Clint8038
New member
New Kubota L2501 HST
Hello, I’ve been reading this forum for over a year now, but this is my first post.
I retired last year and moved to New Mexico to care for my elderly parents. We have about 31/2 acres total, with a 2 acre irrigated field in southwest N.M. My dad was disabled by health problems and was unable to work the field the past couple of years before he passed, so a neighbor planted it and used it as pasture for his horses. This summer will be the first time I’ve ever farmed anything. Dad grew up on a farm, had a degree in industrial manufacturing and loved rebuilding and using old farm equipment and stationary engines, so there is quite a bit of equipment here in his 80’x80’ shed. He only had our small field, but would work on neighbors farms for free just to operate his equipment. Created a lot of good will that has made my new life here a whole lot easier with neighbors offering to help me with things I don’t know how to do. He left a old Case gasoline engine tractor that he called a wheat land tractor. It is short and squat, heavy, all motor and transmission, and pulls the 7’ disc as fast as you want to drive it, without even working hard. A Farmall H, a Ford Jubilee, a few old John Deeres, a couple of smaller Cases and a old Allis Chalmers. Also some old plows and equipment for tractors without 3point hitches. The only one with a three point hitch is the Jubilee. I figured I had enough stuff to do the heavy dirt work like plowing or discing but wanted something modern and more hassle free for the lighter tasks. Neighbors on all sides have offered to do the plowing, discing, and rowing for free, but I miss dirt work and want to learn how to do it myself.
I decided not to buy anything the first year while I figured out what I needed. I had originally wanted to buy a BCS or Grillo 2 wheel tractor and use that, but when I started adding up the cost of the tractor and attachments I wasn’t sure that would be my best course of action. So for the first year I used my push mower, and a 2 wheel string trimmer to cut the weeds and grass. I used a shovel and wheelbarrow if I needed to dig or move dirt, and my Sawzall and a grubbing hoe for anything that couldn’t handle. As long as I worked a couple of hours a day it wasn’t too hard to keep up, and I lost 40 pounds, but it was a lot of work. At the county fair last fall there was a tractor dealer with a display of TYM and LS tractors with front end loaders, and I dang near bought one on the spot. I knew they would be a whole lot better than a 2 wheel tractor for the work I was doing. I calmed down and decided to research small tractors, and that is how I found this site.
After talking with the LS dealer I knew I wanted to stay under 25 hp to avoid the tier 4 emissions. And I knew that I wanted the largest tractor possible in that hp range. I narrowed my search down to the LS XG3025, the Kioti CK2610, and the Kubota L2501. Everything I read suggested that they would all be great tractors. It was the distance to and number of dealerships that helped me decide on the Kubota. The Kubota dealer was 150 miles away, and Kubota has great online support for parts. The nearest LS dealer is 200 miles away, and several hundred miles farther to the next one, and the Kioti dealers were all close to 300 miles away, which meant 1200 total miles of travel if I had to return one to the dealer for warranty issues, and then drive back to pick it up. Plus, out here, Kubotas are held in high regard and have a high resale value. So off to the Kubota dealer I went. I prefer to deal locally, but after researching prices, I was prepared to go to Oklahoma or Texas if I couldn’t get a reasonable deal. According to all I’ve read here I got a middle of the road price, and I’m satisfied with the deal I made. I could have bought it cheaper farther east, but there were a couple of things that sold me on the local dealership. The first is that I brought him an advertisement for a used MX5100 that was for sale and asked if the thought it was a good deal. He said that it was a really good price for that tractor. It had warranty remaining and I asked if he would have issues doing warranty work on a used tractor that I didn’t buy from him. He said “No problem at all.” The other thing is that all the salesmen at this dealership were mechanics first, and then moved to the sales floor. I watched as another salesman brought in a trailer that had burned up an axle bearing, and my salesman jumped right in and got his hands greasy diagnosing the problem. That impressed me quite a bit, and helped me to feel better about buying from this dealership.
