Your opinions on the Kioti KB2375 backhoe?

[MarcusCarr]

After a short stint with a LW-8 backhoe that was both too big for my Kioti DK35SE and of a low quality than I was willing to live with, I have decided to save up and sink $6500 into the KB2375 with subframe.

I have browsed through a lot of threads on backhoes here, but this is a huge amount of money for me and I am looking for any more input, good and bad.

I will primarily be removing stumps from 8" pine trees and cleaning up about 10 acres of downed limbs, brush, etc.

I am especially concerned with smooth control.

If the majority of my work will be trenching and stump removal, should I go with the smallest (9") bucket?

Thank you for your comments.

Marcus

 

[kentrodngun]

Marcus, ever consider just renting an excavator and pop & remove the stumps? After that, a tooth bar on your bucket would assist in the cleanup. Maybe even a grapple. IslandTractor is a big proponent of grapples and has done a lot of cleanup with his. I don't know if you have a lot of other uses for your backhoe post stump removal, but if you don't, it's (as you pointed out) a huge amount of money.

I don't know what else you intend to use on your machine. Personally, I use a box blade, back blade, rotary mower, chipper, rear forks and borrow a friend's set of discs on occasion. If I had a backhoe on, I'd have to remove it quite often and my back wouldn't be happy (it complains enough just changing these smaller implements). My solution was to buy a beat up old Ditch Witch trencher/backhoe and now I don't worry about having to swap out a backhoe on my tractor (just my 2 cents worth). Good luck with your decision.

 

[darkviper]

I have a KB 2365 on a CK 20. Here is my 2 cents. I have used mine many many many times to remove stumps. if you have about 1-2 feet of tree up top to help pry the tree up you can do it quickly with the size stump you are describing. But if it is sawed off to the ground that size stump will take you about 15-30 minutes each. Now with you talking about 10 acres you will have retired before you finish. me personally, i would rent a track hoe with a thumb. You can most of the time grab them with that and rock them a couple of times then just pull them out the ground. Then when you hit a sweet gum or hard wood you have plenty of umpf to get it out of the ground. About a 300 series cat would do real good.I think you can rent thoes things around here for aout 1500-2000 a week. I dont think you are going to find any back hoe for any tractor that is going to make you happy for that size of a job. 1-2 acres with 8" plus size stumps yeah that would be fine 10 plus is a hole nother ball of wax. Not to discourage you

 

[RexB]

I really like the KB2375 hoe, it's dug out a bunch of stumps on this 8 acres. And shoved boulders around. I overloaded it once, I guess, carrying an approx 1700lb castiron light pole: an O-ring in the main boom cylinder 'rolled' but the dealer replaced the whole cylinder under warranty. (The backhoe still worked, just not at full capacity.)

That's a lot of money, many people have gone with a Woods BH/subframe for their Kiotis. More knowledgable people will chime in with their druthers.

Kent and Marcus had good ideas about using alternate less expensive attachments or renting a small excavator for doing the job. But with 10 acres you prolly want a permanent backhoe and do the job over a period of time. Keep a cold yard beer in the cupholder!

 

[JoelD]

Having dug a number of stumps with a backhoe and with my dozer with six way blade I am thinking there is nothing better than an excavator at stumping. Stumping anything other than a pine is a huge level of effort. Particularly if you are in rocky soil, you would not believe how much force is needed to break a hardwood's roots free from rocky soil.
My advice, take a good long walk around, figure out exactly what you need done. Renting a small to mid-sized excavator IMO would be the best bet, get on it for a weekend, you'd be amazed at how much work a machine like that can complete is a weekend.
Also saves all the wear and tear on your machine, again, stumping is about the toughest job out there, lots of forces on the machine, stuff can get bent, shaken loose or snap.
I am thinking an excavator in the 16000 plus pound rage would end up being much faster and more cost effective.
good luck

 

[RexB]

...If the majority of my work will be trenching and stump removal, should I go with the smallest (9") bucket?

