M9000HDCC3

[5030]

Well, Having the 5030 and the M9 was too much for me so I traded the 5030 in and now just have the M9 as far as Kubota's.

I optioned the M9 all the way out (as usual). Nice tractor. I understand the Kubota is discontinuing the M9 in favor of the new M93 which will look like the 105-125 asthetically. I had to order the M9 and it took about 2 months for the build and delivery. I also use a 105S and I prefer the square hood of the older M9 over the sloped hood of the M105-125 so when I found out the production was ending, I ordered the M9. Kubota extended the 84/4.99 past the campaign date so that I was able to participate.

For the Junkies:

R1's, 16.5x34 with cast factory weights on the rear
LA1215 loader with ATI quick attach and Kubota pallet forks
8+8 with creep option for 12x12
Hydraulic shuttle
540/1000 option (on order)
am/fm cassette radio (Kubota)
front and rear worklights, wipers and defroster grids
external implement plug
2 sets of remotes + flow control
Grammer air ride seat (thank goodness) (5030 was a kidney buster)

I used the M9 for shuttling round bales of corn stalks this last weekend (used for bedding). The M9 handles 1 round on the back and TWO rounds, one on each fork in the front, no problem. The rounds are 4x5's and weigh about 900 each. Road speed is important to me as a "road" farm (our fields aren't contigious with each other). The M9 will make 22 at rated rpm whereas the 5030 would do about 16......every little bits helps. My 1085 Massey will run around 27 at rated rpm. That's scary even in a 11,000 pound tractor. The main trans is all synchro so I can make clutchless shifts (just like my big truck).

The M9 is nowhere as agile as the 5030 was, but the ride and power is light years ahead of the 5030. I had the 5030 listed here in the classified's but not much interest so it's gone to the dealer.

I got 23K for the 5030 and the M9 was right around 45K.

No pictures.....Everybody knows what an M9 looks like. Not the kind of unit for mowing your front lawn with though you probably could demolish your garage pretty handily.

Maybe I should change my user name to something more appropriate.

I might add that I considered a TN90 CNH as well as a Kioti DK65 (I like the Perkins engine, they are about bullet proof and are very fuel efficient), but the DK hasn't enough suds for a rounder and they discontinued the square hood and the TN90 has the slope syndrome as well as a price tag (on "A" plan), higher than the M9 when optioned almost the same. I know CNH touts their Supersteer, but the wheelcut on the M9 is extreme....no supersteer needed or wanted for that matter.

I guess the sloped hood is fine for most, but I always use the square hood to line up my rows. I am a "hood" man at heart, trucks or tractors.

 

[HobbleCreek]

Hi there.

I am looking at the 5030 and may have to do some of my own haying -- probably not, but maybe, and certainly not to the extent of 200 acres.

Was it the hay work that led you to the bigger tractor? How did your 5030 do with that work?

Thanks for your post. Too bad I got to this forum after your 5030 was gone, though it sounds like you did OK on the trade-in.

-- Grant

 

[slowzuki]

Doh! Missed that 5030 in the classifieds! Oh well. We did well with ours this summer haying, it will stick around at least until our place is built. So handy for loader work around the worksite.

Ken

 

[texasjohn]

I use my 5030 to haul round bales. Kubota hay spike on FEL, Powder River hay fork on 3pt. It does very well hauling 1500 lb bales, one on front, one on rear. MUST pick up rear bale first else gets VERY tippy and rear wheels leave ground (yep, filled with liquid) if FEL spike is high, ground at all uneven... be warned. However, I have added 200 lb of weight to the rear fork and can now pick up front bale with much less worry. Rolling across the field with one bale front, one rear, really smoothes out the bumps! Works great...just gotta watch the FEL height. I buy my hay, run cattle on the place. Tractor is ideal for me on my acreage, similar to yours.

 

[GeneD14]

Congradulations on the new M9000. I drove one at my dealer a few months ago and it is awesome! Until I can save up a few more pennies I'll have to keep dreaming. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

M9000HDCC3: I mean 5030: Oh heck, hey Daryl: /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm very new here, but I've read many, many of your posts and you were very helpful in helping me decide what tractor to get, thank you very much.

Congratulations on that 9000, I got to see one close-up and personal, and they are SWEET. Turbo, intercooler, strong as an ox - let's see someone try to get a bigger Kubota tractor than you've got. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

The one I saw was used in land clearing, two guys up in New Hampshire. They had the same type of grapple that I have on my 5030HST that I use in my tree business. They never thought they'd own an orange tractor, but the locking front diff. and excellent value were two of the big factors for them.