My tractor was ordered from them December 10th, and delivered January 9th. It is a Kubota L2501 HST, filled ag tires with the rears set to the widest position, canopy, 3 rear remotes, 3rd function valve, 3 sets of rear wheel weights, Land Pride BB1266 box blade, quick attach bucket, top-n-tilt kit, cruise control, telescopic stabilizers, bucket level indicator, BH77 backhoe with 16 bucket and thumb, and the filters and Super UDT2 for the first 2 services. Total price including 4.5% ag tax was $32,595.93 cash. I do think that the MX series is a better bargain. I could have got pretty much the same package in a MX5800 for about $10,000 more, and got a lot more tractor, but the salesman told me that although he would be more than happy to sell me one he didn’t think I needed it for my use. After 3 months, I have to agree that he was right. I do know that if I was stepping up to a tier 4 tractor I would get enough hp and tractor to make it worth it. And I think the MX series is the best bargain in Kubota’s tractor line up. One thing I might do differently if I had to do it again is to forgo the backhoe, and get Kubota’s smallest mini excavator instead. Subtract the price of the backhoe from the mini ex and it wouldn’t be a whole lot more. Just a thought.
After I had the tractor ordered I ordered the attachments I thought would be useful. I love reading the attachment reviews on this site and tried to get the most useful and best for my money. I ordered a WoodMaxx WM8H chipper, a WoodMaxx FM62 flail mower, Everything Attachments lightweight pallet forks, a Piranha tooth bar, and a Everything Attachments 50” grapple. I love the chipper. I had neglected trimming trees and clearing brush because it was such a pain to haul to the dump, and much of the year burning is out because of fire hazard. With the chipper I have been able to clear my irrigation ditch and do much needed pruning on my schedule, instead of hurrying to return a rental. With my L2501 it will chip 5” soft green wood like elm with no problem. Anything bigger gets cut for firewood. I do have to stop the feed with hardwood that size and let the tractor speed back up. I can certainly see why someone would want a L3901 if they were going to be using the pto a lot. I am so glad I got the chipper with the hydraulic feed. The pallet forks work as expected and are useful. I have lifted a few things right at the edge of the loaders capacity and am glad they are not any heavier. I haven’t used the flail mower yet. The grapple is handy, but I wish I would have bought the root rake 55” grapple instead. I wanted the long bottom grapple because it looked so cool, but in reality the root rake type would work better for my needs. Oh, and the Piranha tooth bar works awesome, really good for digging into grass and pulling out weeds.
On to my review of the tractor. I love it, but there are a few things that are simply so chintzy and poorly engineered that they really make a bad first impression. 1st, no hand hold on the right side fender, although the holes are drilled for one. 2nd, the rear remotes mounting bracket and lines. The fittings are all the same length, so when you angle the hoses to the hydraulic valve body they run into each other and are hard to manage. For maybe 2 or $3 they could have lengthened the fittings so that the lines would clear each other. 3rd, the hydraulic remotes mounting bracket. Seriously Kubota, at around $1000 a remote you could have had a first year apprentice design a better bracket and hose routing than the Rube Goldberg design you have now. My suggestion is to fire the engineer who designed it and demote the supervisors or managers who checked off on that poorly engineered piece of crap. Also, with the mass buying power of Kubota, you’d think they could spend a couple of bucks extra and spec hydraulic valves and cylinders that don’t leak down like the el cheapo ones they sell with their remote and top-n-tilt kits. Oh, and while I’m on the subject how about a longer pin for attaching the tilt cylinder to the 3 point hitch arms. The one supplied was too short. There is a lot of room for improvement here. The backhoe operating platform is also extremely cramped, and the levers are too short. To me it seems like Kubota has stopped taking pride in their engineering and that bean counters are running the company. Maybe they could poach someone from Honda or Toyota. Considering the money I paid I’m way less than satisfied with the quality delivered. Honestly, Kubota should be embarrassed. The rest of the tractor seems well designed and built. On the other hand, the dealer and my salesman have been great. The salesman drove 150 miles each way to install my bucket level kit that had been misplaced when the tractor was delivered. On to the tractor. I am so glad I got the HST transmission. Makes loader work and hooking up implements so much easier. Also glad I got the ag tires. That was one of the hardest decisions when ordering. I know they are not as rugged or puncture resistant, but I