Oh yeah, i forgot to opine on that part... For homeowner trenching the 9" bucket is the best size, you won't be digging a lot of extra dirt that a larger bucket would. And a 9" will work fine for stumping. I've a 12" bucket that works very well for stumping and digging out rocks. It doesn't move much dirt at a time, but cuts hardpan very well.

 

[jim_n_nh]

I can speak of a 2376 that leaks at a 171 hours. For the 30 hours I owned the machine I use the backhoe for less than an hour. Kioti knows there is a problem, depending on how they treat me there will be a smile or lack there of on my face.
Jim

 

[IslandTractor]

I will primarily be removing stumps from 8" pine trees and cleaning up about 10 acres of downed limbs, brush, etc.

10 acres of 8 inch stumps could be a LOT of work. I would do a careful assessment of the number and size of stumps as well as consider what time period you want to accomplish this work. I agree with comments that you need to balance the cost of buying a backhoe versus renting a larger excavator or having a professional excavator do the work. I would imagine that if you are really dealing with hundreds of stumps (and there could be many hundreds in 10 acres), then rental of an excavator might be pretty pricy especially if you are a novice and would not be terribly efficient at using it for the first several days at least. On the other hand, trying to dig out 200 plus stumps with any CUT/BH would be quite a challenge.

I use a Woods BH90x on my DK40 to dig stumps. I have only a 18 inch bucket at this point which is not ideal but I am also digging in fairly soft sandy soil with moderate number of rocks. Including moving the tractor, setting up, digging and backfilling the hole with the spoil, I'd guess it takes me 15-20 minutes per stump. A CUT with BH is just not strong enough to simply rip out a 8 inch stump the way an excavator could. The issue is ripping up the lateral roots so you can yank the stump out. An appropriately sized excavator allows you to clamp onto the stump and just tears the thing out with brute force. With my BH I need to dig to get at the lateral roots then rip them with the bucket. That means I need to dig often on all four sides of the stump which means a fair amount of digging to find the roots and moving the BH at least once. I plan to get a ripper tooth to use instead of the bucket specifically for stump removal...haven't done it yet but a ripper tooth plus thumb should be quicker as I won't need to dig to get at the lateral roots. Even with a ripper tooth I'd guess it will take 10 minutes at least per stump and that is being optomistic. Bottom line is that you'll be lucky to get 3-4 stumps per hour with a CUT+BH. I'd guess that with an expert operator and a medium size excavator the number might be up to 10 times that many stumps per hour.

If I were in your shoes, I'd get an estimate for professional excavator removal of the 10 acres of stumps before doing anything else. It might only take a couple of days with the right equipment and operator so the cost could well be much less than buying a BH or even trying to rent an excavator yourself.

Once you have the stumps out then the removal of the stumps to a pile is easily accomplished with a grapple. A grapple would also make general clean up of slash etc much faster.

 

[cabin kioti]

I have a ck30hst fel/bh Kioti2375.I also have a 16 inch bucket and a 12 inch bucket. I bought everything new this will be the third year.I can tell you this with the 12 inch bucket there is not one stump that I coundn't get out of the groundand most of them were 16inch accross. Both tractor and bh work better than I would have ever dreamed they would.Most of my trees are maple,beech,or cherry,hemlock.The beech is the hardest because of the root system.I just cleared about an acre to plant a grape vineyard and never had one problem.I would recoment this equipment to anyone period. If I can get so help on downloading pictures I would attach them to this reply

 

[Dmace]

I wouldn't trade my KB2365 for any other backhoe on any sub 30hp tractor. It is amazingly strong for its size and the 16" bucket is a great match for the power. I find 2400rpms to be the sweet spot for power yet not too fast of a swing. I love the fact that it has "CAT" controls which are easier to use in my opinion.

Click thumbnails for larger images:


Also take a look at the KB2465 which is the same basic size but with a curved boom.