rScotty
Super Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2001
- Messages
- 8,290
- Location
- Rural mountains - Colorado
- Tractor
- Kubota M59, JD530, JD310SG. Restoring Yanmar YM165D
I debated as to what to title this thread. The idea being that it would be nice to capture some of the things that only occur to an owner after years of ownership. The sorts of things that didn't go into the decision to buy, but which turned out to be unexpectedly important features.
Let me start out by telling you how we ended up with this tractor. It makes a decent tractor buying story, and it shows why we were out tractor-looking in the first place. The idea was to retire several older machines used for doing general work around a 10 to 20 acre home site. It's all lifting, digging, and doing with an emphasis on creeks and trees. A tractor for this type of work is locally called a "chore tractor" or "barnyard tractor" to differentiate it from a commercial machine or a field tractor. They always have loaders, but not usually backhoes. If there is a hoe it's a three point type.
Here's how it happened: Now first of all, I ought to say that we like JDs. We like the color green, have JD toys, JD books, and JD stocks. So it made sense that green was the tractor color that we were looking at right up until when we made the fateful stop at the Kubota dealer and saw the M59. We looked at others, but up until then we mainly focused on JD. In fact my wife and I had driven right past the Kubota dealer on our way to the JD shop probably a dozen times in the summer of '08. Nancy was determined that we were going to buy a new chore tractor that summer. As far as she was concerned, it had to be comfortable for my aging back, and to do that it should have a 3pt backhoe as well as a loader. So we had been out at the dealers' places on most weekend afternoons......haggling with salesmen, driving demos, and generally having fun. In retrospect, it might be that tractor buying was more fun for me than for my wife, but if so you'd never know it. It took me years just to figure out that it just might have been....and I'm still not positive....she's sly that way. ....
Anyway, after making the rounds of the familiar dealers in a 100 mile radius, we had just about decided the new tractor would either be a JD or possibly at Cat; probably JD, though. Nothing else had really turned us on. Well, that's not quite true; we sure did like the Zetors. Good looking machines whose quality really stood out and they had a ton of features at a good price.....but that dealer seemed a bit shaky and he was one of the more distant ones. And nice as that Zetor cab was, they didn't have a matching backhoe like the Cat and JD did. No other brand had really stood out. The problem were were having was that no matter what combination we put together at JD, it just didn't do what we wanted.... and frankly the Cat and Zetor were just a little too big for close work.
Then we stopped to gas up at the filling station next to the Kubota dealer and saw the M59. I couldn't believe that a "toy tractor" company made such a machine...The M59 surprised both of us. So I went around to a couple of neighbors who had 100 hp orange tractors and was surprised one more time when they said they'd do it again. And that's pretty much how it happened.
Oh, we bargained of course. And that took another month. But we let up on their salesman after a while. Sobbing salesmen are such a sad sight..... The result was pretty much business as normal....More than we wanted to pay, and less than they wanted to get. But on our terms. With enough complicated "what ifs" written down to settle a dispute between nations, and with a bit of used booty and new accessories going in both directions.
Afterwards everyone agreed that NOBODY has more fun with bargaining than old farmers and cowboys do.
After 5 years it's still as good as ever, and is now our "go-to" machine. It works like new. Crazy strong, too.
It was the right decision, but I'm still not believing we actually went and bought an orange tractor. It's strange how some things happen.
OK, back to the topic of things we didn't realize at buying time but turned out to be important.
The first one is one that I should have realized but didn't. And that's how easy it is to get on and off of this tractor. This is far and away the easiest machine to jump onto and off of that I've ever had. And the controls are all right at hand. That's a huge plus, and worth thinking about with any machine.
Another thing is sidehill stability. The M59 doesn't look like it would have it but it does. Partly it is the industrial tires having flat tread right out to the edge. Maybe partly geometry. Whatever it is, it's comforting. When it does decide its had enough slope it begins to tilt slowly. Other tractors I've had are more abrupt. This is better. Also worth noting is that it goes in the snow. We have real snow here, but the chains I dickered so hard to include with the deal haven't even been mounted. Sigh...
One thing I didn't compare was basic turning radius without using anything special like the wheel brakes. This M59 turns tight; it doesn't need to turn any tighter. Being able to turn at near right angles inside its body length is sure handy. It wasn't until I tried a friend's tractor and a few construction machines recently that I really understood the difference tight turning makes. We got lucky there, because we sure didn't check that out like we should have.
Another surprise was the hydraulic thumb on the backhoe. We included it as an afterthought while doing the negotiations and didn't realize what a difference it would make. It wasn't a complete surprise; we knew the thumb would be an advantage. We just didn't know by how much . A backhoe with a thumb doesn't just dig, it becomes a universal picker upper and "put it over there" machine. The thumb does things we didn't know to expect. Like holding complete trees horizontally in the air at waist level for chainsawing. Or carefully placing heavy stones onto a rock wall.
It's not a perfect tractor. It'd be nice to have an enclosed cab sometimes and I think that in spite of the cupholder convenience I'd rather have the dashboard in front of me instead of it being mounted so stylishly by my right elbow. The horizontal exhaust is a really, really bad idea, and what in the world is that foot clutch doing on a hydrostatic tractor? Now there's a couple of puzzlers....
