Kubota M6060

What owners praise here is almost never a specification. It is that the machine is simple enough to work on. An owner who grew up running pre-1970s Internationals, Olivers and Fords says of his 2018 that he could do nearly anything on it himself, that it carries just enough electronics to be comfortable without taking over, and that he would buy the same tractor again. Others describe it in the same terms: a basic old-style tractor with modern comfort, a particulate filter but no exhaust additive to keep topped up, a loader that is strong and smooth, and a machine that simply worked. One reports his starting in real cold without being plugged in and burning clean. Someone who works on these rates the smaller M tractors as solidly built, while warning separately that Kubota's telematics are worth avoiding and that a dealer without good service-information contacts will struggle on diagnosis.

The other half of the picture is that owners keep arriving at the M7060 instead, and the reason is gears rather than power. An owner who ran one with cab and loader across 22 acres of hay calls it a workhorse and good value, and still says his next machine would be the M7060 with the 12-speed - he wants more ratios for ground engagement and three rear remotes rather than the single one his came with. A Kubota salesman puts the dealer-cost difference between the two at only two or three thousand dollars and says he never recommends this model because of it. What the M6060 does buy over the cheaper M5660 below it, as owners point out, is a creeper-type low speed. On capacity it will run large implements but at its ceiling: one owner pulls a 9-foot heavy commercial rototiller and reports it working only at the slowest ground speed the tractor offers, calling the machine the bare minimum anyone should consider behind that implement.

The cautionary account here concerns buying used, and it is worth reading before shopping on hours alone. An owner bought a 2014 example with 600 hours for $28,000 and the engine was finished by 627. It had never run right, going two or three hours before dying through a run of apparently unrelated faults, and throughout the temperature gauge read normal and the display threw no codes at all. The dealer quoted $30,014 for a replacement engine - more than he had paid for the tractor - and $20,000 to $25,000 to rebuild it. An independent mechanic did the rebuild for $15,000 and found the cause: a chunk broken out of the bottom corner of the radiator had let all the coolant drain away. Two other owners separately report random stalling, one finding the water separator full of bubbles, so if one dies unpredictably the cooling system deserves a physical look rather than trust in the instruments.