Eric Umbarger
New Member
Hey guys, complete noobie here looking to make my first big purchase and hoping some of y’all can help me make a decision or point me in the right direction. This will probably be a lengthy post so I apologize for the wall of text in advance. The TLDR is: What brand should I buy?
I will begin with my experience and what I need a machine to do. I’m 30yrs old and leasing some farmland from my father-in-law here in South Carolina. My wife and I moved into a single wide here five years ago and began organic farming. The entire property is 80 acres with my mother-in-law (they are divorced) having another 50 right next door. They have had horses here for 25 years and a couple of hay fields. The breakdown of “our” 82 acres is roughly 11 acres of hay field that I do not mess with, 18 acres of flat pasture, 12 acres of sloped pasture (not too steep), 25 acres of thick forest, 2 acre pond, and the rest are buildings and misc. My main duties currently and mowing, which I painfully do on a Ford 3910 tractor pulling a five foot bush hog. Using this method only allows 1-2 acres per hour to get mowed meaning it takes an entire weekend to cut everything. Now, because I’m farming regeneratively the long term goal is to have enough animals to rotate around and eat the grass for me, but for now I only have three sheep, four horses, and a small turkey flock so it will be a couple years until I figure out the correct stocking rate and obtain those numbers. The other thing I do is just move round bales for my father-in-law.
Other things I have done and will do more of is putting up perimeter fence, mix concrete for fence posts, receiving the occasional pallet of cover crop seed, tilling, planting cover crop. I would say over all my priority list for attachments is:
Now the big question is, what CTL/MTL do I go with? I know literally nothing about these things other than specs and what I’ve seen on forum posts, YouTube comments etc. My 9-5 is in the IT field where we have things like Nikon vs Canon, Apple vs Android, PC vs Mac, and never in my life have I seen such a polarized community as CTL owners. A single Youtube video will have one comment of “You shouldn’t have bought an ASV, they are junk, get a Cat instead!” and the very next comment will say “Cat is garbage, ASV is way better”. In the automotive world we can track lifespan of vehicles. I forgot the name of the report but each year there is a list of most reliable vehicles that will have something like “4% of F150s are still on the road after 200,000 miles, 3% of Ram 1500s are still on the road after 200,000 miles” but I haven’t seen anything like that with construction equipment. What should I even be looking at? In my research the last few weeks things seem to be all over the place. Case makes New Holland so why buy one over the other? There is some kind of confusing relationship between Cat, ASV, and Terex so what makes one better than the other? Several brands have Yanmar engines. Gehl makes Mustang I think. ASV apparently uses plastic fuel tanks which make some people mad. And then some specs don’t make sense to me. Kubota SVL75 for example has one of the smallest, lightest dimensions in its class, but the top speed is far lower than competitors (7.1mph compared to 10-12 from other brands). And do I even care about top speed? From what I’ve read a PTO rotary cutter like I currently use only has about 500 rpms on the blades while CTL hydraulics can spin blades at like 10,000 rpms so in theory I should be able to drive faster than the 3-4 mph, but the Youtube videos I’ve seen look like they are driving just as slow as my tractor does
I’ve seen some people say to buy from a brand that has good support via local dealers. South Carolina is small and most of the brands seem to have a monopoly. For instance, Blanchard Cat is the only Cat dealership in the entire state. They in particular don’t seem to want my money as I went there in person last Thursday, called and emailed Friday, and still haven’t heard back (Tuesday afternoon). As a matter of fact, I reached out to Bobcat, Cat, John Deere, Kubota, and Case dealerships two days ago and Bobcat is the only one that has contacted me back. Maybe they would all be more attentive if I already owned a machine and needed a repair but who knows.
Another thing I’ve wading through is track styles. I’m a geek when it comes to soil health and part of healthy soil is for it to be loose. This made me lean towards a Cat 2_7D or an ASV, but really there probably isn’t a ton of difference of 3.7psi and 4.7psi. Speaking of soil, we have a wide range from loose sand, to compacted sand, to red clay, but most everything has either grass of leaves over it. I don’t expect traction to be an issue
The final thing (I think) is my budget. I COULD afford a brand new machine and there are several companies that are offering 0% for 60 months right now and Kubota is even going 1% for 72 months. I’m very frugal though and hesitant to do that because as listed above, there are several attachments I both need and want, and I also like having extra money each month to put in an emergency fund. When I first started looking a few weeks ago I was thinking ~$30,000 would be nice, including a rotary cutter, but due to my lack of knowledge I kind of pussyfooted around at an auction I went to. From what I’ve seen, name brand CTLs only go below $30k once you’ve gone above 2000 hours. I thought that was fine at first but then I’ve seen Youtube videos and forum posts talking about how undercarriages might already be having issues by then which made me think I should up my budget because I don’t want to spend thousands in repairs. If I did buy new, or newer at least, with the light work I’ll be doing I imagine it will live just about forever.
I guess I should put what I think are requirements for me and what I don’t care about.
I know this is a long post but a really appreciate your time reading through it and helping me out. This will be the biggest purchase I’ve ever made regardless if I buy new or used, so thanks!
