l4600 hst vs gear

[bad69bird]

Hi I am about to purchase new L4600, I was able to drive a hydro around and i find the brake pedal and single forward/reverse pedal to be a little awkward. (not enough to not make the purchase however) I mainly will be using the tractor for loader work and i know this is where the Hydro shines but I think if i could live with a gear I would be happier long term and I feel like it would be more reliable, Just looking for opions of people that have each. My closest dealer did not have a gear unit for me to try out

 

[k0ua]

Hi I am about to purchase new L4600, I was able to drive a hydro around and i find the brake pedal and single forward/reverse pedal to be a little awkward. (not enough to not make the purchase however) I mainly will be using the tractor for loader work and i know this is where the Hydro shines but I think if i could live with a gear I would be happier long term and I feel like it would be more reliable, Just looking for opions of people that have each. My closest dealer did not have a gear unit for me to try out

Reliability is not an issue, but Hydrostats are somewhat more reliable than gear/clutch combos especially to new users. Clutches are easily worn or even destroyed by new users from improper usage, but hydro units are pretty much "newbie" proof. Clutches can last a long time with proper care, but are a pain to split the tractor to service.

It takes about 3 days of usage to become comfortable with the single treadle pedal of the Kubota system. As for the brakes, they are of limited usage on a Hydrostatic equipped tractor.. Used for parking the tractor, and brake steering occasionally. You do not need brakes in normal operation of a hydro tractor as the tractor stops as soon as you take your foot off of the forward position of the pedal. Even if you are on a slope and the tractor starts to slowly drift downhill, you can just give it a little reverse pedal. Not much need for brakes.

 

[TripleR]

Well that's a conundrum and never ending debate/discussion. I've never seen anyone with significantly more problems with an HST than gear and our renters who run 7000 and 8000 Series geared tractors all day have a JD4610 eHydro they use a lot and use it hard.

I use geared on bigger tractors and HST on CUTs. My brother owns several geared tractors and bought a geared CUT for retirement to haul around. It is a nice synchro-shuttle, but he now wishes he had gone with an HST and he is a mechanic who started out as a tractor mechanic.

I have no problem with the Kubota HST pedal, brake pedal location, but if I did, I would look at a Kioti etc. and stick with an HST.

Good luck.

 

[bigbull338]

the HST will fit you best if your doing alot of loader work.because you can go from farward to reverse in a smooth motion once you get used to the tractor.

 

[bad69bird]

thanks for the replies, have plenty of experince on gear/clutch machines, zero on the hydros

 

[TripleR]

thanks for the replies, have plenty of experience on gear/clutch machines, zero on the hydros

My brother and I were pretty much in the same situation, grew up on a farm, farmed a bit later on then used geared tractors around our farms for maintenance, food plots, establishing pastures, native grasses then in 2010 I bought my first CUT with HST, so outside lawn mowers HSTs were an unknown. We are both in our 60s, so lots of years of using gears between us and only four using HST. My brother still doesn't own an HST but has driven mine a little.

 

[k0ua]

All of us older guys started on gear systems of course and even now I still have more hours on geared tractors than I do on the 3 hydro machines I have owned, but we are not so old to not recognize a good thing when we see it.

 

[motownbrowne]

Get the hst. You won't regret it. Also, at least check out the MX series. For me, they were a better tractor with a smaller price tag than the l4600.

 

[tallyho8]

Once you go hst you'll never go back. I love mine.

 

[TripleR]

All of us older guys started on gear systems of course and even now I still have more hours on geared tractors than I do on the 3 hydro machines I have owned, but we are not so old to not recognize a good thing when we see it.

If you exclude the 3 SCUTs, we have eight geared machines including our first new tractor bought in 1955, no one delivered back then, so we had to drive it the 19 miles back to the farm, so we too have lots more hours with gears and probably will never catch up, but do love the HST.