Orange Fords/Deeres in California

[_RaT_]

This is my very first subject post.
As I drive along the Interstates and freeways here in California, I notice all of the Ford/New Holland and John Deere tractors are painted what appears to be "Kubota Orange" (Caltrans color). At first glance one might think that CalTrans (Califronia Department of Transportation) was biased towards Kubotas, but I have yet to see CalTrans use a single Kubota. Most all the tractors are pulling some type of mower, batwings, flails, rotarys and scissorbars, and look like the 50 HP and up variety. Why haven't I seen a single Kubota. Public perception that a government agency would buy an OBVIOUS Japanese product, or simply Kubota being outbid? I wonder.
The farmers along I-5 (Canada to Mexico highway)overwhelming use John Deere, Case, Ford and then Kubota's in that order. What is the dominate tractor, farmers use in your area? (this assumes you have farms in your area) Rat...

 

[Thomas]

Good morning Paddock.
In my area there not that many framers left which is sad.
Its seems 50hp and larger John Deere tie with Case. 32hp to 50hp John Deere.
Small compact to 32 hp its Kubota hands down.
This is the northeast where one buys for all four seasons.

Take care and have a pleasant day.

Thomas..NH

 

[ejb]

>>What is the dominate tractor, farmers use in your area? (this assumes you have farms in your area) Rat...

My observations are about the same as yours, I almost never see a Kubota tractor on any working farm. More often than not, in my area, green is the predominate color by far; there are still a lot of old masseys, fords and farmalls still in use too, but almost every farm I pass has at least one gree tractor poking out of the barn, usually its the biggest machine on the farm.

Same holds true of local and state government in Mass; can't remember ever seeing a kubota; but I have seen, just recently in fact, a nice looking kubota backhoe on tracks doing some state contracted highway work near my house (but it was owned by a private contractor). All of the big machines at the job where yellow-deeres, which is pretty typical around here.

It may be a case of governments not wanting to spend taxpayer money on such an obviously foriegn company (how many government employees with a govt car drive imports?...not many).

 

[roysallis]

In Alabama most of the big tractors (50+hp) are John Deere and in compact tractors there is a good mix of John Deere, Kubota, and Ford/ New Holland. I've seen mostly Ford and Kubota in use by the highway department. In heavy machinery I see a lot of Komatsu, Deere, Case, and Caterpillar.

 

[JerryG]

In my state AR. The highway deptment has only Ford/New Holland, or thats all I have seen for years. Most of the farms have Ford/New Holland, Massey Ferguson, then John Deere in that order of quanilty. I just know of a couple of farmers with Kubotas. The construction guys have either Ford/New Holland 555's or Case 580's. JerryG

 

[Bird]

In my area, the big farmers have more John Deere than anything, but quite a few Case International, just a few of the big tracked Caterpillars, and a few Ford/New Hollands. Of course, there's still quite a few of the really old Farmalls/Internationals. You don't see small tractors much on these farms, but when you do, it'll most likely be one of the really old Ford 8N or 9N, or a Massey Ferguson, or Farmall they've kept for small jobs. In the newer small tractors, I've seen more Kubotas followed by John Deere. I don't know about the state (most of the state work I've seen along the roads is done by contractors, and it's usually John Deere), but I have seen some of the cities using Kubotas.

Our local community college, which I believe is one of the larger ones in the state, has a tractor mechanic program that is co-sponsored by John Deere, so that helps them get a lot of publicity.

Bird

 

[Mike H]

John Deere's on the farms Deere's and Ford's for the road commissions. Like CA, I see many of the road commission tractors painted orange. I wonder if we get a deal on surplus CALTRANS paint?

Bird: there must be an awful lot of those 8N's around here as well - we've got a gentlemen in the one stop sign town nearby whose entire business is repairing them. Had four of them out when I passed by this am.

 

[al f]

Here in Virginia there are a lot of farms and even more orchards. For those two, I would say that Ford/NH dominates. The orchards tend to use a lot of old used Fords and Deeres, whatever they can find cheap to beat around. Following NH, there is a good mix of Deere, Case IH and a lot of old Farmalls, 8N's, etc. The state tends to use Deere, Case and NH's. For compacts, again NH is most common followed by Deere and then Kubota. These numbers seem to also be reflected in the local dealerships: The NH dealer is probably 10 times the size of the Deere and Kubota dealers combined. The NH dealer has maybe 40 new NH's and 30 used tractors on their lot, Deere about 5 or 6 new Deeres, and (the one and only time I was there), the Kubota dealer had absolutely NO Kubotas /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif and the only tractor they had was one old used MF with a broken front end sitting in some tall weeds! Is this the cause of the tractors seen around here, or the effect of it? Beats me.

Al

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Boy I don't think you look at stock on the lot and make a decision as to what's really going on. My local Kubota dealer sometimes looks like there's not too much going on, then I go by another day the place is wall to wall ready-to-goes and a stack of crates ready to assemble. Then I go by a week or two later and it's back to not-so-many.

I'll agree though that the farmers can have some REALLY old stuff, those tractors where you sit in a metal bucket with a hard plastic wheel about neck high with about an 8 foot rod running to the steering box. Back tires 8 inches wide and 8 feet tall, you wonder how they even get up on the things.

 

[al f]

Well, it wasn't just the stock on the lot. When I talked withthe Kubota dealer in January about what I wanted (20 to 30 hp, 4X4, etc.) he said "We got one 2400 coming in in April. Want it? If you want anything other than that tractor it's gonna cost ya extra 'cause I gotta special order it. Or you can wait, I got another one coming in in August." I was not going to wait a mere 7 months to make my purchase. The NH dealer on the other hand had 2 TC 25D's with loaders and a TC 33 all prepped for delivery on top of the 8 or 10 TC's they had displayed on the lot. The NH dealer has got to be moving more tractors than Kubota, unless there's a lot of people around here who will pay unbelievably high prices to special order Kubotas. The dealer obviously didn't have any plans to sell many this year.


Al