As far as the hour meter on tractors,I can not say one way or the other. I did however run a Cat D-9 for several years,and do know at idle it was not an hour to hour thing. You had to run hard to get your hours,that was one way the boss knew you ran all night or not............. On the 3 point log splitter,one thing I have not heard mentioned was the size of the tractor pump. The smaller the pump(GPM) the slower the splitter. I ran mine on a 32 HP tractor,it did o-kay,on my 454 International it did better. I could be wrong but if you have a smaller CUT,it may be real slow. A PTO pump could make a world of difference,of course that would jack the price up considerably. ...... I used a maul and my 3 point for years and got by with it,it does a good job. It is so much faster with the stand alone for me,it is at least triple the speed of my 3 Point. I could have speeded that up if I had a bigger tractor with a bigger pump. Do not get me wrong,if you like the 3 Point,that's great. I have just found that personally the stand alone is easier to use and a whole lot faster. As I get older,for me it is also easier to use the FEL to lift large rounds,use the FEL as a table and just roll the rounds on the splitter. Very little bending,that really helps me a lot.