Which to Buy: B3200 or L3200/3800
- Thread starter MyHomestead
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gpreuss
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L3200DT w/FEL, K650 Backhoe, 5' Rotary, 40" Howard Rotavator, 6' Rhino blade
Odd, never heard of Barlow's not replying to email. Something must have got lost in the interwebs?
"Odd, never heard of Barlow's not replying to email. Something must have got lost in the interwebs? "
Actually, that happened to me when I was in the market for an L4240. I ended up buying locally. If I had it to do again, I would telephone Barlows.
Actually, that happened to me when I was in the market for an L4240. I ended up buying locally. If I had it to do again, I would telephone Barlows.
I bought the HST L 3800 and enjoy it. However, be prepared the hydro is very noisy. I usually wear ear plugs which help. It is most noticeable going up hills.
I have a L3800 HST and have worked the doggy out of it, pushes pretty good size trees and hickorys. Does great for discing with food plots and great in tight woods. Plus anybody can operate the hydro tranny..its the only way to go
I have some thoughts. I recently bought a lightly used L3800 DT. Got a reasonable deal and don't regret the purchase; but if I were buying new, I'd have gotten a HST. This comes from someone with a distinct preference for manual transmissions in cars, but who realizes that the automatics have, in many cases, gotten more efficient than their manual counterparts.
I maintain deer food plots and trails thru woods: box blade, tiller, and bush hog a lot. Hilly area. I use the FEL quite a bit also(live on 100 acres - primarily woods). Being mechanically minded/oriented, I have no problem using the geared transmission; but if I were not primarily doing field work, the HST seems much more practical. I've used both, prefer the HST for bush hogging, and FEL work. Just my thoughts.
I maintain deer food plots and trails thru woods: box blade, tiller, and bush hog a lot. Hilly area. I use the FEL quite a bit also(live on 100 acres - primarily woods). Being mechanically minded/oriented, I have no problem using the geared transmission; but if I were not primarily doing field work, the HST seems much more practical. I've used both, prefer the HST for bush hogging, and FEL work. Just my thoughts.
Guys I'm still shopping tractors. Mostly waiting for the tractor deals in the truck stop magazines to come out.
I was talking with some friends and they told me they can't run anything but ultra low sulfur diesel. If they tried red die off road diesel or biodiesel it clogs the fuel filters up really quick. Does anyone else have this problem with their newer Kubota?
I was talking with some friends and they told me they can't run anything but ultra low sulfur diesel. If they tried red die off road diesel or biodiesel it clogs the fuel filters up really quick. Does anyone else have this problem with their newer Kubota?
I have never had a problem with red dye diesel. I have a hard time understanding how it would be an issue with clogging the filters. As far as I know, it has the same sulfur content as over the road diesel.
North Idaho Wolfman
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L3450DT-GST, Woods FEL, B7100 HSD, FEL, 60" SB, 743 Bobcat with V2203, and more
I run off road diesel too and have no problems with it, and it's a pretty red color!
If you live in an area where there is little use it will get "old" in the tanks before you buy it. The longer diesel sits in storage the more water it will absorb out of the air.
I live in an area where they use a lot of off road diesel so it never gets "old".
If you live in an area where there is little use it will get "old" in the tanks before you buy it. The longer diesel sits in storage the more water it will absorb out of the air.
I live in an area where they use a lot of off road diesel so it never gets "old".
Recently passed 100 hours on mine and no hint of problems. For the first 50 or more hours it was all ORD. Then we started using the "gas points" from the supermarket and have gotten as much as $1.30 off per gallon at Sheetz gas stations, making it cheaper than ORD.
The off road red diesel is ultra low sulfur. All diesel at the pumps is now ultra low sulfur.
You beat me to it Bluegill. The only difference is the red fuel doesn't get road tax added to the price.
MyHomestead, I don't know what kind of trouble your friends had but where you buy fuel and how you store it makes a huge difference in how clean it will be. When you get ready for a tractor buy your fuel from somewhere that sell it daily. In most cases the fresh fuel will be cleaner. Alot of stores may offer red fuel but don't sell much so it may have water or trash in it when it's sold.
No matter where I get fuel it get's filtered at least once before it goes in my tractors.
Yep.
I buy all my diesel at the little country store up the road. One day I asked the lady (owner) if the off road was ultra low sulfur. I said "hold on I'll find out", she call her distributor and they said All diesel is now ultra low sulfur. They just add dye to the off road. Been using it for two years now and saving 40 cent a gallon.
Though this may be true for your area, it does not hold true for all the country. All over the road is ultra low sulfur. I know places that sell off road diesel that is a mix of [SIZE=-1]No. 2 heating oil[/SIZE], (which is colored red), and [SIZE=-1]kerosene. They also call this winter mix. [/SIZE]Yep.
I buy all my diesel at the little country store up the road. One day I asked the lady (owner) if the off road was ultra low sulfur. I said "hold on I'll find out", she call her distributor and they said All diesel is now ultra low sulfur. They just add dye to the off road. Been using it for two years now and saving 40 cent a gallon.
Ok, back to finalizing my tractor choice. New plans are to take 1.5-2 acres of my property and section it off for a horse, a milking cow, and some goats. A friend who has horses says a smaller tractor with smaller bucket will be better for cleaning out stalls/ a barn. Now I'm thinking about a B Series again. Anyone with this experience think the smaller B Series would be better?
Sounds like you do not currently have the barn / stalls? It's rather easy to build them around the 66" bucket that come on the 32/3800. You will not gain much if any maneuverability going with the smaller machine, but you will regret it every time you go to use it.
With the SSQA on the loader (do not buy a loader without it), you can use narrower, though larger buckets as well. I believe there is a 48" wide, rather large mulch style buckets available that would be perfect for stall duty. They hold quite a bit more material thus requiring less trips.
The factory 66" QA bucket sucks IMO. It's not deep enough to be useful with most tasks. It'd probably be OK for moving gravel, but 9 times out of 10 on every other task stuff just falls out before you can get a big enough bite. I used a 66" bobcat bucket with almost twice the forward length and it became a different beast entirely.
Take a look on craigslist in your area (and surrounding areas) and you will be able to find buckets better suited to your tasks. If you want it orange, just sand it down and spray it with some Kubota Orange Paint from Tractor Supply. It's better than the factory paint, and will make for easy touch-ups if you treat your tractor like a sports car as some other members do.
You may consider forgoing the factory bucket entirely and just find a better bucket for the same price. I've put 250hrs on my 3800 in the past year doing 'run-down farm improvement', and have come across just about every task one would have to do. I speak from a lot of experience with the setup.
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BotaDriver makes a lot of good points.
We like our nimble little BX but... a small FEL bucket just means more trips mucking out stalls = more time doing the same. Sometimes, we can barely get one stall mucked with the little bucket on our BX. I am still thinking about fabricating some bucket extenders...
We don't drive into the barn stalls; we park the tractor just outside- our barn aisle is nearly 8', plenty wide for the 60" buckets.
And, as BotaDriver points out, you can always spec/build the pastures with an appropriate size gate to get the bigger bucket in/out.
We like our nimble little BX but... a small FEL bucket just means more trips mucking out stalls = more time doing the same. Sometimes, we can barely get one stall mucked with the little bucket on our BX. I am still thinking about fabricating some bucket extenders...
We don't drive into the barn stalls; we park the tractor just outside- our barn aisle is nearly 8', plenty wide for the 60" buckets.
And, as BotaDriver points out, you can always spec/build the pastures with an appropriate size gate to get the bigger bucket in/out.