Mahindra 35 series

[DavesTractor]

Where can we find the specs on the 485?

Google, or go to Bradco's website, but here you go: 8'5" depth, 10'7" reach, curved boom, adjustable swing speed, looks nice.

 

[Mowdyman]

Hey xlr82v2,
Can you give me your opinion of the advantages of getting the 3535 over the 3525? There is $5000 difference (I'm assuming it's all for the 4wd) and I'm not sure I want to pay it unless there is an outstanding need for it. I've got 40 acres, over half in pasture, slightly hilly, got some bushhogging to do at the edges, and need to level out some areas. Also need a FEL for filling in low areas. Appreciate your thoughts!

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Hey xlr82v2,
Can you give me your opinion of the advantages of getting the 3535 over the 3525? There is $5000 difference (I'm assuming it's all for the 4wd) and I'm not sure I want to pay it unless there is an outstanding need for it. I've got 40 acres, over half in pasture, slightly hilly, got some bushhogging to do at the edges, and need to level out some areas. Also need a FEL for filling in low areas. Appreciate your thoughts!

The 3535 is way more tractor than the 3525. To start with, the FEL is much easier to get the full use out of with 4x4. If you are anywhere next to slopes or where ever that you really need to depend on your brakes, the 4x4 in 4x4 mode stops waaaaay better than a 2 wheel drive. The 3525 is old tech while the 3535 is new tech. If you are going to do much dirt work, I would guess that at the end of the day, you would be happier with the 3535 vs the 3525.

My brother always gives me a hard time about the new style tractors that I have bought, vs the new old style that are available but he sure doesn't have a hard time using them.

If I were doing what you are going to be doing, the 3535 would be the machine for me.

Good luck with whatever it is that you decide to get.

 

[xlr82v2]

Hey xlr82v2,
Can you give me your opinion of the advantages of getting the 3535 over the 3525? There is $5000 difference (I'm assuming it's all for the 4wd) and I'm not sure I want to pay it unless there is an outstanding need for it. I've got 40 acres, over half in pasture, slightly hilly, got some bushhogging to do at the edges, and need to level out some areas. Also need a FEL for filling in low areas. Appreciate your thoughts!

OK... I think I'm more on the other side of the fence than MtnViewRanch as far as 4wd... I'm not saying I'm right, and he's wrong, or anything like that. This is just my experience, and my opinion based on that. All that, said in a probably vain attempt to prevent this from developing into a 2WD/4WD war. (Mowdyman, i'm not typing this long dissertation to be preachy or anything like that to you... I'm typing all this because I know that I'm going to get jumped on hard by the 4wd ****'s for saying that 4wd is not a necessity. But I can take it.)

Here we go!

I've not seen a 3535 in person, just on the Mahindra website, so I can't give much insight there at all. Looks like a great tractor to me though. Would love to have one, maybe. Would have to look at it .

I've had my 3525 for going on 3 years now, and a little more than 200 hours on it so far. My ground is flat in some places, pretty steep hills in others. I use my tractor to mow the grass with a 6' finish mower, bushhog my non-yard areas with a 5' Rhino rotary mower, all kinds of FEL work, box blade work, etc. I skid logs, pile brush with the FEL, and haul the firewood out of the woods and back home in an old Chevy pickup truck bed trailer piled as high as I can get it. I loaded my rear tires with RimGuard, which added about 730 pounds total to the rear, if I remember the charts correctly.

It is an undeniable fact that a 4wd tractor of the same weight and horsepower will have better traction than the same tractor in 2wd.

Now, that being said...

Bushhogging:

Most of my bushhog work is on the hilly parts of my property, down in the woods, etc. I can drive up the hills, drive across the same hills to the point my rear end puckers, and drive down those same hills with my 2wd tractor with absolute confidence that I will stay in control... and have no problem stopping. I will admit that I can't drive backwards up quite as steep of a hill as I can drive up forwards, but that limitation has not been a problem for me to date. I have not needed, and not wished for 4wd while bushhogging so far. If anyone knows the terrain along the Mississippi River in Southern Illinois, you know we really do have some hills around here. Not all of Illinois is flat.

Finish Mowing:

I use my 3525 to mow my lawn... which is about 5 acres. Mostly flat. 4wd not needed, and I have never wished I had 4wd while mowing the lawn.

Firewood Operations:

I skid logs, and haul the wood out with my 3525. I've hooked up to full length Oak logs measuring probably 25 inches at the butt, probably more... I've cut some big ones... and skidded them out. The 3525 is a powerful tractor for its size. It has impressed even me... I've hooked up to logs thinking "There's no way I can pull this one!", and it just hunkers down and pulls it. If I hooked up to one I couldn't skid, I just cut it in half, and make another trip. No big deal.

So far, I haven't felt I needed, or wished I had, 4wd while working my firewood.

