Bad News!

[Mryan]

That is a cool site, Wen. I found my place, but the photo was taken before I built it/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif. for what it's worth....
http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/image.asp?S=10&T=1&X=1718&Y=23112&Z=19&W=1

Follow the road to the east (right) from the pond in the lower left of the picture, pass the light colored parking lot on the right of the road and there is a little lane on the right that turns off the main road. My house is now right on the corner of the lane and the road set back from the road ~200'. My parents house is right across the street. My lot and my parents are each ~3 acers. You can see the outline of trees around my folks property. continuing to the east, we own another 25 acres of woods, that runs up to the next house on the right of the road. Imagine the detail they can get with good satelite photos. Scarry.

Mike.

 

[Wingnut]

JimBinMI ... warning, warning, warning

I owned a red (IH 450D), looked at blue, lots of green, russian, chinese, Honda, New Millenium, grey market, black market ... checked out the classified in the midwest, south, east and Canada ... sat on them, turned them over, drove a few around ... rented an orange L3410 ... and then - for the same reason I drive a Toyota - forgot the rest and bought the best. Orange.
But hey, there's even a market for Yugo's ... so don't feel bad that you're a tiny blue in an ocean of orage ... if we were all the same ... it'd be a boring world and a very boring internet.


too bad that common sense ain't

 

[Jeff_In_NC]

JimBinMI,
Add me to the list that looked at the blues, greens, and oranges before I bought ORANGE. In fact I looked at the blues with the intent of buying BLUE. Two years ago when I bought my orange toy the blue boomers were as scarce as hen teeth. I did look and drive several ford/nh machines--- new,lease returns, & even some old tired ones. ) I prefered the xx20 Ford/NH to the xx30 Boomers (now the TC xx). (Alot of the NH 1720s can be seen trucking tobacco or harvesting peanuts but I have yet to see a Boomer in the field. why might that be?????) After looking, comparing, driving the blue, green, and orange ones do you wanna guess what I bought.....I'll give you a hint and it a'int blue nor does it have yellow wheels with green fenders.
I have a neighbor 3 miles down the road that had an early boomer (hydro, mid mount mower, loader,...). It hung aroung till late summer and there is a orange machine in its place. I've never asked the details and they 've never volunteered them. Maybe it was a rental or something?
Then the was Farminlady on the farmshow board with her smokin' boomer they replaced with a TC xx. After hearing about that, I was even happier and still am that I bought an Orange one.....I just hope your NH stays on "the patch" and doesn't start to smoke like FarminLady's did.....
Jeff_in_NC

remin

 

[MChalkley]

I doubt there's a brand available east of the Mississippi that I haven't examined pretty closely. And even though I consider my L4310HST to be the best tractor made for me (at least until the L4610HST came out), I continue to look at everything. I have no brand loyalty whatsoever, though I doubt I'd buy one of the Russian or Indian tractors even if they surprised me to death and came out with something that looked like it had been designed in the last 50 years for a change. But, if NH or JD comes out with a tractor that I think is better designed, better built, has more power, is more efficient, whatever, my Kubota will eventually go up for sale. I'd probably be well into negotiations for an L4610HST by now except that there's no backhoe subframe available for my Bradco backhoe. BTW, one, and only one, dealer responded to my request a while back for info on trading my L4310 in on an L4610 - Art @ White's Farm Supply in NY (very nice fellow) and he's the one that found out the info from Bradco.

Anyway, my point is that I've checked all of them that I know of, and so far, nothing matches, much less exceeds, the Kubota for my needs. But when that changes, so will I.

Mark

 

[W5FL]

Wonder what them boomers are smoking? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Glad everyone didn't gang up on JimBinMI at once! One by one the rest of the story comes out. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[W5FL]

Mark,

That is why I waited until the 2000 models came out to buy. I plan to keep a tractor a very long time and wanted to be sure it would do all the things that I wanted now and in the future. I expect all updates for the next 20 years will just be implements.

When you use one in landscaping and construction as you do, you can afford to change more often as the new features provide a dollar return to you, but for Ag purposes, a couple of HP or a new feature doesn't change the basic machine very much. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Without a hydro, it takes me nearly a whole second to go from forward to reverse and you can do it 3 times in that amount of time. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[JimBinMI]

Re: KUBOTA SMOKES?

Wen,

One Boomer, Farminlady, smokes and you guys make a federal case out of it! Even after NH replaces with a new tractor! And this was how long ago?

I want to know what MarkC meant when he said his KUBOTA SMOKES less on synthetic oil????
So Kubota's smoke????

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[W5FL]

Re: KUBOTA SMOKES?

Guess you are going to have to tell us the story! Sounds like a blue one for sure. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[MChalkley]

Re: KUBOTA SMOKES?

What I said was that diesels in general (including my Kubota) smoke less when using Amsoil fuel modifier.

Mark

 

[JimBinMI]

Re: KUBOTA SMOKES?

MarkC,

I know, I know, I'm just trying to give Wen his daily dose! /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[Muhammad]

Re: KUBOTA SMOKES?

Jim,

Hey if Jeff hadn't brought it up I don't think anybody here would have remembered Farminlady's cloud making machine... but one case doesn't mean a whole lot to me. We've heard the Kubota examples as well ---just don't remember them! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

As for MarkC, I think to him, everything is less (and more) with syn-I-mean-mighty Amsoil in his L4310!

 

[MChalkley]

I spent all day yesterday and today (and again tomorrow) clearing a lot of scrub from a job site - pulling as many trees as possible up by the roots with a chain, using the backhoe for the rest, lots of loader work and 4-in-1 use. Every time I use this tractor, I'm impressed all over again by the benefits of HST.

