Kubota BX25D Tractor Loader Backhoe Overview

Neil from Messick's here with the Kubota BX25. This is the most popular Tractor that our dealership sells. Last year we sold 196 of these guys. We were hoping for four more to hit the 200 mark, but it didn't just come together. It looks like this year we are on track to do that actually. Sales for this product are very, very strong. It's a very popular tractor for us. Let's do a quick walk around here we'll show you why it's the top selling subcompact tractor of the entire last decade.

One of the things that we're the most proud of with Kubota products is that everything that you see with Kubota’s name on it, typically, was built by them. They do very little outsourcing.

If you look down here under the hood it's the thing that Kubota is the most well known for, their engine. Inside of this tractor is a Kubota D905 which is one of the most popular engines Kubota makes both for themselves and for other manufacturer's equipment. If you look around other machines out there in the market, this is a very, very popular engine. This thing can produce anywhere between about 15 to low 20 horsepower depending on exactly how Kubota has the thing tuned. This particular tractor here BX25 it's producing 23 horsepower just as it does in the BX2370.

About 90% of the sub compact tractors that our dealership sells go out of here with loaders on. People tend to find loaders really versatile attachments for doing a whole lot of different chores, be it just simply moving mulch around your property or clearing snow, a loader can really have year-round functionality.

The Kubota loaders are very conservatively rated. An LA243 loader lift just about 600 pounds in the bucket. That's 600 pounds in the bucket to four height, you will break them around and you'll get more off the ground, but you wouldn't be able to load it and dump it into the back of a truck. Kubota gives us a really conservative number on these loaders so that we don't sell something into an application where it doesn't perform.

Like I said before, this is a Kubota build loader or build at KMA in Georgia. The quality of the loader is very, very high. We have nice welds good durable buckets and a lot of options as well.

In the last year, here, now, Kubota offers a coupler to go in the back side of the loader bucket to make it easy to remove from the loader itself. If you're just going to go out and do a little bit of work where you'd like to remove this 24 inches or so from the front of the tractor, you could easily pull two pins out to take the bucket off. It also gives you the flexibility to be out to put some front attachments on as well.

Kubota has a nice set of pallet forks that will pin right up to the loader or some snowplows and stuff too. Those are nice options, because the loader mounted snowplows are a lot easier to take on and off than the belly mount stuff is and those pallet forks with that quick coupler come back nice and tight to the loader making sure that you have as much lift capacity on those forks as possible.

Tire selection is a frequent question for most first time tractor buyers. As you can see on this BX right here, we have turf tires. Turf tires are great for mowing applications and applications where you're really concerned about tearing up your turf.

The industrial tire option is the most common option for us to sell. It's a little bit more aggressively treaded, but the distance between the treads is fairly large in the deepness of the tread is fairly shallow. That gives you some traction in dirt applications or working in snow, it allows the tire to clean out, but isn't so aggressive that you can mow with it. For that reason probably about 80% of the BX that we sell go out with an industrial tire option on it.

There is also a really aggressive cleated trot tire as well, an R1 AG tire. That AG tire is the most aggressive of the different tire options, but it is a little bit difficult to run around on turf. Even in two-wheel drive, if you're going through tight turns and that kind of stuff you can do some turf damage. Great for off road applications and really aggressive snow clearing, but not something you want mowing your lawn.

One thing that we do really like with these tires is that they're really inexpensive. A lot of times we can go through a sell somebody even to complete sets of tires for their tractor, because they're really easy to take on and off and they're not terribly expensive. A full set of four tires with spare rims for a BX series tractor, can be in the $400 price range for the entire set. If you're really unsure what you want or if you want to turf tire for mowing in the summer time and in an R1 AG tire for the winter time that could be a viable option for you.

The metal hoods and metal construction of this tractor are a really important. In the 50 series the Kubota had come out with a couple years ago, they did a short experiment with plastic hoods and plastic fenders. It was one of the shortest lived models in the Kubota BX range, specifically, because of the complaints from customers about how those plastics held up. It wasn't too long that those machines were out in the field that we started to see cracking offenders and bending of hoods and that kind of stuff. Kubota quickly went back to the metal construction again, much to the pleasure of the dealerships and the customers that buy these machines.