I work my tractor very hard, and I'm wondering if maybe you can help me figure out if I need to put an auxiliary oil cooler on it or not. You had mentioned them in one of your posts, wondering if you ever put one on.

On a hot day my hydraulics get too hot to touch for more than a second or two. (On all other days, they're just HOT). I haven't measured the temp, but it's gotta be every bit of 200 F. I'd love to bring it down to 190 or 180. I just had an O-ring on a front grapple quick-connect give out for no good reason, and it felt kind of brittle for its age. Probably wasn't viton, and I'll replace as many things as I can with viton for insurance.

Maybe you've said it elsewhere, but was this one of the factors involved in moving up to the 9000?

Thanks again for all of your many excellent posts,

John D.

 

[5030]

HobbleCreek:
CT Tree Guy:
Slowzuki:
Gene: and others:

I had issues with the a.c. on the 5030 which I sorted out myself by adding side shrouds to the bracing on each side of the radiator/oil cooler/condenser units to concentrate the airflow. That issue manifested itself whenever I was doing second and third cuts and it was hot and humid...it became hot and humid inside the cab. The 5030 also, had a hard time running my NH rounder at full bale settings especially when applying proprionic acid on first cut. I'd have to advance the throttle to about wide open just to hold 500-540 rpm at capacity. If I pre-set the pto, as the bale grew to fullsize, the pto rpm would drop and the engines torque rise would break the shearpin on the bailer. I don't expect taht trouble with the M9 due to almost 40 more pto horsepower. The ac unit on the M9 has more air flow and bigger evaporator/condenser units too. My partner in the forage operation has an M105 and his 105 has the same climate package as the M9 so I have experienced his in the summer heat and humidity and it passes with flying colors.

The 5030 was way more manuverable and precise in its movements that the M9 is, or at least in my opinion from using both of them. That could be a benefit of the hydro versus the gear/hydraulic shuttle. Ther M9 lacks an outside inching control....a nice feature when hooking up implements to the 3 point hitch (remember we are in cat 2 and 3 implements now and that brings the weight up appreciably).

The 5030 is more user friendly too. The M9 has no highbeam indicator, no pre-heat indicator and no brake lock on indicator, but I guess if you buy an M9 or better, I presume that Kubota assumes that you are an experienced operator. I like the intellepanel on the 5030. It tells you everything. The dash on the M9 tells you mean rpm, fuel level and engine temperature. Thats about it. But then the M9 is an agricultural tractor as is the M105 and 125. Of course you can get the M105x and the 125x which have more features but the cost is appreciably more too.

The 5030 handled the hay work I should say marginally whereas the M9 will be loafing most of the time. I also have my Massey 1085 cab tractor which is 85 pto with a 12x12 multipower (similar to a JD powershift). I use the 1085 for heavy work such as first cut mowing and crimping with our model 35 IH steel wheel crimper. I like having two tractors because it's a bear to keep changing out implements from mower to crimper to rake to bailer and so on. After 3 cuts and 9 changes that can get to be a pain to say the least.

I could have waited and got the new M95. It is more user friendly, has the corner mounted exhaust (like the 105-125), sloped hood (wich I disdain, looks like a TSC riding lawnmower or a Kioti-is Kubota copying Kioti?), ac outlets in the dash (keep your knees cold and promotes arthritis), Intellepanel likke the 5030 (I'd like that) and other features, but I prefer the square hood and for service, well, an hour meter works fine for me. Actual ground speed is not real important. I watch my implement, the inflow of material and outflow of product and that's how I gage my ground speed. I only used the speed indicator on the 5030 as a reference point and nothing more.

I suspect that the sloped hood on the M95 would be an advantage with the FEL. I have a large blind spot when the FEL is near the ground (it was the same on the 5030) but more so on the M9. It is pretty hard to gage the placement of the quick attach unit when changing from one front mounted implement to another (I have to have my wife spot the loader/qa position relative to the bucket or pallet forks) so that I can attach them without multiple trys. On the plus side, the loader has plenty of power and I opted for the cast wheel centers on the rears of the M9 instead of the stamped centers. I'd recommend cast centers on ANY tractor, Kubota or other make because, with the added weight on the rear axle, you cannot lift the rear end with the FEL. The 5030 would lift as would all my other Kubota's. I added weight plates on the 5030 to negate that.

