L2501 or L3301 or B series?

[tommyid1]

Hey all,
First post here. Anyways my wife and I just bought our first house. Its a nice ranch house on 5.1 acres in NW Montana.
We are trying to decide which tractor is going to suit us best. One of the main uses is going to be snow removal and road maintenance in the winter time. We live up a private road that gets plowed by various neighbors at various times. a big concern is being able to get out in a hurry if we have to. We both do on call shifts at the hospital on occasion and there are time limits that we have to meet when we get called in. I cant always call the plow guy and have him get me out in a hurry. Our driveway is about 200 yds or so of gravel road that is about 1.5 vehicle widths wide. The previous owner said he tried the 4 wheeler thing but it did not go so well so he bought a tractor. In any case. My wife and I will be getting some mules to take on pack trips so wed like to be able to move bales. The smaller rounds would be nice for convenience. There is also some light grading and other things I would want to do with the machine including digging out a lane and putting in some railroad ties for a backstop to shoot my guns. We have about 2 acres of gently sloped hillside 2 acres of level grass that need to be taken care of and 1 or so acres of stuff I probably wont mess with as its a bit steeper and treed. My main concern is the snow removal. I know the L series doesn't have a mid pto which is lame but I guess a front blade on the loader or a rear mounted blower would suffice. My main question is what should I do and what should I be looking at for a tractor. The salesman said the heavier L would be best but I'm not sure. between the two L's what is the difference and what am I really gaining by going with an L over a B series.

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[pauly]

FWIW, we have 6 acres, quarter mile gravel drive. We also did the shooting back stop and will be doing a small MX track this summer. We went with a B2650.

 

[tommyid1]

Decided on a standard L series HST. L3301 or L3901. between those two is a hard choice. we will be buying more land in the next few years. What are the major differences between the two? just horsepower?

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[sheepfarmer]

Thomas, one other weight issue is the ability to handle round bales. "Small" is kind of a regional term. There have been discussions about how big, how heavy a tractor needs to be to handle them safely, one I remember was in a thread by virginiavenom. It also depends on how flat the area is that you would move them around on. I have an L3560, which is in between the two you are considering in terms of hp, and has a bigger heavier frame, but I have no experience with round bales. The L 60 series tractors can take a mid mount mower, although I wouldn't want to do lawn with it, too big. Anyway it is another model you could consider.

Considerations are a place to keep it with bucket and blade installed, rops up, about 21 feet long, if you have to plow yourself out in a hurry. Cab or no cab? Snowblower? Front mounted snowblowers are nice, but it might be a pain to switch back and forth from bale spear to blower in the middle of the night if you need both a lot in the winter. (Emergencies are always in the middle of the night, right? )

 

[Ike]

Last fall I bought the L 3301. I was thinking of going with the L 3901 but I was told the only dif between the two was HP. To get the few extra HP it was going to cost quite a bit more so I went with the 3301 and used the extra rebate money for a couple of attachments I did not have. Now for handling bales of hay. If you have the big bales it is light on the rear end. If I fill my bucket with sand the back gets very light. I can put the box blade on it and it stops this. I have R 4 tire loaded with beet juice

 

[tommyid1]

Thomas, one other weight issue is the ability to handle round bales. "Small" is kind of a regional term. There have been discussions about how big, how heavy a tractor needs to be to handle them safely, one I remember was in a thread by virginiavenom. It also depends on how flat the area is that you would move them around on. I have an L3560, which is in between the two you are considering in terms of hp, and has a bigger heavier frame, but I have no experience with round bales. The L 60 series tractors can take a mid mount mower, although I wouldn't want to do lawn with it, too big. Anyway it is another model you could consider.

Considerations are a place to keep it with bucket and blade installed, rops up, about 21 feet long, if you have to plow yourself out in a hurry. Cab or no cab? Snowblower? Front mounted snowblowers are nice, but it might be a pain to switch back and forth from bale spear to blower in the middle of the night if you need both a lot in the winter. (Emergencies are always in the middle of the night, right? )

The property we just bought has a large detached garage/shop with a tall door. I think I could easily fit it in there. I get what you are saying about the round bales.

 

[tommyid1]

Last fall I bought the L 3301. I was thinking of going with the L 3901 but I was told the only dif between the two was HP. To get the few extra HP it was going to cost quite a bit more so I went with the 3301 and used the extra rebate money for a couple of attachments I did not have. Now for handling bales of hay. If you have the big bales it is light on the rear end. If I fill my bucket with sand the back gets very light. I can put the box blade on it and it stops this. I have R 4 tire loaded with beet juice

Good point on the beet juice and the box blade for weight. I just don't want to have to upgrade later. I want to be able to do everything i need to with this tractor. I'll need to grade and repair/plow gravel road on my property, grade and level some small areas on the property. Dig out shooting lane. Do chores like carrying building supplies and animal equipment and feed and knocking down tall grass on the hill. I think the 3301 might do the job well. I've just never had a tractor like this and not sure if I'd run out of horsepower or traction first.

 

[TripleR]

Sheepfarmer makes some good points and they are the reasons I skipped over the standard L and got a Grand L, twice. I even put fluid in my tires as well as additional wheel weights.As to B v L, look at the difference in ground clearance and weight. I really like the B Series especially the Bxx50, but...

