What was your first Kubota and why?

[Carl_NH]

The first tractor I got was a 3 cylinder 15 HP Mitsubishi with an aftermarket loader - worked OK but was too small so I sold to my FIL. I was looking for a replacement in 1997 a friend said his dad was selling his Kubota. It was a 500 hour L175 DT, BT 600 3PT BH, rear scraper blade, and a 16' trailer, that I ended up bring home that day for $4500.

The L175 was outside most of its life and pretty rough, hoses cracked, dings and paint, fenders rusted out, rear wheels salt filled and had holes could see the inner tube - my wife took a look at it and said that's a sad looking tractor. I ended up stripping all the orange parts including the BH and wheels - had everything sandblasted and repainted, new hoses, rebuilt cylinders, tires, welded the leaking rear rims and put it all back together that summer of 1997.

That L175 could outlift the tractor, and the BH 3PT did a lot of work then one day in 1999 driving across the lawn the 3PT hydraulic cylinder seal went spewing oil everywhere and me too. I fixed that and decided to start looking for a replacement.

In 2000 we built the barn and the contractor wanted a tractor - so we traded - I got the barn built he got the L175 DT with BH and trailer, and I got a new B21 TLB to put in the new barn which I still have today.

 

[ultrarunner]

Was it timing or something else that enabled Kubota to capture the small tractor/loader market?

One thing that drew me to the BX23 after reading about it here is the flip seat... just like the big boys for backhoe work.

I also liked the sound of the diesel motor and the versatility in a small package... taking a little more time due to small size was still light years from wheel barrow and shovel.

Wonder if Kubota would ever make a small 350 size dozer and if it would sell?

Thinking back I'm sure it was also Kubota being approachable for a homeowner.

 

[RjCorazza]

I think Kubota was well positioned to do well in the small property homeowner due to their agricultural product line in Asia. Small walk behind machines and tough sub compacts.
I could be wrong, but other manufacturers had strictly lawn mowers with marginal abilities, or large ag machinery.

 

[ultrarunner]

I think Kubota was well positioned to do well in the small property homeowner due to their agricultural product line in Asia. Small walk behind machines and tough sub compacts.
I could be wrong, but other manufacturers had strictly lawn mowers with marginal abilities, or large ag machinery.

And those with large AG and also smaller tractors didn't seem interested the the estate tractor market... at least in my experience.

 

[czechsonofagun]

When we bought our property it came with 42" Sears lawn tractor. I spent 4 years keeping it alive, ugh! I mean it would run and all but the deck, blades, front axle - it was just dying on our land. I had to weld on it once a week. Back than I had no clue sub compact tractors exist. One day I saw a small Deere in town, it had everything tractor has but it was not much bigger than the Sears little POS. I started looking around, asking questions and I found my used B1750 in Manassas.

 

[TMGT]

When we bought our property it came with 42" Sears lawn tractor. I spent 4 years keeping it alive, ugh! I mean it would run and all but the deck, blades, front axle - it was just dying on our land. I had to weld on it once a week. Back than I had no clue sub compact tractors exist. One day I saw a small Deere in town, it had everything tractor has but it was not much bigger than the Sears little POS. I started looking around, asking questions and I found my used B1750 in Manassas.

Guessing at Byrd?

 

[nomadicgreg]

Traded some cash and firearms for a BX25D with 20 hours on it. Put about 400 more on it and sold it for even more than the initial cost.

I worked that thing hard, did things I shouldn’t have even expected it to do. I regretted selling it every time I had to do something in the yard, so last year I bought a brand new B26 and couldn’t be happier....well that’s a lie, I’ll be happier when it’s paid off

 

[BX23S-1]

Back in 1982, i bought a brand new Kubota B7100 gear tractor with the frontend loader. It had turf tires on it when i looked at it at the dealership, i wanted regular tractor tread tires, dealer put different tires on it before i bought it and they delivered it. Long story short, after several trips back to the dealer for front broken ring & pinion gear, they had the tractor at their dealership for repair longer than i had it sitting at my house. Every time you`d put it into 4WD, it would snap the ring & pinion in the frontend. So after having to deal with the tractor breaking within a day or two of them bringing it back each time, it broke the rig & pinion again, and then i gave up and told them to come get the tractor and keep it because it kept breaking down, i said never again to Kubota.

