New Tractor for buyer new to tractors

[JeepHead]

Quick question. Looks like the L2502 has lower engine HP and lower PTO HP than the B2601. Why choose a lower powered tractor?

What you should look at is the size of the engine. The B2601 has the D1105 1.1 liter engine producing 53.4 pounds of torque verses the much larger 2502 1.6 liter D1703 engine that produces 71 pounds of torque. Something that is noteworthy is that the D1703 engine was designed to be a 35HP engine and has been used in the 35 HP tractors dating back many years. They put the D1703 in the 2501 and detuned it to get under the 25HP emissions threshold. You have a ton of guys who are changing the timing back and increasing the fuel, returning these engines back to the 35HP they were designed to be. The engine in the 2502 is a much more capable engine than the B2601, and the tractor is larger and heavier and will be considerably more capable. My 2502 is an absolute tank...

 

[John_Mc]

A local friend and colleague has 50 acres and says I would be crazy to go less than an L4802 or L4760. That seems like a huge leap when I started thinking a BX or B2601 might suffice. I agree that the Bx is too small but I only have 12 acres....
Thoughts?

Unless you are buying it to do more significant logging, grading, or mowing large areas, an L4802 or L4760 seems like overkill to me for 12 acres. You've already said you are contracting out that sort of work. If I were in your shoes and dealing with 10-15 acres, I might be considering something up to as large as an L3301/L3302 or the equivalent in some other brand. If budget were a limitation, I’d go a size smaller. If I was more interested in saving time than in saving money, I might consider larger, especially if I were contemplating heavier work in the future, such as regularly mowing large areas or getting in to small scale logging or regularly using it for grading larger sections of land. You mentioned contracting out larger jobs in your initial post (heavy logging or serious excavator work). Unless you plan on eventually taking on that sort of work yourself, I'm not seeing why you would need to go bigger. In the end, it's really a matter of personal preference.

I own 144 acres of my own, and another 115 acres owned jointly with 16 families in the area (only one other of whom owns a tractor). I also help out neighbors when they have storm damage clean up or need work done in their woods (one owns a sawmill, so opportunities for barter with him are great).

I have a New Holland TC33D which I bought new in 2001. This is roughly equivalent to a Kubota L3301/L3302. I do brush hogging of trails and a couple of meadows, maintain about 1/4 mile of mostly gravel driveway (mostly box blade work). A few years after I bought it, I started using it more heavily: set it up for working in the woods and do some logging and firewood harvesting. (I'm most of the way through 13 acres of crop tree release on one corner of my land.) This is much more than just occasionally clearing a downed tree off a trail or harvesting my 3 cords of firewood a year. This has really pushed my tractor to the limits, and I've sometimes debated trading up to a larger tractor.
If I were starting over, were 25 years younger (as I was when I bought this tractor), and doing what I do now, I would be looking at an L4802 or an MX5400 (or equivalent in other brands). I'm not really a fan of all the "extras" on the "60" series, such as the L4760, but that's just a matter of personal preference. However, I'm doing a lot more and heavier work and on a lot more land than what you have described.

As a new tractor owner, a major consideration when choosing a brand should be what dealers in my area have the best reputation for standing behind their tractors and for having a skilled, responsive, honest service department. This can be hard to judge just from a shopping visit. Talk to others in your area about their experiences with different dealers.

 

[rScotty]

Based on all the good advice I am getting, I agree that I will get more bang for the buck by skipping the expensive backhoe, and I am leaning toward an L series tractor with FEL, 3 function grapple, and a bush hog.
A local friend and colleague has 50 acres and says I would be crazy to go less than an L4802 or L4760. That seems like a huge leap when I started thinking a BX or B2601 might suffice. I agree that the Bx is too small but I only have 12 acres....
Thoughts?

Well, I agree with your friend - and aparently not so much with some of the posted opinions. We've had a few tractors...each one larger and more capable than the little BX size we started with here on our remote mountain land. BTW, our land is sloping and has two ten acre parcels. Not that the little BX size wasn't wonderful and capable. We used and loved it. But there is simply more that can be done.

An L47/48 series is larger, but still small enough to be convenient for chores. The HST+ is an amazing transmission. Sure, that increased HP may never be necessary, but the larger tractor's larger frame gives you both stability on slopes and the ability to handle a lot of weight safely. When you need to do either of those things, there is no way that a smaller tractor can do the same. As an enjoyable bonus for people who enjoy a remote rural setting, the larger tractor does at an idle what a smaller ones cannot do without being run at much higher throttle.

As for a backhoe.... there was little use for our backhoe attachment after all the holes were dug on our land, the structures built, barn rebuilt, walls raised, and the trenches built and fllled in. Except that is, for planting trees, transplantng bushes, landscaping, moving rocks, tilling the garden, some stream work, and as a crane to lift heavy things - like flat tractor tires! - into the pickup truck bed, or downed logs out of the stream. And digging a little garden pond. Also the BH is convenient for holding up slash or logs up so the chainsawer can conveniently limb and dice them up into rounds. And I've discovered the fun in using the hoe with a thumb to build rock walls.

Now you may say that those are all things that a 50 year old can do with muscle - which is true. And maybe you can lift a downed cow or such by yourself. If so, then for you that might make a BH redundant, but somewhere after my 60th bday I found myself really preferring to use the hoe instead of muscle. It made my old back begin to look forward to heavy chores instead of wishing for an option. A hoe with a thumb is just wonderful for us old guys - and my wife wishes we had gotten it sooner.

rScotty

 

[rScotty]

Kubota also makes a few TLBs.... TLBs are a lot like the Kubota tractors but are designed for pushing and loader work instead of being designed primarily for pulling work like a tractor is.
Kubota has made TLBs for a long time. The B25 spanned close to 20 years and some dealers still have them now that the B26 is out.

Being designed for a hoe means the rear of a TLB has more hydraulics and is heavier built than a tractor. In fact, the whole TLB is more heavily built than a tractor - and also more expensive. But they will do a lot with 25 hp and no emissions equipment required on the smaller B25 or B26 means they can be worked at an idle.

TLBs aren't the answer for everyone, but are popular for landscaping type work.
rScotty