FEL Operations:

When I got my 3525 in August of 2007, we were pretty much in a drought, and any kind of mud was a pretty scarce commodity, unless it was man-made. First thing I did after my 3525 arrived, was to tackle some dirt work projects that I wanted to get done, and also grub out some small saplings/trees, ranging from about 2" to 5-6" in diameter. I started tackling my dirt work projects one after another, and was impressed by what I could do with the FEL... digging and getting a full bucket of dirt was no problem at all, I could do it with ease, with empty tires, and nothing on the 3ph... just tractor and loader. Getting a full scoop of dirt out of a pile was no problem at all. Pushed over and grubbed out all the trees that I needed to. I thought to myself, I don't think I'll even need to load the rear tires... I've got all the traction I need. The following Spring, after we finally got some much needed rain, doing more dirt work, I noticed that when the ground wasn't dry anymore, I wasn't getting as good of traction as I was before. I wasn't having problems doing anything, but the tires were just scratching and digging more in the soft dirt than they were last fall in the hard dry dirt. Hmmm... Might need to load the rear tires after all. So, I loaded my rear tires with RimGuard, which added about 730 pounds IIRC to the rear wheels. Wow, what a difference. Soft dirt performance was back to what it was in hard dry dirt! And, after loading the rears, I noticed that they did even less damage to the yard while mowing the yard than they did unloaded, which was already minimal, just a gnat's hair more than none, to begin with. Bonus! So, in dry dirt, and moist, soft dirt, I've got all the traction I need to get done what I need to do. Put the box blade on the back for levelling, and with that extra weight back there also, traction is even better.

Now, keep in mind, I've been saying, moist, soft dirt. NOT mud. I don't work in mud, if I don't have to. And, I don't have to. Nothing I have to get done, has to get done when the ground is mud. It can wait until the ground drys. If you try to work in mud, you usually make more of a mess than what you started with anyway.

Now, I'll tell you about the one and only time I wished I had 4wd so far.

It was this past Spring, one of the first really warm days we had. The ground was frozen, but thawing in the sunlight and near 70 degree temps. I was cutting firewood, and using the FEL to push the brush off of the field, and down into the hollers or swails ditches or whatever you want to call them running off of the field and down into the woods. The ground was good and firm out in the field, not muddy at all. On the first pile of brush I pushed together, I pushed it down into the holler, which was more "in the woods", definitely under the tree canopy, and in the shade. All was going well as I pushed the brush down into the holler with the nose of the tractor pointed downhill at probably a 10 to 15 degree angle. When I stopped to back out, I expected that I might spin a bit backing out, but no problem, I'll just use the FEL to help push myself back out if I need to. So, I shifted into Reverse, and started to back out. The tires started to spin a bit, as expected, but they weren't digging in and giving hardly any traction at all. So, I lifted the loader, dumped the bucket all the way, dropped it onto the brush that I just pushed into the holler, put a good bit of down pressure on it, and rolled the bucket back, pushing me backward up out of the holler. Just as planned. As I got to the end of the push I was getting from the loader, I stepped on the clutch and brakes, and lifted the loader off the ground to get another bite. As soon as I lifted the loader, the tractor slid right back down in the holler! So, I did it again. And again. The ground there was thawing on top because of the 70 degree temps, but still frozen more solidly because it was always shaded by the tree canopy. So, no traction to be had at all. And, after backing over it, and spinning on it, it was also starting to thaw and turn to sloppy mud in the tire tracks, especially at the front wheels, which were now starting to sink into it. So, I was hung up on some frozen/thawed ground on a steep incline, and the front of the tractor is starting to sink. What a pickle to be in! I walked over to the neighbor's place, and he got his tractor and pulled me out with no problem. I can't say that 4wd would have helped me in that situation, because the ground conditions at that time were just perfect for what happened... the front wheels wouldn't have had any more traction than the rears. But it is the only time I've wished I had 4wd with this tractor.

Garden Operations:

I plow my overly large garden with an old Dearborn 10-1 plow with 2 14 inch bottoms. The 3525 pulls the plow with absolutely no problems. I also run a 6' KKII tiller with my 3525. 4wd not needed there either. So far, I have not thought I needed or wanted 4wd while working my garden.

That has been my experience with my 2wd 3525. It is a heavy tractor, and I've got loaded rear tires, which lets the engine put the horsepower to the ground. With this tractor, I don't need, and don't wish for, 4wd, save that one instance. I just simply don't need it, even with my steep hills back in the woods. If it's muddy, I find something else to do for a day or 2.

If I had a high horsepower, lightweight tractor with low ground pressure tires (R-4's) that have a real problem putting all the available horsepower to the ground, like the Kubotas, JD's, Mahindra 15/16 series, etc., then yes, I'd say 4wd is, or at least might be a necessity. If I had to work in mud a lot, 4wd would be a very nice feature.

