I have
20 wooded acres in NE Washington and a
mile of private road to keep up. The property is a mix of
hillside and flat land with brush and slash to clean up and firewood to retrieve. A lot of
dirt and gravel to move around and other misc tractor loader work. Not much PTO work.
The tractors I have looked at are all HST MODELS and are Kubota
L2501 and
L3901 stoped at Branson and sat on a 3520H as well, but that can be for another post. With the tractor will order a third function valve and root take style grapple and box blade or land plane.
Is the standard Kubota L series appropriate for doing heavy loader work with dirt and gravel? Is it worth spending the extra cash for the extra HP of the
L3901 or would the
L2501 be enough?
The best way to shop for tractors is to determine your tasks first, then determine how much bare tractor weight you need to accomplish as many of your tasks as possible, SAFELY. Hillside work demands more tractor weight than flat land work. Bare tractor weight is a tractor specification easily found in sales brochures and web sites.
Shop your weight range within tractor brands. Budget will eliminate some choices.
I like to spreadsheet tractor and implement specs, often a revealing exercise. I have a column for cost per pound.
It takes a 50% increase in tractor weight before you notice a significant tractor capability increase. It takes a 100% increase in tractor weight to elicit MY-OH-MY!
Selling a used tractor is easy. Selling multiple light implements in order to buy heavier, wider, implements for a heavier tractor is a pain and often a big hit in depreciation. ((Ask me how I know.)) Many who buy too light tractors buy too light implements.
A quality dealer, reasonably close, is a priority for me; less so for others, well experienced in tractors, who do their own maintenance. For most new to tractors a quality dealer, reasonably close, available for coaching, is essential. My kubota dealer is six miles away.
In my opinion neither Kubota
L2501 nor
L3901, both with a bare tractor weight of 2,600 pounds, has enough weight to accomplish your tasks SAFELY. You need a tractor of whatever brand with a bare tractor weight of 3,500 to 4,000 pounds.
In Kubota this would be the utilitarian MX series or the superbly outfitted 'Grand L' series. Same heavy chassis; different kit.
Heavier tractors have greater wheel spread making them more stable. Heavier tractors have larger wheels and tires better able to bridge holes and ruts without the tractor rolling over. Larger wheels and tires provide a much smoother ride over rough ground. Heavier tractors have greater inertia to resist rollovers when moving heavy loads in the FEL, the most hazardous of routine tractor tasks, especially hazardous on sloped land.
For your tasks greater tractor chassis weight is far more important than tractor horsepower. This is difficult for people new to tractors to realize.
Horsepower is more important operating PTO powered implements.
MORE:
tractor for hillside site:tractorbynet.com - Google Search
BUY ENOUGH TRACTOR.
