Review By : Newbutlearning on May 2 2007 12:00AM
Price Paid : $15,500.00
Years of Use : New Owner (0-1 Year)
Implements : I-match; Frontier 5ft rear blade; Frontier 4 ft box blade; 200 CX front loader
Purchased From : Fisher Implement, Tangent OR
Strengths Easy to operate. Hydrostatic transmission makes it easy to creep around on steep hills without loosing control. Pretty stable on sidehills, although I try to minimize the amount of sidehilling I do. Good loader lifting capacity. No extra ballast is necessary for a loader bucket full of soil when operating on level ground.
Small and very manuverable. I live on a wooded hillside and this thing fits between the trees quite nicely.
Weaknesses Loader contol level is located to close to my right thigh. When backing up from a dirt pile while trying to tilt and raise the bucket, the lever hits my thigh. This is worse when backing up, because you have to slide your right foot even more to the right to reach the reverse pedal.
Loader doesn't have the power to pull fence posts set in concrete. (Should have bought a bigger tactor -- this is not the tractor's fault:)
High range is too high to use for anything except flat highway travel. In low range the engine lugs trying to climb my very steep hillside, but it does make it to the top. Did I mention it is really steep?
I am thinking of adding some ballast to the tires for doing loader work on a hillside. If the rear tires are uphill the tractor is little tippy when using the loader to pull fence posts. Extra ballast should solve this problem but I am little worried about having to climb to the hill with the extra weight.
Overall The $15500 price included all of the implements, so I can't complain too much there.
This tractor is good comprimise for me. A larger tractor with more power would be great, but then it would be less manuverable and harder for me to store (Oh yeah -- more expensive too). Soooo... overall I am quite satisfied. The loader control lever is a minor quibble.
Parts : Performance : 9
Ease of Use : 9 Financing : 10
Reliability : 10 Overall : 9