Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living I'm buying a new Lawn/garden tractor

I'm fed up with getting snow blown back in my face while running the snow blower on my John Deere 325 lawn tractor.
I'm looking to upgrade to a new tractor, this time with one big enough to have a two stage blower. And a cab, heated. And four wheel drive.
Mowing isn't the most important job this will do, but it must be at least a decent mower, and be fairly easy to put on and take off.
I've priced the new Deere 1023, and the Kubota BX 2370 so far.
Right now, the Kubota is winning the features/price battle, but I don't want to ignore the other aspects of owning onw either. Reliability, ease of maintenance, ease of operation, all go together.
There is no need for anything larger than these, it would be too large to mow my lawn if it was any bigger.
Kubota has a great reputation for reliability with their compact tractors, does that extend to the lawn tractors also?

Cub Cadet makes some good equipment as well.

I have no personal experience with the sub compacts other than couple of my neighbors use them to cut grass. I have a L3400 and only problem in 500 hours I have had was the Hyd return hose rubbed the frame and started leaking at around 250 hrs. Replaced it and wrapped the new one with pipe insulation to prevent future damage.

arky

I bought a 12 year old Kubota B7500 with 400 hours on it. Has a brush hog, blade, and bucket that came with it for $8500. This winter blading the 300 foot driveway was a 10 minute process with up to 10" of snow. Now it is helping me put 35 tons of stone into a patio for me.

Can't imagine not having one with a bucket now that I have had one. Good luck in your search. That one is 21 horsepower.

Kubota has always had good reliable equipment, as for "ease of maintenance" I'm sure there are some things on the tractor that are more of a pain to fix than others but they all have their problems in that area.

I'm a Deere man but if I was to change It would be to Kubota for sure. I do own several Kubota diesel engines and they are flawless.

I see someone advocated for Cub cadet, Keep in mind that Cub Cadet is MTD. MTD bought Cub Cadet from IH in 1981 but for many years MTD let Cub cadet do their thing but not anymore, Cub has gone to the "Dogs".

BTW, they did make a cab for your tractor and one could probably be found without to much diggin'.

YES.

My brother has a BX model which has given great performance mowing lawn and blowing snow. I have a L3010 which has also been doing great for 16 years of hard work.

I went and sat on a BX2370 yesterday. Lot's more features than a comparable Deere. As of right now, it's a done deal as soon as my financial situation straightens out.

Paul, I've been a Deere fan for a long time. After doing some shopping, and comparing models and features, my allegiance is switching to Kubota.

Deere at one time made a cabfor my 325, but since it's a 1999 model there hasn't been one that I could mount on mine without a lot of modifying. That's one of the reasons why I'm getting a newer, bigger, tractor with a two stage snowblower.

I have a 10 yr old B7510. It is 21 horse. I think the BX cuts grass better. The BX my neighbor has does not have a decent 3PT hitch. It has one but is small or something. Nothing wrong with the BX though . Not as amuck ground clearance as the B. The B is a bigger frame. I was sold on the tractors when I was building my house. Got 6" of snow. and no way of getting it off the driveway. He gets his bx , puts it in 4x4 , puts the posi pedal down and could not believe what that little tractor could do. As for my tractor. I had one problem, it was a part on the joy stick covered under warranty. The front wheels fell off the mower but hitting rocks in a field ruined it. The battery is still original.

Kubota is good stuff..but the older JD s are what I run and plan on rebuilding forever. As the new stuff with all the China parts and plastic just don't cut it...

The old Cub Cadet stuff from about he mid 90's on back was some pretty good stuff but the newer stuff is pretty poor. Kubota is hard to argue with.

John Deere for me .I own a 1025 drive over deck and loader comes on and off in less than a minute.If you buy a Deere compact now they come with a 6 year powertrain warranty.I looked at a Kubota but hated the one pedal hydro pedal.

Whatever a guy goes with, I can say that I am very surprised at how much I am using my little Kubota. Dirt moving, gravel hauling, snow blading, mowing, patio building, and the list goes on and on. A good tractor of whatever make is pretty nice to have around.

I bought a little JD160 in 1988 to cut my lawn. I still have it and use it all the time around the house. Last year, I had to spend some money on it, had to replace the transaxle and the seat. Found a used transaxle, and plan on fixing the old one. My point here is, in all my calling around the country looking for the transaxle, everyone (dealer/mechanics) said to hang on to the old machines and fix them. New equipment just ain't what the old ones are. I have an 80s L2550 Kubota with a FIL that does the other work.