Being discouraged for a few years of buying new, kubota left a bad taste, i went to the JD dealer and bought a new 1990 JD in fall of 1989 after using up a couple of used tractors that were severely worn out an tired. I still have that same JD tractor today, and yes, i still use it. Only thing that failed on that old JD was the ignition switch and a couple gas caps. Last winter, i decided to freshen up the engine myself. The crank seal started weeping a little oil, dryed out over the years, figure it deserved to be fixed after so many years of perfect running service.

So, back to the kubota B7100, i found out a short time later, AFTER they closed that particular kubota dealership, a guy had bought the broken B7100 at the auction when they closed the dealer down. He was pretty sure he knew why it kept breaking the ring & pinion. Come to find out, he told me they had installed the wrong size tires on the frontend of the tractor. Sure enough, he was right. He still owns that B7100 to this day and its not broke the ring & pinion ever since he put the correct size tires back on the front end of it. Moral of the story, not every dealership knows what they are doing out there. They lost a customer over it back in 1982.

As our needs changed thru the years, back in 2017, my wife an i decided we really needed more tractor than the JD was able to do for our needs. So here we go again, we went shopping for a new tractor because used ones wernt much cheaper than a new one. First place we head to, the JOHN DEERE dealer, because our JD we bought back in 1989 was such a loyal tractor, we decided JD was the only tractor we should buy again. Never even gave kubota a thought. Until............... we got the quote for a new JD! HOLY CHIT!!! They gave us the JD quote, wife an i said oh heck nooooo!!!!

Month or so goes by, wife an i said, good lord, we really NEED a tractor with a FEL and BH. Well, a buddy of mine works at a kubota dealer.... wife looks at me and says, "do you really want a kubota again?". Now i had explained to her "again" what had happened with the B7100, and that it was NOT the tractors fault for what had happened, it was a lame dealer that didnt know what THEY were doing. Yup, i swallowed some JD pride, gave my buddy a call, went to the dealer he works at, we bought a brand new Kubota BX23s. We saved about $5k by buying a Kubota over what JD wanted. Sorry JD, not. The JD dealer also seemed cold to us, didnt seem like they really wanted to care about the customers needs. They didnt seem to be able to answer questions either.

Well, since 2017, this little BX23s has been the greatest little tractor. Now we have a bunch of 3 point attachments that we`ve bought since 2017. We have done soooooooooo much work with this tractor on our land, just unbelievable. We have had ZERO problems or issues with this BX23s. We`ve done a fuel filter mod on it. I just didnt care much for that tiny little go kart fuel filter that was up under the rear of the tractor. Now i have a larger cartridge filter mounted to the frame just ahead of the floor board. Our latest kubota accessory, my wife bought me a land pride box blade for christmas.

If i were shopping again for a new tractor, Kubota would be my first choice. This tractor has been perfect, and the dealership has always gone above and beyond for us. Thank you Kubota, you won our loyalty to the orange kool-aid. I`m pretty old, so i`m pretty sure this will be the last tractor i`ll ever buy. I sure do love those new MX6000`s with a cab on them though, lol. Maybe if i were 40 or 50yrs younger, lol.

Orange for LIFE!

 

[Ortimber]

My first Kubota tractor was a B3200. At that time, I had only a few acres of land to maintain, and it was all I could afford. My living situation then suddenly changed at about the time I had 300hrs on the the little B, so I traded it off for a bigger machine. I’ve had several Kubota tractors and they’ve all been great.

 

[NCL4701]

Didn’t have the right equipment to maintain family property. Dad outsourcing to a “friend”, doing less himself as he got older, and not “bothering” me by not allowing me to do anything had slowly over years resulted in control of maintenance and a lot of other things get out of balance as the “friend” had run of the houses and land like he owned them (except mine). Introducing the L4701 and some new implements into the mix and sharing it as community property with Dad brought the maintenance back in house and restored control to match ownership. The 40’ x 5’ half rotten railroad tie retaining wall that the Kubota and grapple ripped down was the second biggest rotten PITA the L4701 had a major part in removing. Thanks to God and Kubota.