love the traction. I was in mud the other day and would have been spinning with R4s but hooked right up with the ags. Almost all of my driving is on loose dirt, and I am very happy with them so far. The tractor is a hoot to operate. It has plenty of power to move dirt and run the backhoe. I am a retired heavy equipment operator with about 70,000 hours of experience, probably 40,000 hours on loaders, 20,000 hours on dozers, mostly D8-D10 size, and a few thousand hours on other equipment and ground work, most in high productivity environments where all aspects of your performance were measured, so I would like to believe I have at least a basic understanding of how to move dirt. I have been impressed with the capabilities of this little tractor. I’ve only powered it out once, and that was trying to dig out a stump when I had the chipper on the back and perfect traction. Otherwise it has enough power to do anything I have wanted it to do, although if I was running a mower on hilly country I might want more snort. But for my needs it is more than enough. I debated getting the backhoe, but just the other day dug a 20’ trench 5’deep for a drainage pipe, and was so glad I didn稚 have to do it by hand. I don’t use the backhoe a lot, but so far it sure has come in handy when I’ve needed it, and I don’t have to drive an hour to the rental yard. We had a 40 foot culvert installed in our irrigation ditch that needed about 120 yards of material to backfill it, and I was able to keep up with the 45 minute round trips of the end dump hauling 20 yards at a time. I had to hustle, and I was just getting used to operating the tractor so I wasn’t fully up to speed operating the loader yet, but it handled it well and I had a blast backfilling and grading it. Was even offered a job.
In summary, the L2501 is a great little tractor, but is let down some by the poorly engineered accessories that Kubota sells with it. I didn’t want to make this mini novel is too long or too negative for this forum, but I wanted to give input for anyone who might be making the same decisions I was. I encourage those looking for a tractor to spend a few hours searching and reading this forum. It really helped a lot, and it is a good feeling knowing you are getting the best value for your dollar and making educated decisions.
Thanks for all the help and advice found here. It is a really good site.
Hello, I’ve been reading this forum for over a year now, but this is my first post.
I retired last year and moved to New Mexico to care for my elderly parents. We have about 31/2 acres total, with a 2 acre irrigated field in southwest N.M. My dad was disabled by health problems and was unable to work the field the past couple of years before he passed, so a neighbor planted it and used it as pasture for his horses. This summer will be the first time I’ve ever farmed anything. Dad grew up on a farm, had a degree in industrial manufacturing and loved rebuilding and using old farm equipment and stationary engines, so there is quite a bit of equipment here in his 80’x80’ shed. He only had our small field, but would work on neighbors farms for free just to operate his equipment. Created a lot of good will that has made my new life here a whole lot easier with neighbors offering to help me with things I don’t know how to do. He left a old Case gasoline engine tractor that he called a wheat land tractor. It is short and squat, heavy, all motor and transmission, and pulls the 7’ disc as fast as you want to drive it, without even working hard. A Farmall H, a Ford Jubilee, a few old John Deeres, a couple of smaller Cases and a old Allis Chalmers. Also some old plows and equipment for tractors without 3point hitches. The only one with a three point hitch is the Jubilee. I figured I had enough stuff to do the heavy dirt work like plowing or discing but wanted something modern and more hassle free for the lighter tasks. Neighbors on all sides have offered to do the plowing, discing, and rowing for free, but I miss dirt work and want to learn how to do it myself.
I decided not to buy anything the first year while I figured out what I needed. I had originally wanted to buy a BCS or Grillo 2 wheel tractor and use that, but when I started adding up the cost of the tractor and attachments I wasn’t sure that would be my best course of action. So for the first year I used my push mower, and a 2 wheel string trimmer to cut the weeds and grass. I used a shovel and wheelbarrow if I needed to dig or move dirt, and my Sawzall and a grubbing hoe for anything that couldn’t handle. As long as I worked a couple of hours a day it wasn’t too hard to keep up, and I lost 40 pounds, but it was a lot of work. At the county fair last fall there was a tractor dealer with a display of TYM and LS tractors with front end loaders, and I dang near bought one on the spot. I knew they would be a whole lot better than a 2 wheel tractor for the work I was doing. I calmed down and decided to research small tractors, and that is how I found this site.
