Newbie: Grand L-30 or TLB L-39 at the farm?

[Gadgetnut]

Hello, everyone. I am a new member of TBN and am looking for advice on a tractor purchase, and I would appreciate your input. I have recently purchased thirty five acres in western Washington state (rains a lot here.) I have never owned a tractor and have had little experience with land mangement, but I'm looking forward to the experience of learning.

My new property includes an eight acre pond, with a six foot wide grassy pedestrian path encircling the lake between the water and the woods. The rest of property has meadows and heavy, thick woods and, on one side, a fairly steep hill. I am planning to purchase equipment now to help me maintain and enhance a park-like setting at this property, and in the future I would like to develop new paths, trails, roads, etc., including roads through the woods and up the hill to the ridgeline for a view. Future plans here might include a substantial new horticultural endeavor. Meanwhile I also imagine digging trenches, sweeping/blowing a long asphalt driveway, clearing fallen trees, and catching up after years of neglect with a lot of tall grass and woody bushes needing to be removed. Another large job is cleaning up the some of the edges of the pond, which have become impenetrable due to an eight foot thick wall of weeds and cattails.

(At my last suburan home, I watched my lawn service use Walker mowers very successfully for years. My new property has about five acres of mowed grass-- I plan to expand the mowed area-- and been recently mowed with bagging the grass clippings, and I am strongly inclined to bag the clippings. So I am considering the purchase of a dedicated Walker mower, with Kubota diesel engine, and possibly their wood chipper implement- for care of lawns and paths.)

I have a nearby, well-established Kubota dealer. I am a big guy, 6'3", 250 pounds. Regarding tractor, I was thinking along lines of Kubota Grand GL3830 with FEL and BH-90. Couple questions. Is November a poor time to buy new tractor (last year's model?) Would you expect more than 10% off retail? Are there any new 2006 features coming to the model I should consider holding out till next Spring? Recommended options/configuration/tires? I thought about asking the dealer to weld chain hooks onto the bucket.

Last weekend my neighbor brought his excavator over and moved a fallen tree for me. I'd love to have a hydraulic thumb on the BH.... can you get a thumb with a tractor-based BH? What's the performance difference between a GL3830 with quick attach FEL and BH-90 and the TLB L-39? Is the TLB L-39 much less versatile for general "around the farm" use? Could you drop the backhoe and pull a brush hog with L-39? When it comes time, at resale how do GL3830 and TLB L-39 compare?

Thank you for your input. Best from Gadget

 

[_RaT_]

If you are not mowing, then the versatility becomes less of a factor which in my opinion would have to given to the L30 models over the L39 simply because they have a removeable loader which makes mowing much easier with less bounce and compaction. If you really plan to do a bunch of trenching, would enjoy doing it yourself, the L39 would be tough to beat unless you purchased a mini excavator. You have to decide if digging the trenches is not going to be spread over a large time frame and how wide will the trenches be. For fast trenching, renting a trencher is much faster. If you have a bunch of trenching and need wide trenches and have a plan, hire it out, it will cost far less. If you simply want the convenience of having a hoe to do it at your leisure, the L 39 would work well. I had the Kubota L48 and dropped down to a L3830 HST. For my mowing needs, no need for a hoe and the ability to quickly remove the loader, it was easily the right choice. Resale on both models will be similar. There is rarely any difference between models from year to year. I have yet to sell a tractor and have someone ask what year it is. The 2005 L39 is identical to one sold in 2006 and in all likelyhood may well have been built in 2005 anyway. Same applies to the L30's If a bunch of hoe and loader work is in your plans, the L39 would be my choice. If, mowing, a front PTO driven broom, and loader work is your desire, I'd go with the L30 model. You will also save a considerable amount of money going with a L30. The L39 and L3830 have the same engine.

 

[MarkV]

Gadget, welcome to the forum and congratulations on the new property. Sounds like you found yourself a nice place.

I’ll try to answer a few of the questions you had. As Rat said I would not worry about the model year on a tractor purchase to much. Both of the tractors you are considering do not have any changes scheduled for 2006. The L39 is a new model and I would not expect any changes for some years. The discount off retail varies considerably in different parts of the country. From following the forum I would say that 0 to 15% off is what you see most often. Ten percent would be good for many parts of the country.

Configuration of the tractor is where you are going to have to spend your research time. Do searches on the forum and you will find hours of reading. Transmission choice is a big one for the tractors you are considering. The L39 is only available with the Glide Shift Transmission while the 3830 is available with the Hydrostatic, the Glide Shift and a straight gear model transmission. There are advantages to all of them and it is discussed regularly here. You need to go and operate both to see what your preference is. If you find yourself drawn to the HST transmission the L39 is off your short list.

