Looking for a tractor this weekend, need advice

[Bob_Skurka]

schole . . . I see you are in Canada, just out of curiosity, how did the Kubota price out compared to the Kioti, Mahindra, and others? Many of the folks in Canada seem to find the Kioti to be a great bargain and they seem to be very popular up there. How about pricing against the Mahindras? I'm not sure that I've noticed many Canadians with the red machines so it may be a lack of dealers? Keep us all informed and how about some pictures?

 

[Will_C]

Shawn, I'll just reinforce what Roy and Frank (and others) have said: think about two tractors. It does not seem that your lawn mowing will be all that demanding (1+ acre.) If you could do that with a lawn tractor, then you could focus on the trail mowing and FEL work your tractor may have to do.
Will

 

[schole]

Responding to Bob on pricing:

I could not locate a Mahindras dealer close by -- did not look that hard, though. I only took serious consideration of Kioti, Kubota, JD, MF, and NH.

The closest dealers were Kioti and JD, then Kubota a little farther. The Kioti dealer used to sell Kubota -- says he switched to the Kioti because he liked the product. I always weigh a salesperson's words with a grain of salt.

The Kioti CK30 with shuttle, R4s, and FEL was pricing out around $25,500 Cdn taxes in (15% here). I am sure he could have moved $1500 or so on this.

The Kubota L3400 gears, R4s, FEL with a 72" 7 gauge RFM with taxes came to $25,300 or so. The RFM was quoted at $1850.

So, more hp for less money on a machine that felt right to me.

JD was too expensive. I nearly went for the 790, but it seemed that the L3400 was offering more.

MF seemed poor -- newest models were not in yet, though. NH was only test driven once.

I think the machine should drive like a racing care around a level sales yard with no implements on. Amazingly some of the machines did not seem to.

Have fun!!

Shawn

schole -- "leisure"...we get 'school' from this...what we used to do with our leisure time.

 

[dooleysm]

I was only able to make it to the John Deere dealer this weekend. He quoted me $17,300 on a 790 w/ R4 tires, FEL, and rear mounted rotary mower. Even with 0% financing for 2 years that's too much.

I talked with my cousin, who's in the excavation/mowing buisness and he highly recommended a rear mount mower for ease of removal. He claims the belly mowers are so much harder to take off that it's easy to just leave it on and use the FEL and get yourself into spots where you're banging up your belly mower too much.

I really would like to avoid having 2 tractors as I don't want to maintain 2 tractors, store 2 tractors, and talk my wife into buying 2 tractors.

I think it's going to turn out that I'm finish mowing more than an acre. I'm not great at estimating size, but with the area around my house, a couple trips up and down the edge of the drive, the area around the pond, and eventually my parents's house, it seems like a good bit more than an acre.

One thing that my wife brought up that I never thought of and doesn't concern me, but seems to have her all kinds of worried, is that when mowing with a wide mower (60" +) when you go over uneven ground, it may tend to not mow the low part. She says this was a problem at her parents house with their 60" lawn tractor. Do you guys have thoughts on this?

I'm still not making any decisions for a while now, but it seems like the best thing may be to take the Kubota dealer up on his offer to let me demo a tractor at my place. That should give me a better feel for what I want/need.

Thanks for all the good advice to date, and keep it coming. I appreciated the discussions about the L3400, as that was seeming like a decent option for me, if I could find a used one or get the dealer to come down a little on his price of $16,500 for the L3400 w/ FEL.

 

[dooleysm]

I located a 2001 Kubota L3000DT with a 52" FEL and 72" rear mount finish mower for $11,500 that I'm planning to look at tonight. It has 335 hours and is a gear shift transmission. Also has Ag tires on it. This sounds to me like a tractor that would work for what I've described. What do you guys think?

If it will work, with maybe the addition of some new tires and a bush hog (will it handle a 5 foot bush hog?), does this sound like a fair price? Are there any specific questions I should be asking or specific things I should look for (wear in certain areas, rust, etc?)?

Thanks alot,

shawn

 

[DK35vince]

The price sounds OK to me on the Kubota 3000.
They are a plain, simple machine like the JD 790.
Personally I much prefer the Kubota L-3000 over the JD 790.(my opinion)

 

[GerardC]

<font color="blue"> It felt like there was a hp drop from gear to HST -- just my impression. </font>

Gear is stronger. It's direct.

 

[dooleysm]

Well, it didn't matter, the tractor sold before I made it down to look at it. It was the first day in the paper and the guy sold it for $11,500, just what he was asking. Too bad, I had my check book and trailer and was ready to make him an offer.