Kubota B7000 or L175

[Timberwulf]

Hi,
I just found this site after talking to a Kubota dealer. He told me to run away from the tractor i was considering purchasing used (B7000) as its grey market. So I did a bit of a search and came across this site. I have a couple questions if anyone is able to help it would be much appreciated.

First I just bought a 5 acre acreage, I will need a tractor to rototiller garden and tree rows once in awhile. Also the main purpose would be snow removal. The previous owner did not put up snow fence so right now my entire backyard is 5' deep. Just to give an idea of a worst case scenario.

I am looking at a B7000 - 4x4, 18hp, 1984 with FEL and tiller, but it has the big ag/rice tires. I don't want to destroy lawn to and from garden and spring snow use so would need turf tires. Are the possible to get for a gray market?

Other option i am looking at is a L175 - 2wd, 17hp, turf tires, no year, FEL, no tiller.

Which tractor would be better to get the gray market or NA market one?

Thanks

 

[Kytim]

Here's my suggestion, Get the tractor you feel comfortable with based on 3 things, your needs, its condition, and your budget. forget the gray market crap! all it means is it was imported. haha, they all were at some point! parts are out there and so is the help.

read the articles about gray market stuff off the home page of this site, you'll see.

kytim

 

[150baker]

I own a B7000 2 cylinder and have no problem buying parts or having things repaired. The rice tires are agreeesive for repeated driving on a lawn. The HP is more like 12 HP and 9 hp at PTO. I dont own a tiller so I dont know how well they work. I would suspect if you plan to till 5 acres this may be to small.

 

[hodge]

I own a B7000 2 cylinder and have no problem buying parts or having things repaired. The rice tires are agreeesive for repeated driving on a lawn. The HP is more like 12 HP and 9 hp at PTO. I dont own a tiller so I dont know how well they work. I would suspect if you plan to till 5 acres this may be to small.

Good advice- depending on what you want to do, either one may be too small.
The fact that you have that much snow indicates that the 4WD will be better for you than the 2WD- and, as stated, don't be scared of the term "grey market".
Do your homework- you can find plenty about both tractors, as well as how people use them and how they do. You can even watch plenty of them in action on youtube.

 

[Timberwulf]

How come the HP is only 12 when they are rated at 18 and 17 hp? I looked on tractordata.com for those #s as well as its what the posters said they had.

Thanks for all the quick advice!

 

[284 International]

Timberwulf, I think they're talking about PTO horsepower versus engine horsepower. On semi-recent tractors (say from the last 40 years or so), there are generally three kinds of horsepower ratings: Engine, PTO, and drawbar. Engine horsepower is how much the engine, when it's all by itself with nothing else hooked to it, will produce at the crankshaft. PTO horsepower is how much horsepower actually comes out the the PTO shaft to drive a tiller, mower, or whatever. Drawbar horsepower is how much power gets delivered through the entire mechanism, as the machine pulls a load at some speed.

Drawbar horsepower will almost always be lowest, then PTO horsepower. Engine horsepower will always be highest, though some manufacturers under-rate their engines at the crankshaft.

Having said that, I've got two tractors very similar to what you're looking at. My Yanmar 1401D is very similar to the B7000 in weight and power. It's got 14 PTO horsepower and weighs about 1100lbs and is 4wd with a loader. My YM240 is 20 PTO horsepower, weighs about 1700lbs, and is 2wd with a loader.

For loader work, horsepower isn't really the holdup for either machine. Generally, either weight or loader capacity is the limiting factor. Weight lets the machine push in and engage the material you want to move. Power tells you how quickly you can do that. With more power, my 1401D wouldn't do any more work. It's already traction limited. I don't want to add any more weight, because that would over-stress the front axle, and likely break it.

The YM240 is a little better at loader work because of the extra weight. Were it 4wd, it would be no contest. The extra weight, with a little extra power, make it faster on the job, because it moves more with each scoop. I have R4 industrial tires on it, heavily loaded with liquid ballast.

I don't know much about snow, I've lived in eastern Washington for a couple years, but am mostly a desert rat. I imagine that for work in the snow, the L175 would be slightly preferred, because of the greater weight, but it wont make that much difference either way.

