Kubota MX4900

This model arrived recently enough that the discussion around it is mostly about what it displaces, and the answer owners keep giving is the L4802. Several independently argue that the MX does everything better for a small premium and that the L4802 no longer makes sense beside it - one L4802 owner who bought just months before this launched says outright that he wishes he had waited, having moved a number of large round bales with his and concluding he would not want to handle large squares regularly. The technical argument one buyer makes is the most useful version of it: the comparable L is a non-turbo three-cylinder while this is a turbocharged four, so it makes its power while working the engine far less, which he takes as a durability advantage, and he rates the MX three-point as both stronger and easier to adjust. Comfort is the other reason people cross over, and it is not a small one - a six-foot, 250-pound buyer coming off a 65-horsepower utility tractor found the L genuinely uncomfortable, banging his knee on the steering wheel every time he used the pedal and cramping his hip from holding his leg at an angle, while this one gave him ample legroom and a higher view. He bought it mainly for the fit.

Owners who have them are enthusiastic, and specific about what changed. One who traded a 28-horsepower L2800 on eleven acres in Texas says it is emphatically not overkill and simply does not bog down in normal work the way the smaller tractor did. Another on 111 acres bought for snow, clearing and light agricultural work is thankful for two decisions: sizing up to this, and taking the cab rather than the open station, because plowing through a storm at six degrees in nothing but a sweater justified the cost. That cab is around $10,000 though, and another owner weighing the same choice decided he would rather be outside and spend the money on implements. Implement sizing advice is precise: the rule of thumb owners pass around is a foot of brush hog width per five PTO horsepower, and an owner running a 6-foot cutter says it does a good job but needs low range, second or third gear, for clean results in heavy grass.

Two cautions deserve weight against all that. The first is ground pressure, and it comes from someone who loves the machine: he would go smaller if starting again, because after twenty-five straight days of rain he had not moved the tractor since October, sinking three inches anywhere he drove. Being able to pick up a literal ton or a thirty-foot tree is wonderful, he says, and being unable to use the tractor because it rained in the past week is not. The second is the Category II hitch that the spec sheet sells as an advantage. An owner who traded an L2501 for one found his existing Category I cutter and box blade needed sleeve adapters that are not long enough to stay put, and that they seize onto the pins so thoroughly he takes a small sledgehammer to them at every implement change.