abrahamd
New member
Hi everyone, I'm new here, and have never owned a tractor in my life. In fact, I've never really lived rural until about a year ago. Here is a little description of our situation.
My wife and I purchased 20 acres of forest/hills/pasture in a mountainous area. She is a doctor who took a rural posting and I left my job and came with. I'm now learning how to do things I never in my life thought I would end up doing. If someone had told me that in twelve months I'd be ankle deep in mud rebuilding a hydraulic cylinder on an old crawler in November, I'd have thought them crazy, but I digress - It's been a really fun learning experience.
We have a couple horses, and wanted to create space for two small pasture areas. For one of the fields we hired someone to go all out with a D8 and excavator as the stumps were huge fir and birch. That field is now a ripped up mudhole, but the stumps are gone. In the other field, I am trying something different. I popped the stumps out and turned them over with an old International 125e track loader w/backhoe, and I'm going to let them sit until spring, thinking the snow will help strip off some of the dirt. We decided that since we are going to need a tractor for cleanup/blading anyway, why not pick one up while Kubota is offering the 84 month 0% deal and clearing out last years inventory. We'll get a grapple for it, and then come spring it can pick up those stumps and plop them on a burn pile a lot more efficiently than pushing them around with the crawler.
I've scoured the forums researching brands etc. and selecting models that would suit our needs. We are two hours from all major dealers so there was no advantage there. First I went to the JD dealer, who had some really great used models. I asked what he had in the 50-70 hp range and he showed me one and I gave it a test drive. It was great and I was seriously liking it. After hopping off I noticed the badge on the side, and it was a 4044M, so I was a little disappointed as he had said it was a 4052M, but people make mistakes. The next day I had reconsidered a bit and phoned for a quote, left a message, and got no reply. The emailed quote I had received on a 5055e was significantly more than I had expected, so that concluded my experience with green.
When I walked into the Kubota dealership, they toured me through their big new facility and repair center and sat down with me. In fact, for a while, two of their sales team were chatting with me over coffee. This would be my first tractor so I had a lot of questions, and they asked me a lot of questions about my needs as well. After about an hour, one of them took me to a farm where they had sold one, and I got to drive it around a little. In all, I spent about three hours with them, and came away impressed. The other dealerships were pretty standard experiences so I won't go into detail, but I had read that 'buying the dealer' is a consideration in the purchase, so +1 to that particular Kubota dealer. I sent away for quotes from all of the dealers via email afterward, and although Mahindra was the least expensive, Kubota wasn't much more. Several people in my area have Kubotas, and I have read that it can be beneficial to buy what others have in the service area, so that was another factor for us, remote as we are.
We settled on a Kubota MX5800 and will take delivery in a week or so. It will be used to pick up/place stumps that have been pulled, box blade, and eventually run a small square baler and do all kinds of other tasks like moving rocks. We are getting an 84" Farm King box blade with it, and as soon as our dealer starts offering Land Pride attachments, we are getting a root grapple and rock bucket. Add ons to our purchase include filled tires, canopy w/light kit, and third function hydraulics. I didn't get the rear remote as I can add that on in a few years. The only thing that made me a little bit hesitant about the Kubota MX5800 was the lift capacity, as some of the stumps are monsters, but we'll do what we can with the box blade in the back w/weights for ballast, and anything else will have to be dealt with by Old Beef (crawler).
I'm super excited and cant wait to get my hands on it. These forums have been a great source of knowledge and were instrumental to us in the decision making process.
Thanks!
My wife and I purchased 20 acres of forest/hills/pasture in a mountainous area. She is a doctor who took a rural posting and I left my job and came with. I'm now learning how to do things I never in my life thought I would end up doing. If someone had told me that in twelve months I'd be ankle deep in mud rebuilding a hydraulic cylinder on an old crawler in November, I'd have thought them crazy, but I digress - It's been a really fun learning experience.
We have a couple horses, and wanted to create space for two small pasture areas. For one of the fields we hired someone to go all out with a D8 and excavator as the stumps were huge fir and birch. That field is now a ripped up mudhole, but the stumps are gone. In the other field, I am trying something different. I popped the stumps out and turned them over with an old International 125e track loader w/backhoe, and I'm going to let them sit until spring, thinking the snow will help strip off some of the dirt. We decided that since we are going to need a tractor for cleanup/blading anyway, why not pick one up while Kubota is offering the 84 month 0% deal and clearing out last years inventory. We'll get a grapple for it, and then come spring it can pick up those stumps and plop them on a burn pile a lot more efficiently than pushing them around with the crawler.
I've scoured the forums researching brands etc. and selecting models that would suit our needs. We are two hours from all major dealers so there was no advantage there. First I went to the JD dealer, who had some really great used models. I asked what he had in the 50-70 hp range and he showed me one and I gave it a test drive. It was great and I was seriously liking it. After hopping off I noticed the badge on the side, and it was a 4044M, so I was a little disappointed as he had said it was a 4052M, but people make mistakes. The next day I had reconsidered a bit and phoned for a quote, left a message, and got no reply. The emailed quote I had received on a 5055e was significantly more than I had expected, so that concluded my experience with green.
When I walked into the Kubota dealership, they toured me through their big new facility and repair center and sat down with me. In fact, for a while, two of their sales team were chatting with me over coffee. This would be my first tractor so I had a lot of questions, and they asked me a lot of questions about my needs as well. After about an hour, one of them took me to a farm where they had sold one, and I got to drive it around a little. In all, I spent about three hours with them, and came away impressed. The other dealerships were pretty standard experiences so I won't go into detail, but I had read that 'buying the dealer' is a consideration in the purchase, so +1 to that particular Kubota dealer. I sent away for quotes from all of the dealers via email afterward, and although Mahindra was the least expensive, Kubota wasn't much more. Several people in my area have Kubotas, and I have read that it can be beneficial to buy what others have in the service area, so that was another factor for us, remote as we are.
We settled on a Kubota MX5800 and will take delivery in a week or so. It will be used to pick up/place stumps that have been pulled, box blade, and eventually run a small square baler and do all kinds of other tasks like moving rocks. We are getting an 84" Farm King box blade with it, and as soon as our dealer starts offering Land Pride attachments, we are getting a root grapple and rock bucket. Add ons to our purchase include filled tires, canopy w/light kit, and third function hydraulics. I didn't get the rear remote as I can add that on in a few years. The only thing that made me a little bit hesitant about the Kubota MX5800 was the lift capacity, as some of the stumps are monsters, but we'll do what we can with the box blade in the back w/weights for ballast, and anything else will have to be dealt with by Old Beef (crawler).
I'm super excited and cant wait to get my hands on it. These forums have been a great source of knowledge and were instrumental to us in the decision making process.
Thanks!
