up my mountain to come home. In low range it just moaned after going a foot or two. I unhooked, got a 24 HP 254 International manual tractor and it pulled the trailer over the mountain easily.

My 7320 shuttle shift has syncro-mesh so it shifts from forward/reverse even when coasting the wrong way. It's almost as quick as hydrostatic transmissions and there is no whine.

The tires are also an important choice. Smooth grounds tires are great for lawn and driveway but for working, ag tires with tall treads make a huge performance difference. Load them with beet juice to improve stability and traction. Then you have a workhorse.

My neighbour had a 35 HP hydrostatic John Deere that left him sitting dead several times because the seven hydrostatic interlock switches were out of adjustment. The dealer came several times to service it but by then the tractor worked fine. They never offered to do the 4 hour adjustment series to fix the intermittent switch problem. I refused to drive his tractor on the road, or even across the road. It left me sitting sometimes also.

I've dealt with tractor dealers for 37 years and never enjoy the arrogance of any of many Kubota dealers. I've dealt with 4 Kioti dealers over the years and they were all respectful. That's a large factor in anyone's decision when buying a tractor. But if a Kubota dealership is across the road, you may still want to deal with them. I drove by the Kubota dealer (after getting his price) and went twice as far to find a Kioti dealership.

Good luck with your future tractor! With good homework and a little love it will be a lifetime companion.

 

[kantuckid]

Garson-your post scares me a bit for a 48hp HST Branson I'm considering. I don't care about PTO hp loss but need my tractor to pull in the woods when I skid logs or too maintain my steep private road to our home.

 

[IndyJay]

... I keep eyeballing the Massey 2850M HST.
... How do you like your Kioti?

Hi Wrath, When I was replacing my Iseki built MF1250 I drove both the MF 1840M and 2850M. Both are excellent tractors, glad to see Massey went back to Iseki to build these machines. It finally came down to 2850M vs the Kioti DK4510. I was able to add dual rear remotes, 3rd function valve, a 72" grapple, and an 84" dual spindle rotary cutter to the DK4510 for the same price as the 2850M by itself. That's hard to pass up. So far I have been very happy with the Kioti. If prices had been at par, I would probably went with the Massey because of the 27 year experience with the 1250 but I have absolutely no regrets. I have not verified this but the Kioti dealer said that the biggest factor in price difference is the exchange rate between USA and South Korea. You can simply buy more tractor for the money. IMHO you can't go wrong with any of the choices you are currently looking at. Good luck!

 

[k5pat]

I bought my Kubota B2650 after checking out the Mahindra and Kioti. Kubota holds it's resale value more than any other tractor.

 

[coobie]

I bought my Kubota B2650 after checking out the Mahindra and Kioti. Kubota holds it's resale value more than any other tractor.

Now thats FUNNY..How about John Deere ?

 

[kpsp50]

Kubota is not the tractor that they were a few years ago you're paying for the name kioti is a good tractor I've looked at them and was very interested in them then I ran across Branson the lift capacity and the weight of the tractor had a lot to do with my decision and then the price was unbeatable good luck in your venture

 

[Williy]

kpsp50 did you get a chance to check or test drive
one of the LS tractors? My dealer in Lubbock, TX
has been getting them in and they sell all most as
fast as they get them and they have no problem getting
parts!

willy

 

[Mart5130]

One year owner of a Kioti CK3510HST SE. couldn’t be happier.

 

[northcreek2624]

For me it came down to how much tractor I could get for the tractor dollars that I had set aside. Kioti gave me the most bang for my bucks at that time.

 

[wrath]

Hi Wrath, When I was replacing my Iseki built MF1250 I drove both the MF 1840M and 2850M. Both are excellent tractors, glad to see Massey went back to Iseki to build these machines. It finally came down to 2850M vs the Kioti DK4510. I was able to add dual rear remotes, 3rd function valve, a 72" grapple, and an 84" dual spindle rotary cutter to the DK4510 for the same price as the 2850M by itself. That's hard to pass up. So far I have been very happy with the Kioti. If prices had been at par, I would probably went with the Massey because of the 27 year experience with the 1250 but I have absolutely no regrets. I have not verified this but the Kioti dealer said that the biggest factor in price difference is the exchange rate between USA and South Korea. You can simply buy more tractor for the money. IMHO you can't go wrong with any of the choices you are currently looking at. Good luck!

I've never found anyone to complain about Massey. Even their weird little GC series.

