I’m with skeets on this. I have both a BX and a B2910, so I got some feel as far as these tractor sizes go.
Initially I bought the B 2910 and the BX 2200 a year later, when I had 3.5 acres to deal with. I got the B-2910 with a backhoe and I never regretted it. My son-in-law has 3.7 acres that are a lot of hillside and he bought a BX 23S which has a loader and a backhoe standard. He has never regretted it.
Money does come into the picture. So I understand if not wanting a backhoe is due to financial reasons. Everybody thinks that they don’t need a backhoe because if they need to do some digging, they will rent an excavator. This makes a lot of sense if you’re going to dig a lot. But when you have a backhoe handy you find you use it to do little things regularly that you would never rent an excavator for. So you get things done that you wouldn’t do otherwise. And I found that as I get older, I like to manually dig things less rather than more.
Also you may think “well I’ll just accumulate a bunch of different things and then rent an excavator”. This may work. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. Pretty sure for me it wouldn’t work.
Anyway, I also kind of believe that bigger is also always better. Except when I get real with myself.
A BX can be made much more stable than a B tractor. In my opinion for much less cost. When my son-in-law got his BX 23S I bought a pair of 2 inch wheel spacers for him to install, which added a lot to stability (I don’t want my daughter to be a widow too soon ). Also paid half of the just under $400 to get his four tires foam filled which adds a lot of weight down low. Stability is all about height of center of gravity and rear tire width. Doing the same on a B size tractor with the bigger tires would cost considerably more.
Around 12 years ago, I tipped my B-2910 on the side in a situation where I never dreamed I could do that. But it happened. So I am personally very conscious of the dangers of slopes if you need the cross them, rather than go up and down vertically. My BX with foam filled tires and 1 inch spacers (I think, could be 1.5”) on the back, due to having an MMM, is rock solid on cross slopes. The MMM hanging down there and weighing a couple hundred pounds also certainly helps with stability.
So I would ask the following:
Do you expect to gradually be doing more and more,or less and less, as time goes on? I personally found that after a certain point one tends to be doing less and less as he gets older.
Are you absolutely sure you don’t want a backhoe as part of the package? They really are quite hand for small jobs. No doubt as you said in your original post, small backhoe will not do what you want if you’re expectations are too high. The other side of the coin is that an excavator will do some degree tear up the land where it’s working more than a small backhoe on a wheeled tractor will.
My B size tractor will certainly lift more and without question pull harder than the BX. My BX will spin tires doing the things that the B tractor would laugh at, and not lose traction.
All things being equal, the BX can be made much more stable than the B tractor, for a given expenditure.
As mentioned by others above, the BX is more nimble and easily maneuvered around things, relatively speaking
The BX has a lower ground clearance as you mentioned. And while newer BXs may have some kind of a guard installed to protect the HST cooling fan, that really is not enough and should be enhanced by adding an aftermarket guard which is available for not too much money. My son-in-law did this and he doesn’t have a MMM so it’s not an issue at all for him.
After saying all that, if I look at the original 3.7 acres that we had when I bought my tractors, if I wasn’t using the BX to cut grass (for the most part) which is probably now about five or 6 acres worth, I’m not sure which way I would go… My gut tells me a BX 23S would probably do everything that I need at this point in my life. I do know whichever way I went. I would want to have a backhoe. At least if I didn’t have a small, old, mini excavator like I do now.
Another thing is the BX has a smaller cat 1 point hitch than a standard B series. This is undesirable, sometimes, like if you want to use a post hole digger or something along those lines. The BX also does not have a foot clutch. I find this undesirable to some degree. The BX three-point hitch has limited lift compared to a B tractor. The BX also doesn’t have split brakes if you would ever need them.
At the end of the day, it’s a difficult decision. If grass cutting was not part of the equation, then even with just 3.5 acres or so I might actually go for the B series. But I absolutely would want a foot clutch to control the PTO and not the hydraulic clutch like I have on my BX, which just bangs in pretty hard and is something you have very little control over. But whatever I bought, I certainly would want a backhoe as part of the package. If I didn’t have a mini Ex…