I will begin with my experience and what I need a machine to do. I’m 30yrs old and leasing some farmland from my father-in-law here in South Carolina. My wife and I moved into a single wide here five years ago and began organic farming. The entire property is 80 acres with my mother-in-law (they are divorced) having another 50 right next door. They have had horses here for 25 years and a couple of hay fields. The breakdown of “our” 82 acres is roughly 11 acres of hay field that I do not mess with, 18 acres of flat pasture, 12 acres of sloped pasture (not too steep), 25 acres of thick forest, 2 acre pond, and the rest are buildings and misc. My main duties currently and mowing, which I painfully do on a Ford 3910 tractor pulling a five foot bush hog. Using this method only allows 1-2 acres per hour to get mowed meaning it takes an entire weekend to cut everything. Now, because I’m farming regeneratively the long term goal is to have enough animals to rotate around and eat the grass for me, but for now I only have three sheep, four horses, and a small turkey flock so it will be a couple years until I figure out the correct stocking rate and obtain those numbers. The other thing I do is just move round bales for my father-in-law.
Other things I have done and will do more of is putting up perimeter fence, mix concrete for fence posts, receiving the occasional pallet of cover crop seed, tilling, planting cover crop. I would say over all my priority list for attachments is:
- Immediately
- Rotary Cutter
- Hay Spike
- Broadcast Seeder or Drill Seeder
- Sometime next few years
- Auger
- Tiller
- Pallet Fork
- Ball Hitch
- Grapple Bucket
- One Day
- Forestry Mulcher
- Concrete Mixer
Now the big question is, what CTL/MTL do I go with? I know literally nothing about these things other than specs and what I’ve seen on forum posts, YouTube comments etc. My 9-5 is in the IT field where we have things like Nikon vs Canon, Apple vs Android, PC vs Mac, and never in my life have I seen such a polarized community as CTL owners. A single Youtube video will have one comment of “You shouldn’t have bought an ASV, they are junk, get a Cat instead!” and the very next comment will say “Cat is garbage, ASV is way better”. In the automotive world we can track lifespan of vehicles. I forgot the name of the report but each year there is a list of most reliable vehicles that will have something like “4% of F150s are still on the road after 200,000 miles, 3% of Ram 1500s are still on the road after 200,000 miles” but I haven’t seen anything like that with construction equipment. What should I even be looking at? In my research the last few weeks things seem to be all over the place. Case makes New Holland so why buy one over the other? There is some kind of confusing relationship between Cat, ASV, and Terex so what makes one better than the other? Several brands have Yanmar engines. Gehl makes Mustang I think. ASV apparently uses plastic fuel tanks which make some people mad. And then some specs don’t make sense to me. Kubota SVL75 for example has one of the smallest, lightest dimensions in its class, but the top speed is far lower than competitors (7.1mph compared to 10-12 from other brands). And do I even care about top speed? From what I’ve read a PTO rotary cutter like I currently use only has about 500 rpms on the blades while CTL hydraulics can spin blades at like 10,000 rpms so in theory I should be able to drive faster than the 3-4 mph, but the Youtube videos I’ve seen look like they are driving just as slow as my tractor does
I’ve seen some people say to buy from a brand that has good support via local dealers. South Carolina is small and most of the brands seem to have a monopoly. For instance, Blanchard Cat is the only Cat dealership in the entire state. They in particular don’t seem to want my money as I went there in person last Thursday, called and emailed Friday, and still haven’t heard back (Tuesday afternoon). As a matter of fact, I reached out to Bobcat, Cat, John Deere, Kubota, and Case dealerships two days ago and Bobcat is the only one that has contacted me back. Maybe they would all be more attentive if I already owned a machine and needed a repair but who knows.
Another thing I’ve wading through is track styles. I’m a geek when it comes to soil health and part of healthy soil is for it to be loose. This made me lean towards a Cat 2_7D or an ASV, but really there probably isn’t a ton of difference of 3.7psi and 4.7psi. Speaking of soil, we have a wide range from loose sand, to compacted sand, to red clay, but most everything has either grass of leaves over it. I don’t expect traction to be an issue
The final thing (I think) is my budget. I COULD afford a brand new machine and there are several companies that are offering 0% for 60 months right now and Kubota is even going 1% for 72 months. I’m very frugal though and hesitant to do that because as listed above, there are several attachments I both need and want, and I also like having extra money each month to put in an emergency fund. When I first started looking a few weeks ago I was thinking ~$30,000 would be nice, including a rotary cutter, but due to my lack of knowledge I kind of pussyfooted around at an auction I went to. From what I’ve seen, name brand CTLs only go below $30k once you’ve gone above 2000 hours. I thought that was fine at first but then I’ve seen Youtube videos and forum posts talking about how undercarriages might already be having issues by then which made me think I should up my budget because I don’t want to spend thousands in repairs. If I did buy new, or newer at least, with the light work I’ll be doing I imagine it will live just about forever.
I guess I should put what I think are requirements for me and what I don’t care about.
Required: Aux hydraulics |
Nice to have: Wide tracks | 2 spd | 2 way auto leveling | quick attachments (eg, Bob-tach) | A smooth ride
Don’t care: Closed cab with AC | Which type of controls
I know this is a long post but a really appreciate your time reading through it and helping me out. This will be the biggest purchase I’ve ever made regardless if I buy new or used, so thanks!