Great Value
By CJ Cowan(Owner), Jul. 12, 2019
Have put about 30 hours on a second-hand Kubota L4701D HST 4WD tractor with an LA765 front-end loader.The tractor has a total of 95 hours. The tractor has been used to:
1) Mow using a Land Pride 84” finish mower.
2) Disc plow with a 66” wide King Cutter disc plow.
3)
...
Push over and pile up about 450 cedar trees (Ashe Junipers) using Everything Attachments 55” grapple. Cedars ranged from 4’ to 15’ tall.
4) Bush hog using a 5’ Bad Boy medium duty bush hog.
5) Move material to build a road.
6) Remove concrete anchors belonging to an old fence that were buried pretty deep in the ground (with grapple).
7) Pull old T-posts and wire out of undergrowth (with grapple).
8) Puck up and move other implements such as box blade and tree puller (using grapple).
First the pros:
1) The L4701D HST is a great all-around tractor for the price. It can do everything above adequately.
2) It’s amazingly simple to drive. My wife learned in about 10 minutes and was mowing on her own in that time. The power steering is awesome. The HST is a nice luxury to have. It has a nice turn radius.
3) The loader and loader controls are well built and easy to operate. The loader controls seem to be superior to that of a JD, as you can curl and lift at the same time.
4) The loader capacity of a LA765 loader to lift height is very adequate in my opinion and definitely shouldn’t serve as a consideration as a con for most buyers (some people point out the superior lift capacity of other tractors makes them better).
5) The skid-steer quick hitch and 3 point quick hitch provided by the manufacturer are life savers for people working by themselves. An implement change takes 2 to 4 minutes with these systems, as opposed to 20 minutes without.
6) Did the 50 hour maintenance myself and it was relatively carefree
and easy. Filters easy to access and change.
7) The control lock on the FEL controller is a nice feature. I engage it every time I need to walk around a raised loader.
Now the cons:
1) If the tractor is in 4WD and running in low gear at 540 PTO speed, it guzzles diesel. I used 3/4 of a tank in about 3 to 4 hours of pushing over cedars. My record was 50 cedars in 60 minutes including piling them up, so I still considered it a good value. Even so, the L4701D HST gulps diesel in this mode.
2) I can’t understand why the tractor doesn’t come with a better brush guard on the front end. Seems like they know many owners will need one.
3) Evidently you can only use the cup holder when you are mowing on flat ground. If you hit a bump, your water bottle goes flying. Some kind of tension belt/device for the cup holder would be appreciated.
4) If you operate this tractor on unlevel ground or under stressful FEL loads without a good counter ballast on the back or filled tires, it really wants to tip. Perhaps all tractors have this con, but the 4701 HST’s
rear-end really likes to come off the ground. For someone like me, who needs to hual the tractor by trailer a lot, about a 500lb ballast on the back is the way to go. But if you are going to keep it in one location, I highly recommend filling the tires.
5) My dad’s Kioti has sight glasses for checking fluid levels. Wish this tractor had some as well. Also don’t like the fact that the dipstick for the hydraulic fluid is under the driver’s seat.
6) The location and length of the joystick control for the FEL means you can really only get onto this tractor from the left side.
7) It’s a tight fit to hook up the PTO with a Q10 quick hitch on the back. I got some Pat’s Easy Change hooks off of Amazon for Dad’s Kioti and feel like they might be the better all-around quick hitch option.
8) Kubota dealerships are hit-and-miss when it comes to service and value. Had one dealership really try to gouge on price. If you buy a second-hand Kubota, be sure to shop around on price for extra implements or parts.
9) The pump flow on the hydraulics is a little light. I’d rather have around 11 gpm (vs around 8.8 gpm) so I could also run some tree shears on the FEL.
Overall, this is a great tractor for a hobby farmer/rancher who owns 100 acres in Texas and needs an all-around tractor with adequate horse power to do most farm tasks and also wants his wife to help out on occasion as well. I’d buy it again.
However, if you plan to farm/ranch commercially and/or need to do a lot of FEL or other hydraulically driven lifting, I’d go with an MX series tractor.
Happy tractoring!
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