If you're getting on and off your tractor a lot, and you're used to pulling it down to an idle (either by foot control or by hand throttle), getting off, doing your work, jumping back on, revving it up and moving, rinse and repeat, then you will need to change your habits. You're new idle should be much higher when doing the on/off thing.
My absolute idle is under 1,000RPM for my tractor. That's the hand throttle pulled all the way down. The ONLY time it is at that idle is when I am warming it up, or cooling it off (turbo). And that is for a few minutes or sometimes, seconds. (Yes, I did say seconds. When its 90 degrees out, it does not need to warm up at idle for more than a few seconds before bumping up RPM)
After the engine has warmed up a bit, I use the hand throttle to bump up the RPM to no less than 1500RPM. That is my new idle. The tractor does not go below that until I cool it off at the end of work. This goes for the 10 minute jobs, to the 18hr jobs.
I did have a hard time with this concept when I first got my tractor. Being a gear tractor, I would use it like an old farm tractor I used to have, when using the FEL: Hand throttle pulled all the way down at absolute idle. Use the foot throttle to raise and lower RPM while doing FEL work. I learned that this rapid change in acceleration of the engine combined with running at absolute idle, is one of the worst things you can do with a tractor equipped with a DPF (besides postponing the regen and building up too much soot, resulting in limp mode and a dealer call). I had to retrain my brain, to use the hand throttle set at 1500, and use the foot sparingly. I still get the work done, but its just different.
As I said before, it is what it is. If you dont want this EPA garbage, then you will need to find an older used tractor. You wont have the annoyances of the DPF and regen cycles, but who knows what else you will have. I guess the same could be said for a new tractor, given the issues, recalls, and warranty work on top of the annoyances a DPF brings. But at least you will know the history of the tractor first hand.