Hydraulic thumbs are sure nice and I would love to have one. It can be put on either of the tractors you are looking at but it is pricey. I would expect at least 2k by the time you add the extra hydraulics and the thumb. A fixed thumb can be done for about a quarter of that price. Performance comparisons can be difficult. Keep in mind that the L39 is a commercial unit designed to with stand all day use in commercial settings. Its performance specs will be better than the 3830 on most all fronts and darn well should be when you compare the prices on the two. One of the unique aspects of the Kubota TLB’s is their ability to remove the backhoe, easily, and use 3pt PTO implements for around the farm use. Both tractors are able to use all the same implements. The 3830 has a removable loader, which is helpful for some applications, the L39 does not. Compact tractors in general hold their value much, much better than automobiles so resale is not much of an issue. Besides that, once you get one you will not want to sell it and they last for many years.

You mentioned that your access around the lake was 6’ wide. Both of the tractors you are looking at will be about that width. If you can not increase the access width you might even want to look at the “B” series tractors. Enjoy the shopping experience. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Good luck,
MarkV

 

[Gadgetnut]

RaT and Mark, thank you for the welcome and the input. I'm seeing that model year in tractors is not the big deal it is in Cars and RV's. A removable FEL is a feature I think I would like to have, as is HST transmission. Since I made the first post, I came across OrangeAlex's new L3130 HST with 723 FEL with Quick Attach and Grapple and heavier tires and I think that could be a really good fit.

Good point, Mark, about the narrowness of the pedestrian path... at some points the path does narrow to about five feet. I could definitely widen it but I'd like to try to leave it as is, because it is picturesque. I plan to mow/vacuum that with the Walker mower+chipper (48" mower). I'll also be able to drive a utility vehicle around that path.

Can you tell me the usefulness of the rear remote hydraulic valves and how many of them you would like to have? And do PTO-powered log splitters work well or do people prefer a log splitter with its own gas engine? Thanks. Gadget

 

[odleefs]

<font color="green"> thirty five acres in western Washington state (rains a lot here.) </font>
With all of that rain, have you considered a cab model or the availability of an aftermarket cab? Just a thought.
Steve

 

[MarkV]

Gadget, rear remotes are used for any number of implements and pretty much a standard on a farm tractor. On the forum many members have added remotes to run a Top n’ Tilt system for their 3pt hitch. This replaces the top link and one side link with hydraulic cylinders so they can lengthen or shorten them on the go. Very helpful with a box blade to adjust the aggressiveness of the cut or angle of the box. Most people go with 3 remotes and the Kubota system cost about $1000.

I’ve never used a PTO splitter but do have a splitter that runs off the tractor hydraulics. It is a little slow on the cycle times but that depends on the hydraulic flow the tractor has to offer. Some prefer a stand alone splitter for faster cycle times and so the tractor is free to move wood around. I have two tractors and am also pretty slow so those are not issues in my situation.

MarkV

 

[Gadgetnut]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( <font color="green"> thirty five acres in western Washington state (rains a lot here.) </font>
With all of that rain, have you considered a cab model or the availability of an aftermarket cab? Just a thought.
Steve )</font>

Good point, Steve. I read some comments that sounded like Kubota cab option is incompatible with BH-90. Is that true? If you get Kubota cab, won't work with Kubota BH? If not Kubota BH, what other backhoe?

 

[cheesehead]

I'm new enough at the tractor side of this to leave those questions to forum veterans, but I can provide some assistance on the log splitter. Most of the tractor splitters (PTO or hydraulic lines) are 20 ton and horizontal splitters. This will be OK if you have easy splitting wood that isn't too large. Down here we have live oak trees that use every bit of the 26 ton log splitter I have and I've also stuck the wedge in some logs as it ran out of force! If you have a vertical splitting capability you can use it to split at ground level to avoid lifting the heavy stuff. Remember that if the splitter is on the back of your tractor, it isn't available to lift larger logs (a 12" long x 32" around section of live oak is over 200 pounds). Another consideration is operating hours on the tractor. If you have a lot of wood to split, the maintenance cost per hour (let alone the depreciation of the tractor) is much higher running the tractor engine. We spent 13 hours this weekend splitting 1 1/4 cords of wood. Lastly, I like having the tractor bucket available at the splitter to bring and hold the unsplit logs for me. When your in the horizontal splitting position it's like have a bin of wood at the right height so you can avoid bending down for each log. My splitter has an 8 HP Honda and it burned 5 gallons of gas this weekend.

 

[SkyPup]

We've got a L-39TLB AND a L-3130 LA723 @ our farm, take a look at my photo section to see some of what we do with them, they are a great hard working team that compliment each other. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[SkyPup]

We've got a 30 ton 13HP Honda with a 5" Prince hydraulic cylinder for our live oak, it is the most tenacious wood you can get ahold of, a 40 ton splitter would not be too much for it, but it sure does burn good and slow!