The M9 has a wonderful seat. It's a Grammer air ride high back and it's comfortable. With air ride, the M9 rides better than my car. The 105 and 125 also have the same seat. The seat in my 5030 was punsihing to say the least and the forward lean coupled with the spring suspension made for some interesting and painful experiences on rough ground. For the life of me, I can't understand why Kubota doesn't offer the Grammer seat as an option on ALL of it's cab models and at least a weatherproof model on it's open station units. If I had kept the 5030 another season I was going to retrofit an air ride seat base to the OEM seat. My kidney's would appreciate it.

Now that winter has arrived, the hay fields are top dressed, the implements are put away and it's time for the fields to rest for next year, it's time to put my Lucknow 84" rear mount blower on. The 5030 would handle the Lucknow so long as the snow wasn't heavy and I took my time which was no problem so long as I had a hot cocoa and some good music to keep me company. With the M9, I'm afraid that my seat time will be quite a bit less and I probably won't enjoy my cocoa as much because no matter how deep the snow is or how heavy, the Lucknow will be burrowing right through it thanks to 85+ pto power. I could throw the snow around 75 feet with the 5030. I'm figuring 100+ with the M9 providing the driveline in the Lucknow will stand the strain.

In some ways, the M9 is a step back and in some ways it is a quantum leap forward for me. It's more basic with less bells and whistles but more powerful and more attuned to a farm enviroment.

My wife and I have been in a flux all summer and this fall with the rebuilding of our home, new computers and such. In as much as my computer literacy is between a rock and a hard place it hasn't been easy getting files transferred, the wireless system up and especially, getting acclimated to my new laptop. Hopefully, this winter I'll get the Mavica out and the Adobe running and post some pictures of the M9. be patient.

 

[5030]

John:

It's common knowledge that hydrostatic transmissions generate heat just like the automatic transmission in your vehicle. If you compare the advertised flywheel horsepower to the pto power, you will quickly see that the hydro consumes quite a bit more power between the flywheel and the pto as does the gear transmission. That extra power consumed is translated into heat and the heat has to go somewhere...in the castings, the UDT fluid, the oil cooler, lines, cylinders pumps, wherever.

I too had a high UDT fluid temperature. I could, at times, actually smell the fluid...when it's hot it has a fruity smell. I never had the FEL on at those times, they were in the field times, working a rear mounted implement. I inquired at the dealer about the high temperature and he told me that it wasn't uncommon for the fluid temperature to be in the area of 125 degrees above ambient temperature so that meant on a 100 degree summer day in the field, my fluid temperature would have been 225 degrees.....most certainly hot enough to cause a burn on your skin if you touched a cast part or oil cooler for any length of time. I never found out at what point the UDT fluid broke down and degraded from the heat, however, I stuck to the change intervals exactly and never had any problems whatsoever. I also made sure my radiator screens were CLEAN. I cleaned them after every foray into the fields, usually, every night.

I did loose an "O" ring on the FEL when the unit had only a few hours on it. It was assembled wrong and the cylinder was replaced by Kubota, no charge.

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

Daryl -

Thanks for the reply. I've known about the heat associated with hydros since I started researching my tractor, thanks in large part to reading a lot of posts that you participated in.

I just want more of a margin of safety than what I have now. I know the fruity smell all too well. I just re-read the long post (HST Transmission) from way back about hydros that got me thinking about oil coolers in the first place. The math used in that post came up with maybe an 8 degree or so difference between max operating temperature of the hydro fluid and the point at which it begins to break down. (The post involved UDT - I use Super, so maybe that buys me a few degrees, maybe not.)

That's just too close for me and I was wondering if you had looked very far into the Hayden external oil coolers that you mentioned in that post. Any specifics would be great, like model numbers, or where exactly you might suggest locating it, given your familiarity with that part of the tractor.

I just want the hydro to last as long as possible, and I can't help but believe that it will last longer if I can drop the temps down. You said in that post that "time will tell" if the hydro can stand living on the edge like that, but I just don't like being on the edge.

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated. And by the way, nice job on showing Kubota how to redesign a key part of their a/c system.

Thanks, John D.

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

Just for the record: I don't think Daryl would mind me saying here that he answered all of my questions at great length in a PM. Bottom line is that Hayden oil coolers are hard to beat, with their patented "swirl technology", and I might get up to a 20 degree drop in hydro oil temperature. Ya hear that ol' girl? Next summer'll be a lot easier for you, I promise. Yes, your seals will be fine, don't worry. (She worries a lot).

Thanks Daryl, and thanks all at TBN. John D.