A good day!

[Raincoast]

Hi Folks;
After a month of obsessing & reading everything I could get my hands on... Spending HOURS going through the forum archives and leaning on the members here for some excellent advice. We did it.
We took the first ferry to Vancouver Island this morning & drove south, checking out tractor dealers on the way.
First stop, the Kubota dealer in Courtenay. Drooled over all the expensive shiny orange stuff & continued down island. Next stop a Mahindra dealer with 3 slightly sun bleached new tractors & one used 5522 with a puddle of hyd. fluid under the hoe. Big tractor! Drove beautifully but the 3 pt hoe mount kinda turned me off. The new 3616 was a joy to run & affordable, so definitely on the list.
Last stop, a Kioti dealer south of Nanaimo, who was in the middle of moving to a larger (and nicer) facility. (A good sign, I thought)!
We drove the few tractors he had on the lot, but they didn't have the CK 35 I was really interested in.
Long story short(er)... After seeing I wasn't going for the 25 horse models. He drove a DK45SE out of the shop & watched me fall in love. Drove it around for a half hour. Love the "glide shift" shuttle and the shear size & heft of the rig. The hoe looks big enough to tackle some of our larger stumps. The cockpit was large enough for comfort too. Definitely not so much with most of the other test drives.
What with moving & dealer incentives etc etc. he brought the price down to $1,200. More than the leaky Mahindra. My wife & I did that old married farts look & said DONE on the same breath...
We left a deposit & drove back to the ferry. Tractor will be delivered to the ferry dock on the Island side next week, when I'll hand over the cheque, drive it onto the boat & bring her home.
That should be ANOTHER good day.
A great big Thank You! To all the folks on the Mahindra & Kubota pages for their generous help & advice.
I'll post some pics when I figure out how.
Cheers Y'all. Dan

 

[paulfun9]

Congrats On the new machine!

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Welcome to the pack!

 

[Haoleguy]

Congrats Dan. When you get the DK home become familiar with all of the maintenance steps and keep up on the schedule. It will last a long time.

 

[scoutcub]

Congrats Dan!

Never thought VI had all those dealers! I spent 4 years across the ditch in Port Angeles....still have property there, love the rainy coast....

Enjoy the DK, heard lots of good things on em. I'm assuming you must have some serious stumps there to move....

 

[dave1949]

Sounds great. Have fun tackling your stumps. Every ornery stump that finally comes out feels like a small victory. :laughing:

3rd function hydraulics on the loader and a grapple would be your friend for stumps but you can manage without.

 

[Raincoast]

Thanks for the kind welcome, guys. It's great to be finished with the purchasing research. Now the learning curve is gonna get really steep.

I spent much of my working life as an Aicraft Maint. Engineer, so I'm pretty used to scheduling & documenting maintenance events. I plan on keeping a logbook for the tractor and record everything... Not only to help me stay organized, but it should help with the re-sale (at some DISTANT future date).

Yeah... There are a whole bunch of add-ons that I'd like to get. Kinda blew the wad for now, but Christmas lists just got a whole lot heavier. What?!?! Everyone's always complaining that they can't figure out what to get me for Christmas & birthdays... We can start with the box blade..............
Cheers guys! Dan

 

[kneedeep]

I may be a little prejudice but the 'Leaky Old Mahindra' WAS $1200 cheaper!! :confused3:

Sounds like you found a good fit with the Kioti, congratulations roposetoast: and welcome to our little world, Old Fart!! :biggrin:

Now you can start a real $$$ Christmas wish list :santahat:.

Good luck and be careful with the new boy toy. :thumbsup:

 

[Raincoast]

Hey knee-deep;
You were certainly one of the guys the THANK YOU went out to! No offence to the Mahindra! It would certainly have done the job, but needed hydraulic work & a frame mount system for the hoe. More than I wanted to get into, right out of the gate.
My point was, that for an extra twelve hundred bucks I got a brand new tractor with excellent dealer support & a WARRANTY.
The 3616 was a really nice rig too, but not anywhere near the tractor the 45 is. And almost the same price. Literally pennies apart when all was said & done.
Yeah... The Kioti is a great fit. I really wanted an HST, but with very limited movement in my right ankle (from an old injury) i found the rocker pedal horribly awkward to use. The clutchless fwd / reverse shuttle shift works perfectly for me. I will have to re-locate the foot throttle though. My crabby old foot doesn't bend in the right places to make it a smooth operation.
Your "be careful" comment is well taken. I worked heavy equipment in the bush one summer & know how quickly things can go wrong!
Cheers. Dan

 

[kneedeep]

You are welcome. I am partial to Mahindra and recommend them. A good fit is what is important as all tractors pretty much perform the same basic tractor task.
Understand the foot problem as I am now sitting around with my left foot propped up recovering from surgery #3 following a fall that dislocated my foot from ankle. It is pretty much locked up except for about 50% up and down and no sideways movement. Its all I can do to operate the clutch pedal. This surgery repaired the 3 middle toes that had become 'hammer toes' making walking painful. I hope this is it for the knife.