In our experience metal just has held up better. A little bit more resistant to the things in the bang around and isn't as brittle as what a plastic can be. It's something that we've been really happy with. Across almost Kubota’s entire product line you'll find that 90% of the tractors are made out of all metal construction on the outside with plastics really only used in some of the components that do the cowlings and stuff. The your major metal components on the hoods the sides the fenders are all metal throughout and are nice and durable construction.

Another thing that Kubota has gone through some iterations and some changes to as these models have moved along is the positioning in the plumbing of how this loader valve is done. This is another thing that is optional in a lot of these tractors, but, oh and gosh, for us 98% of the machines that we sell will come with this integral loader valve.

The nice thing about this valve is the positioning is really comfortable. It's right here in front of you. The way Kubota has this done, all the plumbing and the hard lines for the loader are up and out of the way. If you look down underneath the deck, there aren't exposed lines and hoses and cabling or valve bodies or anything underneath the deck of the tractor.

That's really important on a machine like this, is subcompacts don't have a lot of ground clearance. If you're working in an off road type applications or you're working out in the woods like we are here today, you don't have to worry about a stick or something catching something on the underside of the deck. In this case all the valve in the plumbing and everything is contained up here in the front corner of the tractor.

These machines are available without these valves. It would save you about six to $800 in order to get one without it, but generally we encourage everyone to buy the tractor with the valve. Any of the implements that you would use out the front; be it the loader, or the snow blower, or the front blades, all those things need a hydraulic valve in order to operate them. The valve is a lot cheaper to put on now when the tractor is purchased and it's installed by the factory than it is for a dealership to go through-- disassemble many parts of the tractor and put this thing on after the fact.

As we go through the different features on this tractor the treadle pedal down here on your floor is one of the most controversial things that you'll find when you're comparing specs and watching videos and stuff on different machines. Kubota typically chooses to use a forward and backwards pedal for all their hydrostatic tractors as opposed to many other manufacturers including many that we sell that will use side by side pedals.

Every person will find their own preference on which pedal they like. Generally, we found you can adapt to whatever it is that you have. I, personally, am a big treadle pedal person. I find it very unnatural to push a pedal forward in order to go backwards, but you can find another guy here in our shop that would feel differently about that too.

Generally, you do forward with your toe in this case reverse with your heel always keeping part of your foot down on the deck. It's not a very fatiguing operation. For me I just find it a lot more natural. Like I said, you can find different people of different opinions on that topic and it can be a very polarizing viewpoint.

Kubota uses Industry Standard color, coding, and symbols on all of their tractors. If you can hop from one machine to the next you'll see the same symbols or same colored levers on most tractors that you would be on. In this case this is a two range transmission, you'd have a turtle for low and a rabbit for high. Generally, we recommend the turtle for loader work and the rabbit for mowing and transport.

This is also a four-wheel drive machine so you could shift this bottom lever between engaged and disengaged section. Generally, we typically tell guys to run in two-wheel drive and only use four-wheel drive when you need to [unintelligible 00:08:30] the front wheels when four wheel drive is engaged actually turn faster than what the back wheels do. That's an intentional lead that's given to the front tires to help the tractor steer better. That does cause the front tires to wear a little bit more quickly than what the real ones will. Any time that you don't need four wheel drive, it's best to operate without it.

Right inside of that is a lever to raise and lower the three point hitch with Kubota's quarter inching valve. If you want small changes you just tap it a little bit. If you want to go the whole way to the ground you just push it the whole way forward. This gives you a really quick and easy way of articulating the three point hitch up and down.

