OP
Bullwinkle123
Platinum Member
Thanks to all who contributed. I pulled the trigger today on my tractor purchase, details are in my profile. This year's focus is on maintaining my driveway and field, gardening/planting trees, clearing brush and whole trees that have fallen, and generally assimilating a tractor into my life (such as by building pallet racks in my garage). Future wishes for another year will be about chipping/shredding/winching all those fallen trees in the forest.
Everything on the front is quick attach. I haven't done any rear hydraulics or quick hitch for now. The QH really isn't needed for now, most of the time I'll probably just have the blade on there. Adding three scv's and hydraulics to my blade setup would have added another $3k to the price, so will try hard to make due without it for now, I can add it later if it really drives me nuts.
In the end I went with the MX5400 over the L3901/4701 partly because I didn't want to undershoot on the HP and _weight_ and general robustness of the tractor, and also because I wanted a wider wheelbase for stability. The MX5400 is 20% wider than the L3901, less so but still significantly wider than the L4701 too. I'm sure both the 3901 and 4701 would have been fine, but in test drives I found them cramped for my physical frame, and the L4701 seems like an odd beast for potential resale value since dealers don't even want to carry it. I felt the MX5400 was a better all-round workhorse and value-preserving prospect worthy of the additional money, and I have to say I liked driving it a lot better, it fits me better (the L3901 even caused me to get cramps in painful places). Though I have no doubt I'm going to have to drive gingerly and with due consideration when I cross the lawn for various tasks, that much weight is going to push what you can get away with with R4's on turf.
On the tire width, the R4's on the 5400 have lots more (dealer supported) placement options than on the L3901. I've opted for "position 6", which puts the outside width at 72.4". Position 7 at 73.7" dosn't add much, and position 8 at 77.39 inches would force me to reconsider bucket and other attachment widths (since the wheels would stick out 5+ inches beyond the 72" bucket, for example). So I'm going with position 6. Since they're loaded tires, here's hoping my gamble works, it isn't like I'll pay to change it later. I'm sure there are other spacer or third party solutions too, but my reasoning here hopefully still applies. I'm banking on the base tractor properties more than things that put my wheels wide compared to my attachments.
Everything on the front is quick attach. I haven't done any rear hydraulics or quick hitch for now. The QH really isn't needed for now, most of the time I'll probably just have the blade on there. Adding three scv's and hydraulics to my blade setup would have added another $3k to the price, so will try hard to make due without it for now, I can add it later if it really drives me nuts.
In the end I went with the MX5400 over the L3901/4701 partly because I didn't want to undershoot on the HP and _weight_ and general robustness of the tractor, and also because I wanted a wider wheelbase for stability. The MX5400 is 20% wider than the L3901, less so but still significantly wider than the L4701 too. I'm sure both the 3901 and 4701 would have been fine, but in test drives I found them cramped for my physical frame, and the L4701 seems like an odd beast for potential resale value since dealers don't even want to carry it. I felt the MX5400 was a better all-round workhorse and value-preserving prospect worthy of the additional money, and I have to say I liked driving it a lot better, it fits me better (the L3901 even caused me to get cramps in painful places). Though I have no doubt I'm going to have to drive gingerly and with due consideration when I cross the lawn for various tasks, that much weight is going to push what you can get away with with R4's on turf.
On the tire width, the R4's on the 5400 have lots more (dealer supported) placement options than on the L3901. I've opted for "position 6", which puts the outside width at 72.4". Position 7 at 73.7" dosn't add much, and position 8 at 77.39 inches would force me to reconsider bucket and other attachment widths (since the wheels would stick out 5+ inches beyond the 72" bucket, for example). So I'm going with position 6. Since they're loaded tires, here's hoping my gamble works, it isn't like I'll pay to change it later. I'm sure there are other spacer or third party solutions too, but my reasoning here hopefully still applies. I'm banking on the base tractor properties more than things that put my wheels wide compared to my attachments.