I'm mostly interested in a digging and moving heavy crap tractor. I'm getting old. I have a zeroturn to mow and crap to clear trails. But I'm tired of digging holes slowly. I'm also tired of moving heavy crap by hand or with either a tractor too big (heavy, 2135) or too small (subcompact). I'm tired of maintaining a fleet. I don't need 4wd, but I'd use it if I had it. My experience of having a truck on 44" Boggers has taught me that you pick bigger battles when you have better equipment.

I'd like a 8.5' backhoe capability. Mostly for doing stupid things like clearing the edge of the pond or clearing ditches. Hydraulics that can keep up with me. Enough HP to force the manufacturer to install a hydrostatic drive that doesn't stall on hills (common problem I've had with the neighbors' Kubotas).

I keep settling on a 3500-4000lb tractor that can lift 2500lbs with the FEL. The problem with the smaller end is that you lose capability of the FEL and a frame that can handle a 8.5' backhoe. The problem at 4000lb is that it gets kind of big for swamp work (about half my property has water 1' below the surface) and it would be hard on my bridges.

I like the Massey tractors a lot. I like the M series. I'd probably buy it as a fully loaded open station. So all 3 sets of remotes, mid mount PTO, and probably turf tires but maybe I'd consider R4s and groove them. I grooved the neighbor's R4s on his Kubota so he didn't have to run chains anymore when plowing. Everything I have now has either R1 or turf tires and I can cope with either. Depending on model, I can probably wrangle 9-14% off MSRP depending on time of year.

The Kioti DK series piqued my interest because it seems to have a lot of tractor for the money. But around here, the money isn't that different because all of the Kioti dealers seem to want full price and appear to be in collusion. Which isn't a bad price, I think because their eye is on the Kubota market (which also won't budge on MSRP), but it leaves them vulnerable to people like me that is comparing more than just Kubota.

Within an hour I can hit all the major tractor brands. I don't much care for most of the dealers, including the closest Massey dealer. If I got a Kioti I'd probably be going out of state.

The DK4710SE would be about $39k *with a backhoe*, more or less what I want. For whatever reason, their HST tractors seem like they're really expensive. A closer comparison would probably be the DK5310SE but I don't need the horsepower (and for whatever reason, this makes the tractor way more expensive). The 2850M would be about $36k *without a backhoe* and depending on where I got the backhoe from it'd be like $6500-9000 from calling around. So about 10% more for the Massey.

I shouldn't care about resale value because I'll be honest I pretty much never sell anything until I got my money's worth... but around here driving a Kioti off the lot is like driving a Kia off the lot... it drops value by 30%. Technically I shouldn't care, but it does have my attention because there is usually something driving that perception that lead to causation.

 

[IndyJay]

Wrath,

"...Enough HP to force the manufacturer to install a hydrostatic drive that doesn't stall on hills..."

I had the same experience when test driving HST. I deliberately found the nearest hill to see how well it handled it. I've only owned manual shuttle on my 1250 so it may have been "operator error" but it seems everything I drove bogged down on a decent hill. My pasture has rolling hills with a few spots that are fairly steep, but my wood trails have some pretty steep ones so it was important to test that. I've had a few people tell me that even with Hydro, you need to shift to a lower gear/range. I thought "what's the point" if you still have to shift? I rarely have to shift with shuttle.

I kept my 1250 for 27 years, I don't see myselk selling the DK anytime soon so I am not worried so much about resale either. It all comes down to what you want. I initially was leery of buying away from the tractor version of "the big three" but I read a lot of reviews and it seemed most Kioti owners were happy with their purchase, and not just because of price. These are well-built tractors.

 

[murphy1244]

Every time these threads pop up it turns to a crapfest. We all love our machines.

I am glad I bought mine when I did, it seemed to be the best buy at the time.

The only thing I don't like are the remote valves they leak down but the loader will stay up for weeks..

Explain that..

 

[K5lwq]

Every time these threads pop up it turns to a crapfest. We all love our machines.

I am glad I bought mine when I did, it seemed to be the best buy at the time.

The only thing I don't like are the remote valves they leak down but the loader will stay up for weeks..

Explain that..

That is easy to explain. Your loader valve has less internal leakage than your remote valves.

 

[DK35vince]

I shouldn't care about resale value because I'll be honest I pretty much never sell anything until I got my money's worth... but around here driving a Kioti off the lot is like driving a Kia off the lot... it drops value by 30%. Technically I shouldn't care, but it does have my attention because there is usually something driving that perception that lead to causation.

And yet the DK 35's listed on Tractor House are asking near to or higher than I paid for mine new 20 years ago.

