Tractor buying tips?

Go see Terry atTerry’s tractors on North Flannery in BR. He has a great selection of low hour Kubota and John Deere. Bought a 2013 Kubota L4600 with a loader from him a few years ago. Only had 250 hrs on it and saved about 10K from buying new. He advertises on Louisiana sportsman’s classifieds in the tractor section.

Always get a little more tractor than you need. Loader is a must.

Consider a finishing mower with the tractor instead of the zero turn. Could probably come out way less than $9k with the finishing mower and a decent zero turn/mower if you want to maintain a much smaller area with the ZT.

Think about DEF/Regen cycles if buying new. Mahindra is one of the few that redesigned their engines to not have to worry about it. If buying a used one, it’s something else to consider.

4WD is a very useful. I’d definitely recommend only looking at them.

I’ve been following Ramey Motors out of MS for a while and they have some pretty solid package deals on Mahindras. Tractor, trailer, implements, etc.

Do you need a cab? If so, 30-40 hp with those implements are getting over $30k depending on who you go with and what models.

I bought a property in Folsom recently. I have been in touch with Evergreen in Covington, they are the local Kubota dealer.

I'm away from home, so I haven't been in to talk hard numbers yet. But I've gotten online quotes from them and others in the area. They aren't completely out of line with what I've seen. The owner, Ben, has replied to my emails directly. I would certainly go talk to them.

I'm in the same boat, 20+ acres, it's already cleared for the most part. I'm eyeing the new MX series with cab.

I just bought a "like new" kubota mower, a ZD1211 for the front 6 acres. It's a beast of a machine. It knocked down severely overgrown grass like it wasn't there. It's hard to make it bog down and you can't on any sort of maintained yard. I went with Kubota, but the new decks aren't supposed to be up to par with the pre tier 4 emissions decks. I only made the initial cut, fiancee has made subsequent cuts. But the pictures don't look too bad. Skag is supposed to have a really great deck and leave a great cut. I doubt you can go wrong with either. Diesel is a great option though, I'm glad I chose it.

I had it serviced at Evergreen and they were great on turn around and letting me know what they were doing before hand. I was happy with their service.

ETA: I haven't done it yet, but I believe you save on state taxes when buying a tractor or other items if it's for a farm. You may want to look into that.

Also, I saw on the Evergreen website that they...or Kubota is offering 20% off msrp on tractors for members of certain equine organizations. From what I have read 15% off msrp is usually why people hope for, so 20% sounds really good. I'm not sure if there is something I'm missing there.

I am gonna go with DownSouth on this-

Ben is GOOD PEOPLE.

If I had property in Folsom, it wouldn’t even be a question- Evergreen would be my dealer.

Kubota, great machine and Kubota insurance is awesome.

KTAC, Kubota insurance through the Ohio Indemnity company is about $1.30 per thousand dollars of value. It has great reviews and covers a lot.

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Tractor buying tips

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As already mentioned.

-Buy a little larger than what you think you will need. This can't be said enough. If being used to do heavier work than say just finish mowing I would be looking in the 45-55HP range.
-4X4 is a must.
-If buying used I would personally try to find a nice tractor prior to DEF/regen emissions equipment.



Since Mahindra was brought up-
We own one. Is it a Deere/Kubota? Absolutely not.
I personally find it struggling to do work that other equivalent sized tractors do with ease.
It feels very light and tends to spin easy so we are constantly using it in 4WD (New, still haven't filled tires yet.) To me, the engine is very gutless. It loads up too easy and is not able to gain RPM when you need to; I presume this is due to it not being turbo charged.
Built quality I also find sub par as well.

This isn't to say it won't or doesn't get the job done. For us, it does everything we ask of it.
I guess it is just a "budget" piece of equipment.
Our main concern with the tractor is future service as it ages.
The local Mahindra dealer doesn't offer on site service. Luckily they do offer free pickup as the tractor is still under warranty.
Once that expires, I'd assume we would have to haul it in or pay for picking; unless they start to offer onsite service.

The two Deeres we have is a different story. One call and a tech is there onsite with a service truck.

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DownshiftAndFloorIt

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Very true.
To further validate your point-

The two current JDs we have are 2wd; all tractors prior to these from what I was told were also 2wd.
For all those years we have kept up with the land using only 2wd tractors.

This Mahindra we just bought about a year ago is our first 4wd.
So I guess we don't need it or it's not a "must" but it's surely nice to have it.
No longer have to worry about getting stuck, sliding, steering, etc. the few times we are working in out of the norm or ideal situations.

To be honest it's a personal preference of mine I guess. Kind of like I personally choose to only buy 4wd trucks. I don't need it, but it's surely nice to have so I don't have to worry the 3-4 times a year I catch myself in a spot where I would be in a slight bind with a 2wd. I guess one of those "better to have it and not need it, than to not have it and maybe need it".

Some very good advice in this thread. You mentioned clearing property. If you want to clear saplings, vines, and the like, you should consider a Ratchet Rake. I just got the 52" model and it turned my small Kubota into a beast. Good luck.

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