Gordon - I might have posted this already - I don't remember - but at the last project I worked on there was a guy helping me who kept asking me if I'd take his JD 5300 even swap for my Kubota. He seriously would've done it, too, but it didn't even bear considering, to me. But, to be honest, it was the transmission he was in love with, not the rest of the tractor. He loved the tires (couldn't get over the fact that they were so much wider than his), and the hydraulics on the 3-point hitch, and the 4-in-1 bucket, but it was still the transmission he kept marvelling over. He kept saying stuff like "Man, I sure wish I could do that with my tractor." When he left the job on Saturday afternoon, after working with me Thursday thru Saturday, he said Monday was going to be tractor trading day - he was going to see what he could get in trade on a Kubota HST.
I joke a lot about there being no other reasonable choice than hydrostatic and stuff like that, but the truth is that I know exactly how it is to think they're junk. Two years ago, I was of the opinion that hydrostatics were too weak and inefficient to deserve consideration. As far as I was concerned, they were ok for lawn and garden tractors, but not for anything where you needed to do "real work". After reading the brochures, I realized the potential advantages from a safety standpoint and that really appealed to me because I'm often working on job sites with a lot of people around - and let's face it, people who don't know much about tractors see "a big riding mower" when they see a compact utility tractor. But I still kept persisting in the belief that they were inefficient.
One day, though, my dealer, who used to be a jet hydraulics mechanic, told me I could try one for a couple days (this guy's no dummy, he knows a potential sale when he sees one and he always "sees me coming"). He told me they were bullet-proof as far as durability is concerned and a lot more powerful and efficient than I was giving them credit for. So I did, and I was impressed, but still not convinced about the efficiency of them.
Then, I was telling all this (and my dilemma) to a good friend of mine who was the engineer-in-charge for the NASA department that designed the lunar rover. He told me I was very much mistaken in my view of hydrostatic transmissions. He told me that even though about 10% of the input power to the transmission is lost to heat, compared to a straight manual transmission (about 5% more than is lost in a GST), this was "a tempest in a teapot" compared to the advantages for the jobs compact utility tractors are used for. He was right. That 5%-10% is more than recouped in the advantages, which I've espoused enough times that I won't bore everyone with them again. But suffice it to say, I'm completely sold, and so is everyone who's ever seen my tractor work. Now if I were a really talented operator, there's no telling what they would think. As it is, my tractor just makes me look good, and that's ok, too. I overheard one guy on the last project telling another fellow I was worth watching, that he thought I could "make that tractor dance". I'll take it, but I know where the credit belongs.
Mark
