My 1736 new in Aug 13 has worked out fine. I did have 2 of the smallloader hoses begin to leak up about 2" from the connections which the dealer said is a common thing. Something about they leak up from the end a ways and pop out of the casing a short ways away. No harm no fowl, he gave me the hoses and I tossed them on simple.
My only issue is the way the hydraulic connections can sometimes get unseated by brush. The one in the center of the bundle under the tractor can be a real beast to put back in too. When you push it in the receiving coupler moves back unless you support it . Trouble is you cant get on the beast to support it without taking the shield off ( 2 x 12mm bolts) and get back in there to hang on while pushing with the other hand. Doable but a PITA if you don't have that wrench or a crescent with you. Just something to watch out for not a big deal. The dealer warned me about the hydraulic lines flying out in the breeze off the side like they are. He said the cat basically forced them to relocate the hoses out where they could easily get yanked so to be careful. Other than getting one knocked off a time or 2 it was no big deal.
One other hydraulic "thing" pertains to having the back hoe setup. You have to jump the hoe's hydraulic over to another port nearby when you are not using the hoe such as hogging. Nothing to it just a simple loop. You do have to remember because when you don't do it the manual says it blocks up the hydraulic system which can wreck your pump. The dealer cautioned me also saying it will beging making an ugly racket and if it does check it out fast. Well, truth is is doesn't have to make any noise at all . When mine went out all I noticed was that my hog was dragging on the ground. I looked around and found the coupler "cocked slightly". In place fully but just a tad off center . Pushed it in and away it went but you wouldn't see it even giving it the hairy eyeball unless up close n personas and straight back. I did it again with the same results on another occasion. Not a big deal but definitely does NOT announce itself and you won't see it at a glance. As for damage no problem and it was 100 hours ago. I guess the advice here is if you notice something hydraulic acting weird get off and put your hands on the remotes and verify they are actually in. Personally I'm not a big fan of these remotes but they'll do. As for usability the hydraulics a super fast. So fast that it's easy to accidentally fling dirt and rocks back onto the hood so you need to handle the levers with a light touch.
Mine is the gear model so I can't speak for the hydro. My big wish if I could get it would be a 123 range arrangement rather than 2, 1,3. Doing loader work and going any distance to dump it gets old real fast. That range shifter has a nautical mile of travel and especially when new is as rough as it gets. Now at 180 hrs it's fairly smooth but still more like a dump truck than a corvette believe me. A gentle double clutching is helpful in finding its way into gear and that IS in shifter Neutral like the manual insists. If I had it to do again I'd go hydro for that reason alone.
That Tier 4 system isn't much of a trouble. The thing to do is check it once in a while. It should get dirty every 5o or so hours but it can sneak up on you. If it needs to clean itself and it's dirty enough it's going to insist on doing it's thing. It can and will start beeping at you to let it clean which it won't do idling and such. Better to just fire it off once the meter says it's getting pretty blocked and let it just do it's thing while you are running it fairly hard working. Oil filters are about 18 bucks and the hydraulic filter is an ugly 75 to 80 IIRC. I keep looking for a cheap source of those , no luck so far. Diesel filter is just a drop in with a pre filter. It's easy to access , drain ect.
As for digging it works quite well even with unloaded tires. Backhoe goes on and off in 15 minutes as long as it's on a LEVEL surface . If not you will hate yourself as it comes right off easy then putting it back on is a goat rodeo even with 2 people. Same goes for the loader arms. I just drop the bucket and leave them on when hogging, it's simple and fast. Putting the loader arms back on is ugly again because of that closely stacked quad of remotes I mentioned before. Compared to a Kubota
L3800 I find it noticeably more stable and a bit wider.
Oh , a thought on the manual. Some cheese head wrote right in there that for the 1st 50 hours you have to run the machine FULL POWER. Yea sure. I mentioned it to the dealer and he laughed and said just run it hard and don't dog it just like any other new engine. Maybe they caught and changed it b y now who knows. I haven't had any problems coming up short on power. Mines open station so I can't speak to the cabs other than saying one would get in the way and get beat up a lot around here with low hanging trees. The fuel tank is a split saddle design with a cross feed and only one filler. If you are in a hurry you have to wait till the 5/8" or so line gurgles it across, no biggy. Mine shows MT with about 3 gallons actual left of the 10 gallon tank. Yuppy proofing maybe? Well, that's the ups and downs of mine FWIW so far.
