Kubota M7060 Walk Around and Review

We're going to do a quick walk around here and show you some of the different options on this machine, this is a tractor that's offered in a lot of different configurations, and tell you a little bit about who the right customer for this tractor may be.

75 horse utility tractors are really popular products for us. It falls into the right size and the right niche that you can find a lot of customers with a lot of different needs for a machine of this size. Large farm operations that might run big ag tractors usually will have a smaller machine around to take care of some other chores or somebody's hobby farming on 50 acres would be able to use a machine like this to fill most all of their needs. We see a lot of customers for this size machine.

For us here in the Northeast, 90% of the time we're also selling these with cabs on them because in the wintertime a lot of people choose to reuse them for snow removal from their large properties. Cabs that heat in there are really popular options for us. The main configurations of this tractor, cab or open station and then either a 4-speed transmission or a 6-speed transmission.

The front loader on this is Kubota's LA1154. It's a very common front loader that's used on all utility tractors basically from 56 to 70 horsepower. The front loader will have, most of the time, a skid steer quick coupler on the backhoe. It is optional but you, most of the time, will see them as standard equipment. That skid steer quick coupler is a universal industry standard that you can pull those two handles and put whatever bucket on the front that you want. You'll notice that this one right here has a really large bucket on it, an M1815 which actually is not the bucket that specs for this tractor, the cust we were prepping this for wanted an oversized bucket for a lot of light material and because we have that skid steer quick coupler on there we can put on whatever bucket we want to fit that particular application. As we go around the other side of the loader over here, one really simple feature that I think is really cool that should be offered on a lot more loaders is this pin right here for the hydraulic lift cylinder on the loader. When it's in its upper position right here you get about an extra foot of lift height for stacking round bales or applications where you need to reach up or in its lower position down here you get about another 10% of lift capacity out of your loader. All of that just by moving this pin about an inch and a half, maybe two inches up or down. It's amazing that that small change can make that dramatic of a difference, but that's how the geometry of the loader works out.

One of the criticisms that we often hear of Kubota tractors is that they're lightweight. That is often true to a point. The base weights of the tractors are a little bit lighter than a lot of the other tractors in this class. By no means does that mean that they're less heavy-duty. They're engineered with the bulk in the places that they need it, but there are applications where we don't want weight. We have the ability to ballast tractors for particular applications. You'll see here on this tractor we have steel rims on the back. More often than not we would usually expect this with a cast rim, with a big cast disc here in the middle to give some of that extra ballast in the rear of the machine. In the case of this one, this steel rim is a little bit less expensive, saving the customer a little bit more money. Then we just fill the tire with fluid in order to give that ballast in the rear of the machine.

We continue around the back of the machine back here. We find all the things that you expect to see on a deluxe tractor. Extendable three-point linked arms, when you back up to your heavy implements of category two implements on this size tractor, you can simply extend these arms in order to put you implements on the machine. Your drawbar is very easily adjustable in several different positions here in the rear. Then you have all the deluxe adjustments in order to set the sway and leveling of your three-point hitch.

One important feature that you'll find on the 6-speed or the 12-speed version of this tractor it's not on the lesser 4-speed version, is a 540E PTO. Right here there's lever, yellow lever here at the rear of the tractor that you can shift up or down to change this between 540 and 540E. What that does in the E position is essentially gear up the PTO to a point that you can now run your engine in lower rpms to reach 540 back to your implement.

Take a 84" rotary cutter behind a tractor like this. You don't really need all 70 of the engine horsepower delivered back to that mower in order to spin it around. You can probably get by with 50 or so just fine. In that application you could shift this up into 540E and then run your engine a little bit more slowly so you're not burning the excess fuel and stuff and putting the excess noise and those kinds of things that you don't necessarily need to create. 540E gives you that flexibility. That's a feature found on the higher transmission option and not the economy transmission option on this tractor.

Also, standard equipment on this tractor is one rear hydraulic remote. You need additional remotes, there are stacking valves that can be stacked on top of this one for up to three. Up here is also a standard equipment for a trailer electrical connector here. If you have anything that needs lights or brakes, they can be all hooked up right through that connector.

Having GPS monitors and that stuff in a cab now starts to become a little bit more common in this size tractor. If you're running a small baler and need a little bale monitor up in there or GPS guidance and those kinds of things. They may have antennas up on the roof. In this class tractor you'll start to have rubber grommets and stuff here at the back of the cab to be able to run the wire screw for those things rather than having to pinch them up in the windows. There are two tractors in this series, an M6060 and in M7060 being either 60 or 70 horsepower. That 70 horsepower that's created at the engine on an M7060, 64 of that horsepower is put out to the PTO.