We rarely get much more than 8-10" of snow here and it's not unusual to go a winter without significant snowfall, but tractor for tractor, the GL will give you better performance for the tasks you mention.

Yes, the GL costs a lot more money, but you are essentially looking at a lifetime expendenture unlike a car or truck, so figuring out the cost spread out over the years and it's really insignificant.

 

[Ike]

Good point on the beet juice and the box blade for weight. I just don't want to have to upgrade later. I want to be able to do everything i need to with this tractor. I'll need to grade and repair/plow gravel road on my property, grade and level some small areas on the property. Dig out shooting lane. Do chores like carrying building supplies and animal equipment and feed and knocking down tall grass on the hill. I think the 3301 might do the job well. I've just never had a tractor like this and not sure if I'd run out of horsepower or traction first.

I had a 32 HP tractor before the new Kubota and I bought it new 33 years ago. It had R 1 tires and it did all I every wanted to do , never lacked HP but would lose traction. I got the R 4 tires on my Kubota and I kind of wish I would have went with R 1 again. We get a lot of snow here and I have 120 acres that I use the tractor in my food plots. I have noticed that it lacks traction in the snow compared to the other tractor. If I was you I would also get at least 2 remotes as you will want them sometime down the road. I got one but I will add another and in my case the second will not go thru the control valve on the tractor so I can use a backhoe without having to wire the vale on the tractor back. Get a box blade for you road. I got one with mine and I am very inpressed with it. I have over a mile of trais that will get fixed this summer if it ever dries up

 

[bcp]

Keep in mind that weight, not horsepower, gives you traction.

Bruce

 

[Ike]

Keep in mind that weight, not horsepower, gives you traction.

Bruce

This is true but the type of tires also plays a big part. I had a White FB 32 before the Kubota and I have no doubt with e R 4 on the Kubota and ags on the White I could have pulled the kubota backwards on a wet or slippery surface. The tire on the White were not loaded but it was a heavyer trac

 

[tommyid1]

I'm sooo back and forth. Now I'm ink in the 2501 would work for me. I've also been told that I'll miss the pto power should I get a snowblower or a bush hog. Please help me decide between 2501 and 3301

 

[NatefromPA]

Hello, this is my very first post on OTT. My Wife and I just bought a house on 4 acres in the Seattle area. It's been a long lasting dream of mine to own a tractor. I wanted to make sure I was making the best decision. After deciding on "Orange" it was then deciding on what model. I think I read just about every post on this forum. At first I was thinking B2601, Then B2650, Then B3350SU(Bad DPF Reviews), Then L2501. I was a little worried about L2501 only being 25 HP, however I knew I wanted to stay away from DPF. Well, I pulled the trigger and got the L2501. I couldn't be happier. I use a 60" field mower and was cutting 3 ft thick wet grass with ease, and graded my 1/3 mile gravel driveway in about 30 minutes with 60" grading scraper(so worth the money my driveway looks better than ever.) Also I was just playing around with the FEL, and it has all the lifting capacity I would ever need. I was Lifting full Buckets of Sand & Manure. Also I put about 5 hours total on it the 2 days Ive had it, and still have over a half tank of fuel. I think its 10 gallons, so roughly 1 gallon per hour, not bad.

 

[MadMax31]

Stick with a 30+ hp L. While the L2501 is an attractive machine at a great price, it only has 1 more hp than my little B, and Im not comfortable running larger than a 4' grass grinder.

My loader has shown its limited capabilities, and I only have 18-19 PTO HP.

 

[Grandad4]

Your snow handling requirements should drive your decision, but it's complicated because there are a bunch of different ways you can set up a tractor to move snow. Since you are in snow country, I'd expect you'll see times when a snowblower is needed, even if you don't spring for it immediately. So you'll need a tractor with enough pto power to run the blower. And you'd need to decide if you want a front or rear blower, realizing that not every tractor can be set up for a front snowblower.

When you're not using the blower, you'll need some kind of blade. Since we don't have much snow where I live, I could get by with just using the loader bucket, but that's pretty inefficient because it can't windrow the snow to the side. A rear blade works pretty well for that but you must drive through the snow you're trying to clear. There are snowplow attachments that can be added to the loader, and some folks even rig up their own from an old pickup truck plow.

While weight is important for pushing snow, I've been amazed at the capability of even my little BX to move heavy, wet snow piles. It does have bar tires, and I agree that traction would be important for whatever size tractor you choose. I would be looking at chains on R4's vs R1's for winter traction on your driveway, but that's a matter of preference.

Since you need to get out even in a snowstorm and even at night, you might want to look at one of the cab models, although the price points jump considerably for those.

Hope some of this helps.

 

[rtgt]

Buy as much tractor / hp as you can afford and never look back.

Finding out later that you should have gone bigger is even more dollars out of you pocket. The trade value never brings what you think it should.

Having plowed snow in Bozeman on an open station tractor....I'd vote for a cab!

A decent sized L (and I'd vote for the Grand L if the budget allows) with a good FEL mounted blade with hydraulic angle will get you out of your drive with one trip down and back.