After talking with the LS dealer I knew I wanted to stay under 25 hp to avoid the tier 4 emissions. And I knew that I wanted the largest tractor possible in that hp range. I narrowed my search down to the LS XG3025, the Kioti CK2610, and the Kubota L2501. Everything I read suggested that they would all be great tractors. It was the distance to and number of dealerships that helped me decide on the Kubota. The Kubota dealer was 150 miles away, and Kubota has great online support for parts. The nearest LS dealer is 200 miles away, and several hundred miles farther to the next one, and the Kioti dealers were all close to 300 miles away, which meant 1200 total miles of travel if I had to return one to the dealer for warranty issues, and then drive back to pick it up. Plus, out here, Kubotas are held in high regard and have a high resale value. So off to the Kubota dealer I went. I prefer to deal locally, but after researching prices, I was prepared to go to Oklahoma or Texas if I couldn’t get a reasonable deal. According to all I’ve read here I got a middle of the road price, and I’m satisfied with the deal I made. I could have bought it cheaper farther east, but there were a couple of things that sold me on the local dealership. The first is that I brought him an advertisement for a used MX5100 that was for sale and asked if the thought it was a good deal. He said that it was a really good price for that tractor. It had warranty remaining and I asked if he would have issues doing warranty work on a used tractor that I didn’t buy from him. He said “No problem at all.” The other thing is that all the salesmen at this dealership were mechanics first, and then moved to the sales floor. I watched as another salesman brought in a trailer that had burned up an axle bearing, and my salesman jumped right in and got his hands greasy diagnosing the problem. That impressed me quite a bit, and helped me to feel better about buying from this dealership.
My tractor was ordered from them December 10th, and delivered January 9th. It is a Kubota L2501 HST, filled ag tires with the rears set to the widest position, canopy, 3 rear remotes, 3rd function valve, 3 sets of rear wheel weights, Land Pride BB1266 box blade, quick attach bucket, top-n-tilt kit, cruise control, telescopic stabilizers, bucket level indicator, BH77 backhoe with 16 bucket and thumb, and the filters and Super UDT2 for the first 2 services. Total price including 4.5% ag tax was $32,595.93 cash. I do think that the MX series is a better bargain. I could have got pretty much the same package in a MX5800 for about $10,000 more, and got a lot more tractor, but the salesman told me that although he would be more than happy to sell me one he didn’t think I needed it for my use. After 3 months, I have to agree that he was right. I do know that if I was stepping up to a tier 4 tractor I would get enough hp and tractor to make it worth it. And I think the MX series is the best bargain in Kubota’s tractor line up. One thing I might do differently if I had to do it again is to forgo the backhoe, and get Kubota’s smallest mini excavator instead. Subtract the price of the backhoe from the mini ex and it wouldn’t be a whole lot more. Just a thought.
After I had the tractor ordered I ordered the attachments I thought would be useful. I love reading the attachment reviews on this site and tried to get the most useful and best for my money. I ordered a WoodMaxx WM8H chipper, a WoodMaxx FM62 flail mower, Everything Attachments lightweight pallet forks, a Piranha tooth bar, and a Everything Attachments 50” grapple. I love the chipper. I had neglected trimming trees and clearing brush because it was such a pain to haul to the dump, and much of the year burning is out because of fire hazard. With the chipper I have been able to clear my irrigation ditch and do much needed pruning on my schedule, instead of hurrying to return a rental. With my L2501 it will chip 5” soft green wood like elm with no problem. Anything bigger gets cut for firewood. I do have to stop the feed with hardwood that size and let the tractor speed back up. I can certainly see why someone would want a L3901 if they were going to be using the pto a lot. I am so glad I got the chipper with the hydraulic feed. The pallet forks work as expected and are useful. I have lifted a few things right at the edge of the loaders capacity and am glad they are not any heavier. I haven’t used the flail mower yet. The grapple is handy, but I wish I would have bought the root rake 55” grapple instead. I wanted the long bottom grapple because it looked so cool, but in reality the root rake type would work better for my needs. Oh, and the Piranha tooth bar works awesome, really good for digging into grass and pulling out weeds.
