Sitting on an airplane and read through this thread for reasons unknown... but I did enjoy it. Some things have changed in 17 years... some things not! Thanks for bringing this to life again. I知 gaining an appreciation for Powertracs.
If you ever get a chance to run one, take it. I was dead set on getting a CUT when I was ready to downsize from my IH2500b. Then I happened upon this thread, and got to talking, and thinking about what tasks I had to do, and the best machine to do those tasks. After about a year of research, I had narrowed down my choices to a John Deere 4100HST, a Kubota
BX2200, a New Holland TC21D, a Cub Cadet 7205 and a Power-Trac PT425. For various reasons, I went with the PT425. I won't go into them all, but can provide about 3 pages of reasons and comparisons if asked, that I documented back in 2002. The only one that came close in price was the Kubota, but I didn't fit on it very well, and did not like the single directional pedal. The only other one that I fit on comfortably beside the PT425 was the NH. From and ergonomic standpoint, that NH was right up there. Very nice and comfortable operating station. The steering wheel hit my knees on the several models. They felt like a kid's pedal car when I sat on them, so they were out just like that. I'm not gonna sit on a machine for hours upon hours with the steering wheel between my legs, or my knees hitting things.
The PT425 you don't sit on, you sit in it. There's foot wells for your feet, and there's a tunnel between your legs. You are LOW to the ground. It's more like a cockpit. Very, very stable on side hills. If I stand next to my PT425, I can put my nose on top of the canopy. So its only about 5.5' tall. The ROPS and steel canopy are included. It's strong enough to stand on top of, and I weighed 238 at my peak. There's not a piece of plastic on it as far as skin goes. The entire thing is made of plate steel. It's a tank. There's very, very few holes underneath it, so, it is essentially, two steel tubs with very little to hang up on underneath. I'd call it skid plates, but they aren't removable.
The PT425 is only 42" wide, so I can (and did), back it up into my 8' pickup truck bed with the tailgate removed. I used the factory ramps secured to my steel bumper with rebar pins. It fits between the wheel wells. And I could have implement on it when I backed it into the truck, like my 60" finish mower, or 48" brush cutter. Or, I could nest my pallet forks in my small rock bucket with teeth, inside my large light material bucket, and take a swiss army knife to a job site. It fits through 48" yard gates. I can pick up the 60" mower deck sideways with the forks, and take it through gated areas, drop the forks, pick up the deck, mow the area, drop the deck, pick up the forks and take it back throug the gate.
The icing on the cake is the quick attach system. Changing an implement in less than 15 seconds without getting off the tractor is just so pleasing to do. You just can't do that with a standard 3pt hitch and drive shaft. Hydraulically powered implements require an additional 30 seconds to get off and hook up two hoses.
I just can't stress enough how nice it is to actually look forward to changing implements 15-20 times in a day without batting an eye. It's like taking a toolbox with you. Just increadible. I smile every time I operate it. It's that satisfying.
Then, of course, there's the love-hate of it. I tend to abuse the machine pushing it harder and harder. I've broken a few things, bent the forks prying out concrete post anchors, cracked the brush hog deck, shattered brush hog wheels, etc... but I have a couple welders, a torch, and a sledgehammer. :laughing:
Anyhow, you get the idea. I love the machine. I wouldn't have bought one sight-unseen, but I was fortunate to come across a local landscaper that had two of them, and he showed me how it worked and I was hooked. Ordered it on a Friday and it showed up three days later on Monday.
The last driving factor in my decision to purchase the PT425 was the price. In 2001, it was $8000.00 for the tactor with the lift arms and quick attach installed. All of the implements also were very resonably priced. The small bucket was $300.00. The teeth were $100.00, the 60" mower was $1200.00, the 60" power angle snow blade was $450.00 and the large light material bucket was under $400.00. I got a 48" brush cutter, pallet forks and loading ramps, too. All told, the entire package was under $13,000.00 delivered. I couldn't touch that price for any of the other units that I looked at.
Try it, you'll like it.
It'll run circles around a standard tractor of similar size and weigth in tasks like mowing, brush cutting, moving material from point A to point B, post hole digging, snow removal, tilling, trencher.... pretty much anything other than pulling tasks, like stump pulling, pulling a dirt plow, etc.... that's the trade-off, since it doesn't have hi-lo ranges. And the side-hill stability is really, really nice, too.
Anyhow, that's enough. Don't knock 'em till you try 'em, as they say. :thumbsup:
