We’ve done a lot of technical overviews on a BX series and a lot of overviews on a B Series but there are certain things that will cause a customer to opt for one tractor over another. We’re going to do a quick walk around and explain some of the demands that your application may have that would push you into a potentially larger or smaller machine.
I should stress that it’s pretty plainly obvious that when these two are sitting side by side that one is obviously quite a bit larger than the other. One thing that always gets a little frustrating for a salesman of tractors is when a customer does too much internet research. There is such a thing. When you’re standing beside a machine, you can very quickly start to see that one may just physically be too large for you, given the chores that you have a hand or may not fit your rear end well when you place it in the seat.
We always want to stress that when going into the process of evaluating two different machines, there is really no replacement for getting out and getting on a tractor looking at it and kicking its tires. That said. I’m going to go through a couple things here that we do often see that will sway people one way or the other. In a BX Series tractor, a BX is the beginnings of a real tractor. We’re talking of machine with four-wheel drive and a three-point hitch and a diesel engine and power steering and all the features and qualities that a real tractor has granted it’s scaled down really, really far to make it as accessible as possible.
If you’re somebody who’s coming from a lawn and garden type tractor and moving into the world of real tractors, a BX is going to feel like a very comfortable machine for you. It doesn’t sit all that far off the ground but it has all these real tractor features. It’s a nimble machine that’s easy to get around. This is typically your, you know, half to two to three-acre properties for the most part and customers that are really coming from smaller equipment for the very first time.
The one limiting factor that we’ll have on this tractor that does often push us into other applications is ground clearance. For somebody that works in a wooden lot or is going to be using the tractor to pull trees of the woods and those kinds of chores, a subcompact tractor like this simply doesn’t’ have a whole lot of ground clearance. If you look under the machine with the mower deck attached.
You got six, seven, eight inches underneath of it when the mower deck’s raised up the whole way to go to the extent of pulling the mower deck off. You’re going to get another two inches, three inches underneath there but not a whole heck of a lot. Not enough to really feel comfortable to go crashing through the woods, not to say that many people don’t do it. They absolutely do but you’ll hear horror stories of sticks punching up in the transmission fans or some of the softer bits of the tractor being damaged from the guys that will do that kind of stuff.
It’s in that application that we start to say, “Maybe you do it a little bit more and come on over here to a B Series machine.” Another limiting factor on a subcompact can be the size and dimension of the three-point hitch. These are machines that are made to be intentionally low to the ground because we’re coming out of lawn and garden type equipment. We don’t necessarily want some huge high sitting tractor. A lot of guys also have slopes and that kind of stuff on their properties.
The higher you sit off the ground, the more unstable you are. Low machines are really preferred on those applications. That said, when things are compacted, so low to the ground, there are some limitations of the size implements that you can now fit on the three-point hitch. This is a full category, one- three points. Technically, a whole world of stuff can pin up to the back of this but that doesn’t mean that the tractor is going to be adequately sized to lift and manipulate those implements.
Typically, we’re looking at 42-inch rotary cutters or a rear blade in a landscape rake at five feet rototillers around the 48 to 52-inch mark. Generally, with all those implements we’re sizing them for the smallest ones that we can find. They’re going to cover the track of the tractor. This is going to use a 48-inch loader bucket which generally means what right about 45, 46 inches across our back tires. Every set of tires, depending on their tread pattern can vary a little bit.
If you really want to hone in on that, put a tape measure across the back of your machine but those implements were always going to be sizing it at a capacity of the three-point hitch and the track of the machine. If you’ve got, say, six acres that you need to go bush hog and a 42 inch bush hog is simply going to take you too long to get it done and you like something a little bit bigger. That’s when we need to consider moving to the B Series. When it comes to doing a tractor work, the power of the transmission and the weight of the machine is a factor.
You need a gutsy grunt of a transmission and good tractor weight in order to get a good traction. All these machines are four-wheel drives. Subcompacts are typically more than adequate for the applications that they have but you’re going to find those things on any tractor that is going to push it a little bit. The transmission in most subcompacts and many other small tractors are two ranges. When we start to really want to do those demanding applications, I go back to pulling logs and stuff out of the woods again. Many tractors will have a three range transmission including the B Series. You would have a low, medium, high instead of just a high, low.
Typically, those three range transmissions are geared a lot lower. When we go out and we throw a chain around our logs, when we want to yank it out of the woods, the additional weight and the additional transmission gearings from bigger tractors are going to allow it to do bigger tractor work. From having a physically bigger tractor, you can also have a physically bigger loader. We’re scaling up all of our implements.
A B Series is going to start with an LA434 loader where the BX is going to use an LA 343 loader. That difference there, gives the larger loader more capacity, bigger buckets, and more functionality. If you need to, say, transport 13 yards of mulch every year from one side of your yard to your flowerbeds like I do every year. A bigger tractor with a bigger loader and a bigger bucket is going to do those chores more quickly. Having a larger tractor with a higher capacity is going to enable you to do those things.