And JD still has a far better foot control layout. At least for me it does. Plus being green is easy on the eyes.
But for how it works and lasts, so far the M59 would be hard to beat. And all without much effort.
good luck now, rScotty
Let me start out by telling you how we ended up with this tractor. It makes a decent tractor buying story, and it shows why we were out tractor-looking in the first place. The idea was to retire several older machines used for doing general work around a 10 to 20 acre home site. It's all lifting, digging, and doing with an emphasis on creeks and trees. A tractor for this type of work is locally called a "chore tractor" or "barnyard tractor" to differentiate it from a commercial machine or a field tractor. They always have loaders, but not usually backhoes. If there is a hoe it's a three point type.
Here's how it happened: Now first of all, I ought to say that we like JDs. We like the color green, have JD toys, JD books, and JD stocks. So it made sense that green was the tractor color that we were looking at right up until when we made the fateful stop at the Kubota dealer and saw the M59. We looked at others, but up until then we mainly focused on JD. In fact my wife and I had driven right past the Kubota dealer on our way to the JD shop probably a dozen times in the summer of '08. Nancy was determined that we were going to buy a new chore tractor that summer. As far as she was concerned, it had to be comfortable for my aging back, and to do that it should have a 3pt backhoe as well as a loader. So we had been out at the dealers' places on most weekend afternoons......haggling with salesmen, driving demos, and generally having fun. In retrospect, it might be that tractor buying was more fun for me than for my wife, but if so you'd never know it. It took me years just to figure out that it just might have been....and I'm still not positive....she's sly that way. ....
Anyway, after making the rounds of the familiar dealers in a 100 mile radius, we had just about decided the new tractor would either be a JD or possibly at Cat; probably JD, though. Nothing else had really turned us on. Well, that's not quite true; we sure did like the Zetors. Good looking machines whose quality really stood out and they had a ton of features at a good price.....but that dealer seemed a bit shaky and he was one of the more distant ones. And nice as that Zetor cab was, they didn't have a matching backhoe like the Cat and JD did. No other brand had really stood out. The problem were were having was that no matter what combination we put together at JD, it just didn't do what we wanted.... and frankly the Cat and Zetor were just a little too big for close work.
Then we stopped to gas up at the filling station next to the Kubota dealer and saw the M59. I couldn't believe that a "toy tractor" company made such a machine...The M59 surprised both of us. So I went around to a couple of neighbors who had 100 hp orange tractors and was surprised one more time when they said they'd do it again. And that's pretty much how it happened.
Oh, we bargained of course. And that took another month. But we let up on their salesman after a while. Sobbing salesmen are such a sad sight..... The result was pretty much business as normal....More than we wanted to pay, and less than they wanted to get. But on our terms. With enough complicated "what ifs" written down to settle a dispute between nations, and with a bit of used booty and new accessories going in both directions.
Afterwards everyone agreed that NOBODY has more fun with bargaining than old farmers and cowboys do.
After 5 years it's still as good as ever, and is now our "go-to" machine. It works like new. Crazy strong, too.
It was the right decision, but I'm still not believing we actually went and bought an orange tractor. It's strange how some things happen.
OK, back to the topic of things we didn't realize at buying time but turned out to be important.
The first one is one that I should have realized but didn't. And that's how easy it is to get on and off of this tractor. This is far and away the easiest machine to jump onto and off of that I've ever had. And the controls are all right at hand. That's a huge plus, and worth thinking about with any machine.
Another thing is sidehill stability. The M59 doesn't look like it would have it but it does. Partly it is the industrial tires having flat tread right out to the edge. Maybe partly geometry. Whatever it is, it's comforting. When it does decide its had enough slope it begins to tilt slowly. Other tractors I've had are more abrupt. This is better. Also worth noting is that it goes in the snow. We have real snow here, but the chains I dickered so hard to include with the deal haven't even been mounted. Sigh...
One thing I didn't compare was basic turning radius without using anything special like the wheel brakes. This M59 turns tight; it doesn't need to turn any tighter. Being able to turn at near right angles inside its body length is sure handy. It wasn't until I tried a friend's tractor and a few construction machines recently that I really understood the difference tight turning makes. We got lucky there, because we sure didn't check that out like we should have.
Another surprise was the hydraulic thumb on the backhoe. We included it as an afterthought while doing the negotiations and didn't realize what a difference it would make. It wasn't a complete surprise; we knew the thumb would be an advantage. We just didn't know by how much . A backhoe with a thumb doesn't just dig, it becomes a universal picker upper and "put it over there" machine. The thumb does things we didn't know to expect. Like holding complete trees horizontally in the air at waist level for chainsawing. Or carefully placing heavy stones onto a rock wall.
It's not a perfect tractor. It'd be nice to have an enclosed cab sometimes and I think that in spite of the cupholder convenience I'd rather have the dashboard in front of me instead of it being mounted so stylishly by my right elbow. The horizontal exhaust is a really, really bad idea, and what in the world is that foot clutch doing on a hydrostatic tractor? Now there's a couple of puzzlers....
And JD still has a far better foot control layout. At least for me it does. Plus being green is easy on the eyes.
But for how it works and lasts, so far the M59 would be hard to beat. And all without much effort.
good luck now, rScotty
