Min tractor size for repairing long gravel driveway with potholes?

[IndyJay]

No one has ever heard:

"I wish my tractor was smaller."

"I wish my loader was weaker."

"I wish my ground clearance was less."



Bruce

add to that..

"I wish my ROPS was taller."

 

[btarb24]

I think i'll start with open cab. I have a leanto on the property that i want to park it under and it wouldn't fit with a cab on it. Figure I can always cobble something together later if i decide i need to defend myself from the snow. Parking and navigation between trees on the forest trails is what makes me gravitate more toward trying to buy the smallest tractor that's capable of the work i have. A larger tractor than i truly need would just mean wasted fuel, higher upfront cost, higher implement cost, and higher parts costs down the road. I'd rather spend an extra hour per project and possibly be a little frustrated than waste the money -- as long as the job gets done.

--

I'm still trying to sort it all out, but it seems that the tractor market is kind of similar to the power tool in that there are a handful of manufacturers that make several major brands.
LS makes models for -> New Holland, Case + 8 others
TYM makes models for -> Branson, RK, Mahindra, Zetor + 10 others
Yanmar makes models for -> Deere, Zen-Noh
Daedong makes models for -> New Holland, Bobcat, Cub Cadet + 5 others
Mitsubishi makes models for -> Case, Mahindra, Cub Cadet, IH+ 3 others

Tractors built by other manufacturers

tractors.fandom.com

Another way to look at it is New Holland buys and rebadges tractors from several other manufactures: Al-Ghazi, Buhler Versatile, Iseki, Landini, LS, Shanghai, Shibaura, Turk Traktor

List of tractors built by other companies - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Though, specs can certainly vary between what the manufacturer makes for themselves vs what they make for another company. For example, LS may make their own MT125 better or worse than how they make the NH Workmaster 25s. However, either way, if LS were to fail then you'd be out of luck with repairing a Workmaster tractor. Similarly, if Daedong were to go out of business then there would no longer be parts for the NH Boomer line. Kind of makes you have to think a bit about the perspective of which ones are the real 'off brands'.. is it New Holland, or is it LS/Daedong? Kind of like how some people are fan favorites of CubCadet and may say to avoid TroyBilts because they've had nothing but bad experiences with them.. yet they're both made by MTD. We all tend to develop or own brand favoritism, whether it is logical or not.

I'm mostly interested in looking beyond brand prestige/favoritism and simply finding the best value available. As i continue to research I'm finding that just about all of the major brands should hold up well over time and i feel I should be more concerned about features/capabilities than the sticker or paint colors. Getting the objective information about capabilities is a bit tricky though. Some people say you shouldn't bother clearing snow from a long driveway with anything less than 40HP and an 8 foot blade, yet others will use a walk behind blower because they're not worried about efficiency.

 

[airbiscuit]

Looks like you will be researching for a while. I'll make some popcorn

 

[bearthebruce]

I don't like beating a dead horse but wanted to comment on the tractor size. Original property was 47 acres wooded and a tractor came with it. It was equipped to do the the half mile driveway maintenance and the snow removal. 6' grader blade, no loader, 33HP Massey Ferguson.

We have yet to use it for the driveway. In part that is owing to our inexperience but also in part due to the tools not being quite what we think is needed. Angle a 6 foot grader blade to do gravel work and well, you have a bunch of passes to make.. an 8' blade would be better. But then that 8' blade might be a bit much for the 33 ponies..

We added more acres buying another 100 to add to the original 47... plus another property a quarter mile away with 60+ acres.. On several of the properties, we now have pastures to get under control and mowed. Added a 5' brush hog.. that takes all the 33 ponies can drag..

Added a front loader to help with stability on the hills with he brush hog on the back as well as move logs and stuff. Added pallet forks.

Now it feels like we need a bigger tractor. We're picking up downed trees to cut and move them. We are clearing trails and trying to grade these with a box blade, grader blade and a rake. For grading the implements need to be pretty heavy to get any work out of them. Our implements feel a bit light.

From what I have read of your plans, you need at least a machine the size of ours and given what I am telling you about where we are 4 years into this.. I think you will find on your 40 acres, you need a bigger machine than ours -'cause we feel we need a bigger machine and heavier implements.

I like the Massey.. it's a great machine. Our dealer is over an hour away... Not great but we manage. We can source the parts with them or others. We fix our own and like that our Massey is pre-crazy electronic age... Simple is good.

Not sure what we may do next... we just know we keep wanting to do new things on the property and keep having to think about whether or not the Massey can handle the chores we are thinking about doing. We may be over-thinkers being engineers.

If you go Sub-compact and want to build trails, I fear you will find yourself wanting a different machine soon. And where does that leave you? Selling the SCUT to buy the CUT you should have bought at the start?

Right now, we keep wondering if we should not have a 60hp or better machine because it would be heavy and it would not feel so tipsy on the hilly trails we are trying to cut. Sure we can add weights and such.. We are considering that. But as some have written, weight matters. I think your needs are more similar to ours than they are not...

@airbiscuit I hope my post allowed you 4 or 5 handfulls of that good popcorn!

 

[dodge man]

I have to add about JD and Yanmar. Yanmar no longer makes tractors for JD but does supply the engines on their smaller tractors.

 

[crashz]

I think you are going about shopping in the right order of size then brand. But do consider that you'll regret too small very quickly. And sitting on the computer thinking "I can just bundle up for the hour of plowing I need to do" is easy. When its raining and you need to clear a foot of snow off before it freezes is when you'll say "those guys were right about the cab!!"

Honestly - most folks here don't mind spending your money, but what they really want to do is help you make the best choice based on their experiences and failures. I wouldn't have said the comment above unless I got sick from plowing snow in the cold rain.

I would suggest this as well: Spend the premium for the Kubota or Deere in the size you choose. One for the availability of parts and two resale. You'll want that resale when you trade it in the for the bigger cab tractor!

 

[IndyJay]

"I'm mostly interested in looking beyond brand prestige/favoritism and simply finding the best value available."

You might want to look at Kioti then. I compared specs, looked at and drove Kubota, Massey, and Deere in the 35 to 60 HP range, several models of each. After reading reviews, I wound up buying a Kioti DK4510. Pretty much matched or exceeded specs for the L4701 and 1850M but was ~$10K cheaper than the others. I was able to load up options and still beat the base price of the others.

As far as dealers, the Deere dealer was closest, Massey the farthest, Kubota and Kioti were about the same distance in between the other two.

 

[airbiscuit]

Times 2 on Kioti

 

[RVL]

Too funny! I’m in the same area and actually looked at your house when it came on the market earlier this year! I’m certainly no expert, but I think the previous owner was on the right track with the NH they had sitting there. I took a look at one of my mapping apps because the place we ended up buying has ~500’ of driveway and I remember yours being a lot longer. I’m coming up with more like 1100’ feet of driveway for your place, which is quite a bit.

Whatever you end up doing, if you buy new definitely hit a few dealers. I was looking at NH and Kubota and was leaning toward a NH Workmaster 75 because the first Kubota dealer I spoke to just quoted me straight MSRP for everything and it would have been at least a 3-month wait for anything I ordered. Tried another Kubota dealer and ended up buying an M4 that was on the lot for close to $10K under MSRP.

 

[redman135]

1 point nobdy has made, as your experiance increases, you ALWAYS get mission creep.
2nd these little tractors are tippy. Look at adjuustable rear rims, spacers, or dual wheel options for when you do trail work.
Good Luck