Buying Advice New/First Tractor Purchase Tennessee 18.5 Acres

[nybirdman]

From what it sounds like this, this person is not a "food plotter" from his original post ( please see below ). It sounds like this will be a small commercial operation. He will be actively working his property and not running a no till drill over it once a year for a food plot. I'd guess this person will easily put a couple hundred hours on a machine a year. Like I said before, If I were him I don't think I'd consider a hydrostatic tractor to perform these kinds of tasks. From what I have read and heard, ( please correct me if I am wrong ) the hydrostat fluid gets very hot if they are worked too hard. I'd don't see too many 8 and 9 series hydrostatic John Deere tractors.
""" The point I was trying to make was that his intended work is "similar"to what a food-plotter may do;I.E.,run a bottom plow,tiller ,disc and bush hog;not tilling hundreds of acres with an Ag type tractor.
Do HST tractors heat up;of course ,but are designed to do so.For a new operator and loader work an HST tractor is the way to go IMHO.

 

[snackworth]

From what it sounds like this, this person is not a "food plotter" from his original post ( please see below ). It sounds like this will be a small commercial operation. He will be actively working his property and not running a no till drill over it once a year for a food plot. I'd guess this person will easily put a couple hundred hours on a machine a year. Like I said before, If I were him I don't think I'd consider a hydrostatic tractor to perform these kinds of tasks. From what I have read and heard, ( please correct me if I am wrong ) the hydrostat fluid gets very hot if they are worked too hard. I'd don't see too many 8 and 9 series hydrostatic John Deere tractors.
""" The point I was trying to make was that his intended work is "similar"to what a food-plotter may do;I.E.,run a bottom plow,tiller ,disc and bush hog;not tilling hundreds of acres with an Ag type tractor.
Do HST tractors heat up;of course ,but are designed to do so.For a new operator and loader work an HST tractor is the way to go IMHO.

to what a food-plotter may do;I.E.,run a bottom plow,tiller ,disc and bush hog

This is what we will be using it for.

 

[inode]

Snackworth, I live and TN and have a 93 acre farm outside of Crossville. I just purchased a Kubota M7060HD12 from Plateau Kubota in Crossville. I checked with all of the dealers in Nashville and surrounding area. They were not competitive on pricing and Crossville's Kubota dealer was the most reasonable. If you're OK wtih buying new sight unseen, I would seriously consider Barlow Kubota in KY. They will deliver and they had the best prices of them all. I did go with Kubota's KTAC insurance and also got 0% financing. KTAC offered better coverage than my home/car insurance which was the reason for going with them.

On the subject of hydro vs. gears/shuttle, I have used both. There is no denying that hydro is premier when doing lots of loader work. However, it comes at a price of reduction of HP from crank to the ground. Feature on the M7060 I wanted were ePTO and maintaining RPM over hills. My father-in-law's hydro John Deere would drive me nuts losing RPM going up hills when bush hogging. However, I feel there's more to keep up with in a shuttle when doing bucket work. I.E. Do I use the clutch to ease into the load or select a slower gear? When getting into a tight spot, do I clutch or stop and change gears? That's my $,02.

Best advice is be honest with yourself on needs and go test drive a few tractors. You'll figure out what you need.

 

[inode]

Snackworth, I live and TN and have a 93 acre farm outside of Crossville. I just purchased a Kubota M7060HD12 from Plateau Kubota in Crossville. I checked with all of the dealers in Nashville and surrounding area. They were not competitive on pricing and Crossville's Kubota dealer was the most reasonable. If you're OK wtih buying new sight unseen, I would seriously consider Barlow Kubota in KY. They will deliver and they had the best prices of them all. I did go with Kubota's KTAC insurance and also got 0% financing. KTAC offered better coverage than my home/car insurance which was the reason for going with them.

On the subject of hydro vs. gears/shuttle, I have used both. There is no denying that hydro is premier when doing lots of loader work. However, it comes at a price of reduction of HP from crank to the ground. Feature on the M7060 I wanted were ePTO and maintaining RPM over hills. My father-in-law's hydro John Deere would drive me nuts losing RPM going up hills when bush hogging. However, I feel there's more to keep up with in a shuttle when doing bucket work. I.E. Do I use the clutch to ease into the load or select a slower gear? When getting into a tight spot, do I clutch or stop and change gears? That's my $,02.

Best advice is be honest with yourself on needs and go test drive a few tractors. You'll figure out what you need.

 

[V53]

If you like Yanmar, Tennessee Tractor Sales in Knoxville.

You can get a YT359C for 38,000. It should handle all of your task.

 

[ericm979]

The new Yanmars have a neat design twist to the HST that makes it more efficient when pulling.

If you're losing rpm on an HST tractor when going up hill you need to let off the HST pedal. That lowers the gear ratio. It's counter-intuitive. If the tractor also has auto throttle you may need to use the manual throttle to keep the rpms up. I do on my Branson where the auto throttle is a simple mechanical linkage, an electronic one might be smarter.

A normal HST loses 10-15% of the power run through it. You can get an HST tractor with 15% more engine hp to have the same pulling power as a gear tractor.

HST fluid does get hot but that's what the oil cooler is for.