Only have 30 hours on mine and love it. It was my bucket list tractor and I looked hard at the JD4720 too. Am very satisfied with my purchase.
This model needs as much weight as you can put on the back of it to handle the FEL lift, but once you get it balanced, it's a hoot to drive. The treadle lets you zip around intuitively.
I'm doing a lot of tree work in the forest and I have found it quite maneuverable with a quick steering ratio. As mentioned before, the front R4 tires will mark up your lawn, particularly
one that's had some recent rain, and with a loader full, and maybe less, you'll leave prints. I have found 2wd to be almost unusable on forest soil but I bet that could be very different if the tractor
had R1 tires on it. The R4s on the rear even lowered to 8 pounds ride hard. 4wd gets noisy on macadam, I generally stop and go into 2wd before I start the long lane. Never used the diff lock, haven't had need.
Fit and finish is very high. Suggest a max 66
grapple for it, I got a HD 72 and it's just too heavy. Maybe try to keep your
grapple under 500 pounds. I'm a good example of buying what I thought was best quality, and in a way
it was, but it was/is simply to heavy for the tractor. Not the fault of the tractor, with the exception of some weakness in the curl, which is being checked out.
The electronically controlled trans is very high tech, feels like an old two speed powerglide shifting up, though it goes into high pretty quickly. I have not figured out how to use the FEL comfortably on AutoThrottle, so I run that part manual at 1800-2000 rpm. At that speed, with the air blowing cooly in your face, the tunes of choice playing in the background, it's reasonably quiet in there. Not like a modern car, but basically so you don't need ear protection.
I have not used it at pto speed, and will next Spring doing field mowing. I wish the tractor had an economy pto for running a 5 foot mower, which I already have and like very much. Generating close to max hp when I'm using a quarter or half of that just to achieve blade tip speed is not smart operation. There are so many features on this system, the Stall Guard, for example, that I leave on and just take for granted. Like antiskid braking on newer cars.
I put an inch thick memory foam pad on top of the oem basic seat, and it makes things adequate after tightening the seat up a million turns. Must be set for an 80 pounder from the factory. I need to soak it in WD40 or Kroil to get rid of the constant squeak in it too. Not a quality seat experience but I doubt it will wear out either.
Everything else is just excellent. Even the outside mirrors are holding up, after I whack them constantly in the woods. The cab really adds to safety when branches whip back at one, though I would not want to overly test the glass. Now I carry a large clipper in the rear ballast box and can reduce the body wear if I'm not too lazy to get out and cut the branch.
Yes, I thought the JD was prettier and had a nicer color coordinated cab, but for me, a local, proven, high quality Kubota dealer was my highest priority. JD is poorly represented in my area, Bucks Co.
I've been hearing discount ranges of 15-18% and that was my range also, but maybe you can leverage a pre-L60 discount.
Hope this helps. Drew
