Neil from Messick's here. Sitting outside today on a Kubota BX 1880. Today we're going to have a short conversation about this tractor and when is it enough for most guys' applications, and when does it come up a little bit short? I shoot a lot of videos with sub-compact tractors and sometimes I feel in the comments and when talking to guys, I almost feel like a little bit of a defender of the subcompact. A lot of guys watching our videos have all kinds of different applications. 

Many of you might be farmers or construction companies and really need big heavy equipment for big heavy tasks, but we want to keep in mind when we're going through and we're looking at a lot of the different videos that we do, that everybody's applications are different, and there's a very, very large subset of people who a tractor like this is absolutely perfect for what they do. In terms of unit sales out there in the market, more subcompacts are sold than most all of the big utility tractor classes combined. 

It's a very, very high volume market. By no means are we saying that a small tractor like this is right for plowing your field, but it's very, very right for a guy that might have two acres and some work to do around his house and mulch to move and those kinds of things. For customers coming up out of lawn and garden equipment, subcompacts are a great choice. 

The BX 1880 is the smallest and the lowest horsepower of the subcompact tractors, and it has a lot of the features guys are looking for, but also some places where we get a little concerned that it might not be enough for some applications where it is rightly sold into. When we go through this machine and we look, say, an 1880 compared to 2380 that's sitting right here behind me, you'll notice that they're very, very similar. They share the same chassis, the same transmission. 

Only a handful of little differences. The tires on the 1880 are two inches smaller. The seat is a little bit less plush, it doesn't have cruise control. A couple of things that make it about $1400 less expensive than its bigger brother. Obviously, that 1880 means that it is an 18-horse engine while 2380 is 23-horse. Both tractors take the same loader, going to lift basically the same amount of weight. The 1880 is going to get equipped with slightly smaller mower decks in either a 48 or a 54, and both have standard three-point hitches. 

You can see there if you have a lot of grass to mow, an 1880 might be worth considering an upgrade to the larger model where you can get bigger mower decks, where that extra horsepower is going to help you mow grass a little bit more quickly, but when it comes to a lot of that work, a guy with an acre might be really well suited by this tractor. There is one specific application though, where I do get a little concerned when we see some guys buy this, and that's when it comes back to its PTO. 

When we're looking at tractors, a lot of guys are always very attuned to their engine horsepower, right? 18-engine horsepower, but every tractor is going to have some amount of parasitic loss between that engine and the tractor's rear PTO, that's called PTO horsepower, so when you go look at your spec sheet, you'll normally see a different number for that. 

When this tractor's 18 horsepower at the engine, it's actually about 14 and change back here at the PTO, and 14 horsepower can be a little low for some of the 48-inch plus, 48, 54-inch implements that we're usually going to want to put behind this tractor. Not to say that you can't do things, like a 54-inch snow blower and good heavy snow with only 14 horsepower, you're going to struggle. Rototillers in virgin soil, you're going to fight to get things through. 

Now, you can always slow down, right? These tractors have hydrostatic transmissions so it's very easy to be really gentle on the pedal and crawl along, but some of those PTO-driven applications you want to check the spec sheets for the implements you might be considering and make sure that they're going to work with the amount of PTO horsepower that this tractor has to offer. 

Great tractor, a popular machine that we sell a lot too, but it is generally to that customer that's not going to do a lot of PTO work. If you're in the market for a tractor we can help, give us a call at Messick's, we're available at 800 222 3373 or online at messicks.com