Mark

 

[_RaT_]

HST baby, right on! Mark, having HST has got to make a tractor more "Bobcat like" in terms of moving material and moving it quickly. Rat...

 

[Bird]

I didn't spend nearly as much time on mine today as you did (2.3 hours) mowing the yard, but I wouldn't even want to think about trying to manuever around a house, shop, barn, 4 power poles, vegetable garden, grape arbor, blackberry patch and 24 trees without HST./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

 

[W5FL]

Bird,

Maybe that's why I am doing so well. Can't get close to the power pole (1) because I have a ditch to fill in after the electricity to the well is moved from one meter to the other.

Can't get close to the barn because all the parts that flew off the house in the tornado are piled next to it - I guess waiting on me to burn them. The house is fenced so can't get up to it, either.

Can't get close to the wellhouse because there are so many rocks that were left over from the utility ditch - as well as the propane tank.

I usually manage to mow some of the blackberries and grapes down each time I get too close and don't see them. Also try not to get too close to the fruit trees as they mow down pretty easily too.

For now, I just put it in 4th or 5th gear and drive almost steady for several hours.

Guess when I get all of these things cleaned up, I will need an HST too. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[JimBinMI]

I never considered a gear model since I was replacing an HST garden tractor. I really like the toe/heel better than the old lever I had on the Allis Chalmers (made by Simplicity with a shade of Orange on it!) /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[MChalkley]

There was a guy on site today with a 30 hp Kioti. After watching me a while (my tractor pulls much harder than his, so he parked his and helped me with the choker chain when we were pulling the 4" and smaller ones), he said he would never buy anything but HST in the future. He said the dealer he bought the Kioti from told him HSTs are too fragile and don't have any power. He doesn't think that any more.

Mark

 

[W5FL]

JimBinMI

I kinda think the HST transmission is neat. However, Kubota does not make it in the M Series. I really don't know why that decision was made and am not sure whether anyone else makes one in these Utility tractors (40HP to 100 HP). For most uses of utility tractors, I really don't see any overriding reason for an HST. It is also not available in the L35 which is a little puzzling unless there is a reliability consideration as hard as those tractors are used. Most Utility tractors that I am familiar with go forward a good deal of their life and switch direction some what infrequently. The fully synchronized transmissions are a real improvement, but it does very little good to be able to switch directions quickly if you are pulling a bailer, seeder, sprigger, fertilizer spreader, disk, etc.

I certainly can see how Mark would make less money in the landscape and construction business without a hydro./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Some utility tractors are bought in 2WD versions by the city or county strictly to mow or to pull a grader or just because they need something with traction and load pulling capabilities. They would probably prefer hydro transmissions but cannot get them.

Maybe someone knows why most manufacturers do not make the hydrostatic transmissions in the mid size utility tractors.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Hey I thought 4th and 5th were the HST gears on my L35! Slow to a crawl and little throttle pressure to go fast...

I don't know if this applies to the bigger units but I notice on the HST BX2200 I have you still have to keep fooling with the throttle lever if you want any power out of the thing. I hate hearing a constant rpm run engine. Great on generators, but I don't want to hear it. On the BX if I try to run it a lower rpm for relaxing sanity it is gutless, or I can goof with the rpm lever and put up with it at higher rpms for the tough work. Mowing, it's great, but in my world I'm still happy with the GST.

I also looked at green and blue. I have a 17 year old Blue that has been a faithful beast to say the least!

At it's time it out loadered out hydraulic flowed and out 3pt lifted green and orange so it was the best for me.

This time...where's the L35 competitor and BX 2200 competitor in the Green and Blue? Would surely have liked a choice. 4600 Deere a great unit but dimensionally too big. The New NH's (some) have a pivoting front axle (Is that "Supersteer") might make them as nimble as the L35. Just couldn't get all the specs closer in another unit. I often wonder about this brand thing. Not to be critical to anyone, but ANY of these companies Green, Blue, Orange, Ford Chevy, Chrysler (oops Mercedes) Toyota, Hyundai etc can build good machines or bad ones and deny a warranty claim just as fast as anyone else. The fact that someone had a bad experience 10 years ago doesn't mean there not going to have another bad experience with someone else. I think you just "pays your monies and takes your chances"

My only fear with NH is that the smaller tractors are not their livelihood in the USA. More small tractors support Green's bottom line and Kubota could never let the small tractors go unsupported.

I also remember NH's squabbling with Ford. One year it's OK to have the Ford logo, next year only the word Ford in Block letters, next year no Ford name at all. What a bunch of chicken%%@#%. Now they're owned by Case, Now they're owned by Fiat, Now they're owned by Scooboobia Tractor Company in Jumgoomba, Africa, I would have really hesitated to put $$$ out to them. But again, my Ford (NH) 1710 rather my Shibaura 1710 was fantastic. Why doesn't Shibaura just sell the tractors here in a multi-store selling Mitsubishi, Yanmar, Honda, Shibaura. I'll take an 50hp 48" wheelbase garden tractor please...

del

[email]oldcarparts@mygarage.com [/email]

/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Bird]

Wen, speaking of city and county buying 2WD for mowing, the state has contractors to mow the farm to market road rights-of-way, and the one in this area has had a fleet of open cab, 2WD John Deeres (I don't remember the models), but he's been mowing our area this past week, and he's gone to a fleet of 5 John Deere 7210s, air-conditioned, and 4WD. Said the crew spent so much time pulling each other out when they got stuck that he figured it would be cheaper to buy 4WD tractors.

Bird