So, you have to ask yourself, What are my requirements? How much money do I have to spend? Do I want to spend $5000 more on capability that I'm going to rarely, if ever, use?

When I was tractor shopping, I wanted a no-frills, easy to maintain, stay-reliable (ie., no electronics) tractor with about 35 engine/30PTO horsepower, that would fit in my tight budget. All of the Japanese (and to a lesser degree, the Korean) built tractors in that size range are too light in my opinion to get the HP to the ground unless you have 4WD, which adds $3000-$4000 to the price of the base tractor. So, in my case, with those tractors, I could have 4wd, or a FEL, but not both. Having had a Ford 8N for the past 9 years, and having grown up on a dairy farm with nothing but 2wd tractors, I knew that 2WD could give all the traction that I normally needed for the jobs that I have. So, I shopped around, and saw that the 25 Series Mahindras fit my needs perfectly. They are built heavy, they're simple, and priced right. Just what I wanted and needed.

I'm 99.5% satisfied with my 2WD Mahindra 3525 with FEL, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone with similar requirements as mine. Get yourself a 3525, save the $5000, spend about $300 on loading the rear tires, and put it to work. I think you'll wish for 4wd about as much as I do.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

xlr82v2, I'm not saying that these things cannot be accomplished with a 2 wheel drive. You are the perfect example that it can be done. All that I am saying is that I believe that the 4x4 is going to do it easier, faster and safer. If someone is on a tight budget, then by all means go the economy route, nothing wrong with that.

Oh, I have seen the 35 series in person at the Tulare AG Show in California, it is a very nice tractor. Almost makes me want to have one, but it is to big to be my small tractor and is to small to be my big tractor.

 

[YellCoGin]

$5000 for 4WD is not all your getting. How about synro shuttle transmission, flat operators station, electric over hydraulic independent PTO with mode switch, these have to be worth something.

 

[xlr82v2]

Sure, they're worth something... but do you NEED any of them?

There is a difference between NEED and WANT... It seems people forget that quite a bit these days...

If you're a wealthy man (or woman), and you can drop an extra $5000 and not think twice about it, then it doesn't really matter what you get. But if you're like me, $5000 is a waste of a lot of money for things that are only "nice to have" luxuries. And...I don't like that PTO on the 3535. I much prefer my Live PTO with 2-stage clutch to the electro/hydraulic PTO on the 3535, if it's like any of the other electro/hyd units I've seen.

But that's just me YMMV!

 

[xlr82v2]

xlr82v2, I'm not saying that these things cannot be accomplished with a 2 wheel drive. You are the perfect example that it can be done. All that I am saying is that I believe that the 4x4 is going to do it easier, faster and safer. If someone is on a tight budget, then by all means go the economy route, nothing wrong with that.

Oh, I have seen the 35 series in person at the Tulare AG Show in California, it is a very nice tractor. Almost makes me want to have one, but it is to big to be my small tractor and is to small to be my big tractor.

Brian, I have to disagree with you. I'm NOT the perfect example that it can be done. I don't do anything special... I don't have any special abilities or super powers. I just go out and do it... just like any other mortal human being with a functional IQ and a lick of common sense can! That's the point that everyone misses. Contrary to popular belief here on TBN, not ALL tractors require 4wd to be extremely useful and capable or even safer, even with a FEL! That seems to me to be a hard message to communicate around here.

That's all I'm trying to say.

And don't think I'm getting upset over this... I'm smiling as I'm typing this. I love to argue, just ask my wife.

Did you get to hear the 3535 run? If you did, was it quiet, or did it have the loud "direct injection rattle" like all the other Mahindra built tractors that I've heard?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Did you get to hear the 3535 run? If you did, was it quiet, or did it have the loud "direct injection rattle" like all the other Mahindra built tractors that I've heard?

No, did not hear it run. And I agree with you on the electric over hydraulic PTO, I do not care for them, or at least everything that I have read about them. I do know that some are different than others though, so without operating them, could not say if I would buy one or not.

 

[LAWALLSTRACTOR]

Brian, I have to disagree with you. I'm NOT the perfect example that it can be done. I don't do anything special... I don't have any special abilities or super powers. I just go out and do it... just like any other mortal human being with a functional IQ and a lick of common sense can! That's the point that everyone misses. Contrary to popular belief here on TBN, not ALL tractors require 4wd to be extremely useful and capable or even safer, even with a FEL! That seems to me to be a hard message to communicate around here.
That's all I'm trying to say.

And don't think I'm getting upset over this... I'm smiling as I'm typing this. I love to argue, just ask my wife.

Did you get to hear the 3535 run? If you did, was it quiet, or did it have the loud "direct injection rattle" like all the other Mahindra built tractors that I've heard?

Yes, it does have that nice rattle.