Dirt_Works
New member
First post to the site and have been having great fun soaking up all the stuff from the forums in the Kioti section. I was in the process of spec'ing out a Blue tractor TC 33 or 35 when my small country dealer was visited by a "new sales rep" yes you guessed it right KIOTI. After a visit to their factory he told me I might want to hold off until he got a couple of these for me to look at. Two showed up a DK 35 and 45.....I was sold from the get go. Then the CK started showing up .....DECISION DECISIONS..... Now a 30 HP CK ok enough already a man can only take so much. I have a landscaping business and I want to expand and add my first compact tractor to the stable. I have followed many forums the same as mine HST or Gear. Well I have some thoughts of my own on this. Hydro is not a new thing that just came out,,,,,look at the number of skid steer loaders out there up to 100HP that use Hydro drives and to great success with little to no down time. My dad bought a 10HP gravely convertible tractor when I was 14 (wont even talk about what year that was) it had a 30'' rotary mower that worked well on heavy grass small tree's cinder blocks stumps....ok you get the point...bottom line was; a teenage farm boy couldn't tear it up and it used hydro drive as well....enough said. Now gear drives tried and true no doubt about it. My schooling was on old farmall h, john deere B's, Ford 8 n's etc......you couldn't stop em when you were pulling stumps or plowing they would dig to china before they quit. My experience with Hydro is they will do the same with the engine at a working RPM they just let you know in a lil more plain language that the job is getting hard on them by that pump screaming when it gets really loaded....but I have never seen them refuse to do the job unless something was mech wrong with them. The one post about the 25HST not being able to get out of an 8'' rut I seriously doubt. My dealer let me drive their first 30HST this past Friday and he has large ditches and I drove it in and out of these 20 degree 10' deep ditches with no trouble at about 1600 rpm's. I will be using mine to pull a 5' box blade, soil pulverizor, FEL and a 6-foot finish mower. I am interested to hear from the HST owners,, now that you all have had your 20, 25 and 30's in the field for a while. What you are finding as pro and con with the KIOTI HST or Gear driven units? My dealer quote for a 30 HST with FEL is $17,000 probably not the best price but it is a small country dealer who has dealt with tractors all their lives and they stand behind the products they sell, thanks for any INFO and when I get the tractor,, PICs will be following shortly, <font color="orange"> </font> probably early December........Greg