On to my review of the tractor. I love it, but there are a few things that are simply so chintzy and poorly engineered that they really make a bad first impression. 1st, no hand hold on the right side fender, although the holes are drilled for one. 2nd, the rear remotes mounting bracket and lines. The fittings are all the same length, so when you angle the hoses to the hydraulic valve body they run into each other and are hard to manage. For maybe 2 or $3 they could have lengthened the fittings so that the lines would clear each other. 3rd, the hydraulic remotes mounting bracket. Seriously Kubota, at around $1000 a remote you could have had a first year apprentice design a better bracket and hose routing than the Rube Goldberg design you have now. My suggestion is to fire the engineer who designed it and demote the supervisors or managers who checked off on that poorly engineered piece of crap. Also, with the mass buying power of Kubota, you’d think they could spend a couple of bucks extra and spec hydraulic valves and cylinders that don’t leak down like the el cheapo ones they sell with their remote and top-n-tilt kits. Oh, and while I’m on the subject how about a longer pin for attaching the tilt cylinder to the 3 point hitch arms. The one supplied was too short. There is a lot of room for improvement here. The backhoe operating platform is also extremely cramped, and the levers are too short. To me it seems like Kubota has stopped taking pride in their engineering and that bean counters are running the company. Maybe they could poach someone from Honda or Toyota. Considering the money I paid I’m way less than satisfied with the quality delivered. Honestly, Kubota should be embarrassed. The rest of the tractor seems well designed and built. On the other hand, the dealer and my salesman have been great. The salesman drove 150 miles each way to install my bucket level kit that had been misplaced when the tractor was delivered. On to the tractor. I am so glad I got the HST transmission. Makes loader work and hooking up implements so much easier. Also glad I got the ag tires. That was one of the hardest decisions when ordering. I know they are not as rugged or puncture resistant, but I love the traction. I was in mud the other day and would have been spinning with R4s but hooked right up with the ags. Almost all of my driving is on loose dirt, and I am very happy with them so far. The tractor is a hoot to operate. It has plenty of power to move dirt and run the backhoe. I am a retired heavy equipment operator with about 70,000 hours of experience, probably 40,000 hours on loaders, 20,000 hours on dozers, mostly D8-D10 size, and a few thousand hours on other equipment and ground work, most in high productivity environments where all aspects of your performance were measured, so I would like to believe I have at least a basic understanding of how to move dirt. I have been impressed with the capabilities of this little tractor. I’ve only powered it out once, and that was trying to dig out a stump when I had the chipper on the back and perfect traction. Otherwise it has enough power to do anything I have wanted it to do, although if I was running a mower on hilly country I might want more snort. But for my needs it is more than enough. I debated getting the backhoe, but just the other day dug a 20’ trench 5’deep for a drainage pipe, and was so glad I didn稚 have to do it by hand. I don’t use the backhoe a lot, but so far it sure has come in handy when I’ve needed it, and I don’t have to drive an hour to the rental yard. We had a 40 foot culvert installed in our irrigation ditch that needed about 120 yards of material to backfill it, and I was able to keep up with the 45 minute round trips of the end dump hauling 20 yards at a time. I had to hustle, and I was just getting used to operating the tractor so I wasn’t fully up to speed operating the loader yet, but it handled it well and I had a blast backfilling and grading it. Was even offered a job.
In summary, the L2501 is a great little tractor, but is let down some by the poorly engineered accessories that Kubota sells with it. I didn’t want to make this mini novel is too long or too negative for this forum, but I wanted to give input for anyone who might be making the same decisions I was. I encourage those looking for a tractor to spend a few hours searching and reading this forum. It really helped a lot, and it is a good feeling knowing you are getting the best value for your dollar and making educated decisions.
Thanks for all the help and advice found here. It is a really good site.
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