We do need to watch that we don’t get too hyper-focused on those load of capacity numbers. Typically, as you move up into a larger loader, you’re also getting larger buckets to go with it. In operation, when you take a BX into a pile of dirt, you crawl, you break it out and you drive the operation of the tractor doesn’t really feel that much different than what a bigger machine does and that’s because we’ve optimized and performance match to the sides the buckets to the capacities of the loader.
One is not necessarily going to lift the load, a bucket load, say, mulch stone, those kinds of things that another one wouldn’t. Simply because those buckets are sized to the capacities of the loader but we're going to work more quickly, more productively with a bigger bucket, with a higher capacity loader. One thing that is not different between these machines is the horsepower of their engines. We’re all very programmed to hyper-focus on horsepower. Well, what horsepower we’ve got under the hood of our car or every other person that walks up to our parts counter says, “I’ve got a 23 horse Kubota with a 16-inch motor deck.” Thinking that, that explains everything about what the machine is and in today’s tractors, the same engine is often used in a lot of different machines for different applications.
In this case, the BX Series uses a 23 horse engine. The B series also uses a 23 horse engine. We’ve got the same amount of horsepower. Now, that said, the bigger tractor is going to be mated to a larger hydraulic system and a more capable transmission. It is going to be capable of doing more tractory type work. The horsepower of the engine doesn’t determine the lift capacity of the loader, say, in this B Series tractor.
This will come in 23 in the 26 horse variant, that extra three horsepower doesn’t make the loader lift more weight. It’s the hydraulic system and the pressure of those fluids that determines the performance of those implements, where the horsepower does help and does change things is going out the PTO. If we had a rototiller or a mowing application, now attract with more horsepower is going to be physically more productive. We’ve got to be careful when comparing purely horsepower between tractors.
Not every horsepower is created equal. It comes down to the capacities of the hydraulic system, the weights of the tractor, PTO horsepower is very, very important. That’s a measure of the efficiency of the tractors driveline. You’ll notice, some machines that might be 23 horse at the engine but only putting, say, 50, without the PTO. While another machine could be 23 horsepower at the engine, putting 20 of it out the PTO, more efficient engine and more efficient transmission is going to get more work done.
There is a lot more numbers to dive into on your spec sheets when looking at these tractors to get an idea of what kind of work they’re capable of doing and to be honest, horsepower is one of the least important of those. One of the few functional differences between these two tractors is the way that they’re three-point hitch works. You’ll notice most things on these two machines, you’re range selectors, your loader stick, your hydrostatic pedals, your PTO’s. All work very, very similarly.
There is a difference in the way that the three-point hitches function. BX Series machines use what’s called a quarter wrenching valve to move their three-point hitches up and down. You have a control to pull up and a control to pull down. Typically, when you want to, say, have that the three-point hitch somewhere in the middle of its range, you kind of have to look behind you and eyeball where your hitch is at and stop at the right point.
A B Series tractor is different. It has a regular position control three-point hitch with a one through 8 on it. If you’re using , say, a box blade and you want to return back to the same position that you were in before, you can pull your lever back to, say, position number two and the implement is going to drop to that same point. The BX Series is not capable of doing that. It has that up and down control.
Most of the time, that’s not problematic for our customers because you usually have your implement up for transport or down for work and not somewhere in the middle but there are some applications where that can be problematic, rating typically, being the most important of them. That’s something you see yourself doing frequently that could be something to consider pushing you up
into the B Series tractor to get the more deluxe three-point hitch control.
As you can see, there’s really nothing that a B Series tractor can do that a BX Series cannot do. It’s typically what you find with this kind of equipment. It’s not that one tractor is going to be able to accomplish a task that another one simply cannot do. It’s going to be a question of efficiency. A bigger tractor is going to use bigger more capable implements and do things more quickly. Where a two to three-acre customer could be really well-served by a BX series tractor.
Somebody who’s got eight to 10 acres to mow is going to be really out for like two days straight with this machine. At which case we start moving into larger series tractors to pair the customer with the right machine for their application. If you’ve been staring at these spec sheets and going through the PDF files and trying to determine what is the right tractor for me rather than looking at the tractor.
Turn around and take a look at your application. Question, “How much acreage do I have? How much mowing do I need to do? What loads do I need to lift?” Start to pair the machine to your application, in that way and really based upon the amount of time that you’re willing to invest in it. If you need to mow five acres and you want it to be done in an hour. You need a lot bigger tractor than if you’re willing to spend two hours mowing those same five acres. Application really is everything when it comes to purchasing the right tractor.
If we can help you through your needs and identifying the right machine for the chores that you have at hand. Give us a call at Messick’s.
