I guess you could say the same about comparing gears in a compact tractor as comparing gears in a large tractor or dozer..its like comparing apples to oranges.I worked for 5 years in a rental yard,they rented dozers,tractors,manlifts, forktrucks etc.and compact tractors. The owner slowly phased out the geared compact tractors..why ..because people would ride the clutches and rake the gears on the geared tractors and they ended up in the shop too much of the time, he switched to hydro's and the maintenance on these tractors dropped a lot. The customers were not near as likely to tear up a hydro as a geared tractor and the hydro's were much easier to operate a matter of fact I don't recall a hydro ever have failed. While I was there,some of these tractors would rack up 2000 hours a year and after about 4 years when we got new ones in we would get the hydro's for replacements of the old ones.... the hydro's virtually indestructible,if something failed on the tractor it was something other than the hydro. I spent a lot of time maintaining equipment servicing etc.
I still would like to see all the "numerous posts" talking about these compacts sitting at the bottom of the hills because of the relief valves lifting on them. I never heard of it happening before.