As far as tilling goes, if you're just running the tiller, whichever has more PTO horsepower will be better. I know tractordata says the B7000 is 18hp, but I don't think it's stronger than the L175; If I read it right, I agree with Vic. If you are planning on tilling 5 whole acres, both are too small, and you will hate your life. Running a disc or similar equipment the L175 will be better because it is larger.

Turf tires are available for the B7000. They are expensive if you use tractor turf tires. If you convert to automotive mud-terrain type tires, the price is more reasonable. If you're trying to drag a disk with either of those machines and turf tires, you will be miserable.

If you overwhelmingly are going to spend your time moving snow, and anything else is secondary, your circumstances will determine what you need. The B7000 will carry less, so if you have to go dig things out, it will take more trips, as well as moving slower. It will, however, fit places and do useful work places the L175 cannot make it. The L175 will safely carry a larger plow, if you're planning on using that. In terms of plain pushing power, they're likely approximately equal, with the edge going to the L175, based on my comparison between my two tractors of similar dimension.

Let us know a little more about what you need it to do, your circumstances, etc, as well as what you decide! Good luck!

 

[Timberwulf]

Wow lots of information! Thanks for the help. I am still on the lookout for other deals as it seems these two may be a bit on the small side. Although I am not tilling all 5 acres, mostly garden work and inbetween tree rows as needed.

A slightly off topic question, is a FEL better than a snowblower for snow clearing?

 

[284 International]

As far as size goes, it's completely dependent on the job requirements balanced against practicality. With a few particular exceptions (Such as terms of absolute lifting of a given weight) a small tractor will do everything a larger tractor will. If you need to move 1500 pound hay bales, then smaller will not work, ever. But otherwise, all size does is change the balance of the ability to fit into places with the speed at which something is done. Think of a touchup paint brush versus a roller.

If you need to do tight work, the smaller machines will get into places that a larger machine will not ever make it. It doesn't take much difference in size to make a significant change in how easy it is to see. The foot of extra width between my YM240 and my 1401D is an order of magnitude, really. The larger dimensions make it that much harder to see how close I am to an edge or wall or trees, or whatever. It's vastly easier to use the 1401D in small areas. It is simply more precise.

Any size will move your snow. The smaller one will get closer to fragile things more easily. A much larger one will do the rest of the job much faster. Don't get too caught up in horsepower. The 13 horsepower B7000 will literally rip the guts out of a 26 horsepower "garden tractor" sold at Home Depot or Sears.

I can't help you on snow blower versus plow. I have no clue.

 

[284 International]

Vic gave some really good information on the types of ratings used, too. When I was a child, I helped my father and a group of people restore an old steam locomotive. They were rated in both drawbar horsepower and boiler horsepower. Basically, boiler horsepower was the ability to convert some amount of water (I don't recall how much) into steam.

The German measure of a horse's strength is close, but a little bit different to the Englishman James Watts' horse strength he calculated. I think now they're virtually interchangeable, with differences only showing up at a couple hundred horsepower vs PS. Ratings in PS will show up a little higher than "normal" horsepower. The 13 PS is about 12.8 hp, so close it doesn't matter.

 

[gktilton]

Wow lots of information! Thanks for the help. I am still on the lookout for other deals as it seems these two may be a bit on the small side. Although I am not tilling all 5 acres, mostly garden work and inbetween tree rows as needed.

A slightly off topic question, is a FEL better than a snowblower for snow clearing?

The snowblower vs FEL is a tough question. I have a B7100 with Loader and will use it to clear snow from my paths, but for the driveway, which is 40 feet wide in some spots I can do it faster with the 38" snowblower on the front of my 68 john deere garden tractor. That little sucker is only 10 horse but, with up to 6 inches of snow it will do a great job, the problem with using the FEL is the time for pushing lifting dumping, and repeat.

I'd love to get a 48" snowblower for the back of the B7100, but that would cost me more than I have in the JD in total, the the JD does the job, until I get it stuck at the edge of the drive and have to get its big orange cousin to pull or lift it out.

FYI, the green and orange tractors play quite nicely with each other.