Over here on the other side you can choose which PTO you want to run, be it the middle or the rear with the selection. Typically, both are only run on applications like our bagger, where both the bagger has a powered fan as well as a powered mower deck as well. To engage the PTO you push this lever forward and it uses hydraulic pressure in order to engage the mower deck and bring it up to speed. This is a lot softer start in softer engagement than electronic PTO where you pull a button out and it snaps the PTO on. It just gives you a little bit more cushion when you engage things and bring them up to speed.

There are a couple of other controls down here along the bottom of the tractor as well. It does have a differential lock that if you push down here to lock your rear diff and or to try to get out of muddy sticky situations. You have a diode here to change the position of your mower deck if you have one installed and a speed control right here to change how quickly your attachments drop when you lower them to the ground. Finally over here on the corner is a 12 volt socket, if you'd like to plug in your cell phone or some other kind of accessory equipment.

Another feature that Kubota has changed here is the BX's have grown up over the years has been different indicators on the dash. This last series now gives us both temperature, fuel and rpms as well as some indicator lights for different functions. It's really the most rich dash that Kubota has ever had on a subcompact to this point.

Such a large product lineup and so many tractors are offered that sometimes it's difficult to know what is the right tracker for you.

In this series, the BX Series, Kubota offers four different models an 18 horsepower BX 1870, a 23 horsepower BX2370 and a 26 horsepower BX2670. The fourth model is this one right here which is a BX25. The underlying tractor in this machine is exactly the same as what the BX2370 is except it has an integral factory backhoe offered as well.

Generally, the customer buying this tractor is somebody who has less than five acres. It's not to say that these machines can't go on to bigger properties, but, generally, they find that they're the most at home in a lower acreage situation where the shorter wheelbase helps it to be a little bit more maneuverable. The lower height to the ground helps it to be a little bit more accessible to somebody who's not super used to running equipment.

Generally, these tractors are really good for mowing applications, light loader work, snow removal, moving a mulch and landscaping and any general chore tractors that you have around a home and a large property.

Offered only on the BX25 is this factory installed backhoe. Kubota does some very specific things on this backhoe that make it very performance matched to a small tractor like this. You can buy a backhoe on virtually any piece of equipment. The one thing that makes this one really unique is that the mounting frames for the backhoe are actually part of the tractor themselves. Rather than having a bold one kit, Kubota actually manufactures the mounting frame for this backhoe right into the tractor.

If you look right down in here you'll see the gray portions right here that are the tractor and the orange ones that are the backhoe and simple pin that attaches the two together. This enables Kubota to keep the backhoe really tight and close to the back of the tractor ensuring that it doesn't hang out far behind the machine.

In order to access the backhoe and use it there's a simple swivel seat that you release here in the front and then rotate the seat around in order to move into an operating position on the backhoe. Having it setup this way gives you a lot of leg room on such a small tractor making it very comfortable to operate.

Another thing that they've done as well on this BX25 version is put an oversized roll bar on it. There's a lot of extra width in this roll bar here allowing you to sit comfortably between it and a lot of extra height as well so that you can sit here and not bang your head up here on the roll bar.

A lot of times when you see in other tractors that we've sold in the past, they try to sell one tractor with a backhoe kit to go on to the machine and when they do that, generally, the roll bars don't change because there's a safety equipment. What ends up happening is that that roll bar sitting here in front of you is right at your forehead or really close to you and is a little claustrophobic and really prone to bang your head on it.

While we do actually sell an aftermarket backhoe to go onto this tractor if you have a machine without the hoe, generally, we recommend trading those machines into a BX25 because this is such a nice solution compared to boarding one on. With a really strong resale value of what these BXs have, generally, we're able to make that transition for our customer for only a nominal amount of additional money versus adding a backhoe to their existing tractor.

Kubota has really come up with a really nice backhoe attachment for these machines with a really comfortable fit on such a small tractor.

Those are the features of a BX series Kubota. If you can see one of these tractors in your garage, give us a call at Messick's at 800-222-3373 or online at messicks.com.

To see a video on the operation of the tractor, click up here. For the operation and features of the loader, click over here. For the operation and features of the backhoe, click up here.