Enjoy the new tractor and all the things that can be done now. TBN has become a daily ritual for me to keep up to date on all the new and old of the tractor world. See you on the web!!

:thumbsup:

 

[deerseeker001]

Congrats,have fun Tractoring:thumbsup:

 

[DK35vince]

I really wanted an HST, but with very limited movement in my right ankle (from an old injury) i found the rocker pedal horribly awkward to use. The clutchless fwd / reverse shuttle shift works perfectly for me.

Are you sure it is clutchless??
The DK 45 didn't offer a power shift transmission that I am aware of.
Far as I know the DK 45se gear only came in a synchronized shuttle which requires the clutch to shift or to forward/reverse

 

[Raincoast]

Are you sure it is clutchless??
The DK 45 didn't offer a power shift transmission that I am aware of.
Far as I know the DK 45se gear only came in a synchronized shuttle which requires the clutch to shift or to forward/reverse

Well... Pretty sure. That's what the dealer showed me & I shifted back & forth a whole bunch of times with nary a ground tooth. There is a slight hesitation when shifting direction, which would seem to confirm the shifting is done hydraulically rather than through a mechanical linkage.
Shifting GEARS, definitely requires the clutch, though...
It could be this is a newer version of the DK. This tractor had just arrived at the dealership in its crate a couple of weeks ago.

 

[DK35vince]

It does sound like a power shift, just never heard of it being an option on a DK

 

[Raincoast]

Kneedeep... I forgot to say... Sorry to hear you're feelin' the pain these days. Hope the latest surgery gets you back up & runnin' in short order.
All the best. Dan

 

[Raincoast]

DK... Since I was hoping to get an HST unit, the power shift was a huge selling point.

 

[Raincoast]

DK... Since I was hoping to get an HST unit, the power shift was a huge selling point.

 

[rScotty]

Hey, congratulations on finding your tractor. I completely agree about going larger. If it is maintaining land that you are doing then larger is the way to go.

We've had quite a few tractors over the last 50 years. I don't blame you for wanting HST...or for finding that you enjoyed the way powershift works. HST is slightly more convenient for loader work and powershift slightly better for tillage, blading, or pulling. We've had both - or I should say all three to include gear shifters. Most recently we've had powershift on the 33 hp Yanmar and the 90 hp JD and HST on the Kubota. The other Yanmar and the JD are gearshifters. I like gearshifters too, but find powershift and HST offer much more operator comfort than the old gear shifters.

Gotta throw a bone to the gear shifters out there, because there is one area where straight gears and a clutch are better and always will be - and that is in instances where you need very fine control over power and movement....when you are moving scant inches under load and need to control the power very precisely. Gears and a manual clutch just cannot be beat for doing that.

On 3pt hoes. We've had a few of those as well. Be SURE to check if your tractor's 3 pt has any form of automatic lift. An automatic 3pt lift is often called "Draft Control" and most larger tractors will normally have that feature. You must turn off any form of draft control before using a 3pt backhoe. This is very important. It is the single safety downside to a 3pt hoe but it is a big one. Ask your dealer. You'll have to to find a way to make sure you do this. I forgot one day and what happened that morning still scares me.

On makes and models of tractors....we are lucky to live in an era with so many good tractors. It's not even a matter of good versus not so good. They're all good. It comes down to the intangibles.

Your story sounds a bit like ours. One day my wife decided that we should have a nice new tractor instead of another used one. It would be one that came with everything new and working properly so that we could work with in instead of on it. The resulting search took months and ended almost by accident with a stop in at a dealer I'd always passed by on our way to the "real traditional tractor dealers". The result was a new M59 Kubota back in 2008. It is now a member of the family. One of the best investments we ever made. All those trouble-free years!

Enjoy your new tractor. Please do learn how to post pictures!!
rScotty

 

[Raincoast]

Hi again, folks.
I must make apologies to DK35Vince. You were bang on about the DK not having power shift. I messed up in my notes (in my defence, we'd looked at a pile of tractors in a few short hours & I had 20 unfamiliar model numbers rattling around in my old head) & wrote DK45SE when I should have written DS4510.
Now, I just have to wait 'till Saturday when it'll be delivered to the ferry dock on Vancouver Island. I'll drive it onto the ferry & will have a truck / trailer waiting when the boat arrives on this side. Can hardly wait!
Is there a tutorial available on how to post pics?
Cheers! Dan

 

[kneedeep]

Is there a tutorial available on how to post pics?

Maybe this will help

kneedeep

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/photos/326775-posting-photo.html#post3964639