 

[wrath]

The problem with most HST tractors is that they are designed for minimum torque application to meet the needs of the ground contact expected. It's really expensive to design a HST to deal with the heat of putting 40+hp through it at engine stall. So they just let it blow by or worse, they choose to let the pump cavitate.

If you take a 40 year old hydrostatic garden tractor, with unlimited traction, they will stall the engine before the hydrostatic pump stalls/cavitates. Some underpowered/over-wheel-motored zero turns behave this way.

A properly size hydrostatic drive system will behave just like a geared tractor, but have pump losses to heat, and won't have to deal with irritation of a gear shift change. You just have to be willing to deal with the irritation of lost efficiency/power. You should be able to ride the hp/torque curve of the engine through the HST to hold maximum velocity for that given input torque. With a gear-driven transmission you kind of have to pick the gear at the bottom of the hill and "run it". It can give an illusion that a HST is slower, but at the end of the day you can only go so fast for a given power input.

I prefer gear driven on a simple tractor, for sure. Maximum power and if you're doing the same stuff all the time you know what gear and throttle to do everything. But what drives me towards modern HST is that you can change the responsiveness and mess with limits/cruise control. For my very soft ground, I think this will alleviate my tire spinning problem.

 

[murphy1244]

That is easy to explain. Your loader valve has less internal leakage than your remote valves.

You think so?

 

[coobie]

I've never found anyone to complain about Massey. Even their weird little GC series.

I'm mostly interested in a digging and moving heavy crap tractor. I'm getting old. I have a zeroturn to mow and crap to clear trails. But I'm tired of digging holes slowly. I'm also tired of moving heavy crap by hand or with either a tractor too big (heavy, 2135) or too small (subcompact). I'm tired of maintaining a fleet. I don't need 4wd, but I'd use it if I had it. My experience of having a truck on 44" Boggers has taught me that you pick bigger battles when you have better equipment.

I'd like a 8.5' backhoe capability. Mostly for doing stupid things like clearing the edge of the pond or clearing ditches. Hydraulics that can keep up with me. Enough HP to force the manufacturer to install a hydrostatic drive that doesn't stall on hills (common problem I've had with the neighbors' Kubotas).

I keep settling on a 3500-4000lb tractor that can lift 2500lbs with the FEL. The problem with the smaller end is that you lose capability of the FEL and a frame that can handle a 8.5' backhoe. The problem at 4000lb is that it gets kind of big for swamp work (about half my property has water 1' below the surface) and it would be hard on my bridges.

I like the Massey tractors a lot. I like the M series. I'd probably buy it as a fully loaded open station. So all 3 sets of remotes, mid mount PTO, and probably turf tires but maybe I'd consider R4s and groove them. I grooved the neighbor's R4s on his Kubota so he didn't have to run chains anymore when plowing. Everything I have now has either R1 or turf tires and I can cope with either. Depending on model, I can probably wrangle 9-14% off MSRP depending on time of year.

The Kioti DK series piqued my interest because it seems to have a lot of tractor for the money. But around here, the money isn't that different because all of the Kioti dealers seem to want full price and appear to be in collusion. Which isn't a bad price, I think because their eye is on the Kubota market (which also won't budge on MSRP), but it leaves them vulnerable to people like me that is comparing more than just Kubota.

Within an hour I can hit all the major tractor brands. I don't much care for most of the dealers, including the closest Massey dealer. If I got a Kioti I'd probably be going out of state.

The DK4710SE would be about $39k *with a backhoe*, more or less what I want. For whatever reason, their HST tractors seem like they're really expensive. A closer comparison would probably be the DK5310SE but I don't need the horsepower (and for whatever reason, this makes the tractor way more expensive). The 2850M would be about $36k *without a backhoe* and depending on where I got the backhoe from it'd be like $6500-9000 from calling around. So about 10% more for the Massey.

I shouldn't care about resale value because I'll be honest I pretty much never sell anything until I got my money's worth... but around here driving a Kioti off the lot is like driving a Kia off the lot... it drops value by 30%. Technically I shouldn't care, but it does have my attention because there is usually something driving that perception that lead to causation.

Where is here? Around these parts "Michigan" Kioti does NOT lose 30% of its value when you drive it off the lot.In fact they hold there value very well.In southern Michigan most Massey dealers have left the state for whatever reasons.I used to own a Massey 1240 back in 2006 I sold it as there was no dealer support.

 

[Williy]

Garson where did you get the 25% lost of power???
Were you thinking of the 1950 buick where you had to
put your foot to the floor to crawl away from the stop sign?

While a hydrostatic transmission robs some usable horsepower, perhaps one or two horsepower in a 40-hp machine, the loss is negligible.

willy