Kubota builds a very efficient transmission and very efficient driveline in this tractor that's able to deliver all that power out the rear of the PTO to go to your implements and your mowers and those kinds of things. That will compare a little bit differently to the John Deere tractor in this class. If you look at a Deere 5075, that's a 75 horse engine that's only delivering 64 horsepower to the PTO. Even though the engine of this Kubota tractor is five horsepower less than its John Deere equivalent, it's able to do the same amount of work. It's able to put the same amount of power out to the ground and out to the PTO by having a more efficient driveline in a more efficient transmission.

You want to look under the hood of this thing here there's a simple pinion here on the front to fold the grille guard forward and then you reach down here under the hood to grab the hood latch in order to lift it up. Typically, you're going to have more room if you remove the loader from this tractor. It shouldn't take you more than three minutes to do. Most of the things here that you need to work on this machine are right here at the front. The battery is right here. In the very forward of the machine very easy to get to when it inevitably at some point it needs jumped and it goes dead. Most of the main fuses are located right here in the front as well, very easy to get to. The air cleaner itself is right here in the front. This is a deluxe air cleaner that has a restrictor valve on it that will show you when the air cleaner is plugged so you know when it needs service without having to pull the element and stuff out of the air cleaner box. There's also a simple rubber piece here on the bottom that you can squeeze in order to let big debris out of the bottom of the air canister. Most of the other bits that are in the back of the engine here are easily accessible from the side if you need to do service. This is a Tier 4 tractor so there's a disel particular filter up here on top of the engine. At this horsepower class the engine does not require DEF so there's no blue fluid or anything to go into an extra tank.

When we're sitting up here in the cab, you can start to see that this is a deluxe tractor. We just spent some time on an M5660, the economy series tractor in this class. You can see when up here in the operator's platform how a lot more care and effort is put into some of the comfort features and the ergonomics of a tractor like this. When you're sitting here, for instance, the loader valve is a lot closer to the operator. The things for your remotes, your levers are right here by your hands as opposed to having to reach out or pull long throw levers and those kinds of things. You also have a sound-deadened cab with rubber floor mats to keep down noise. Air conditioning and heat controls up here in the headliner. A place to put a radio and those kinds of things in.

When we move into more deluxe tractors, while your capacities and the ability of the tractor to work are not radically different, you have a whole new level of comfort features in a machine like this. Starting to approach a lot of the things that you'll start to find and expect in your car. As I move around here from the right to the left of all the controls, I start here at the back, I have some electrical accessory outlets for guidance monitors and other electronics that you may need for your implements.

A dial to flip on and off in order to turn my PTO on and off. My three-point hitch control as well as a draft control, if you have a tillage implement behind you. My switches from my work lights, electronic switches to turn my four-wheel drive on and off, switches for my windshield wipers and electronic throttle down here by the side, my range selector for the high and low of my transmission and in this tractor, the 6-speed's on the main shifter.

There are a lot of differences in this series machine between the 8-speed transmission, the 4x2 or the 12-speed transmission, which is a 6x2. You're not getting just the difference in those gears. Along with that change you're getting the 540E PTO that we pointed out earlier. A feature where when you step on the brakes the four-wheel drive is immediately engaged to get all four tires braking. Very importantly, additional hydraulic flow. The stock version of this tractor is 11 gallons per minute. When you go to the 12-speed version you go up to 16 gallons per minute. For all of the things that you're getting there and that price difference is fairly minimal between the gears and the hydraulic flow and the extra features. In our opinion, it's well worth the money to go to the 12-speed version.

Then again, all of this stuff is always driven by your application. If you're looking for a simple mower tractor, you don't need all the gears, you just want to be able to sit in an air-conditioned cab, you may not need all that stuff versus somebody who's looking for a haying tractor and those kinds of things for instance would be well-served by the additional features. It's nice that Kubota gives us two different packagings in order to really address every customer type that they weigh one. As I work my way across the dash up here, it's a fairly clean dash of the tilt steering wheel. It's the same dash that you see in the rest of the M series tractors as far as lights and instrument clusters and stuff go. The tractor has really three main features up here that you'll actually use. One is an electronic governor feature, it allows you to vary your PTO loads and let the engine vary its fuel delivery in order to keep the RPMs constant, and then two buttons that go along with your Tier 4 emissions.

One to bypass a regen or prevent regen from happening if you don't want it to, typically if you're in a combustible environment or about to park the tractor, and then one to kick off a manual regen if it needs to be done. You really only have two functions, for most operators you're just going to go run the machine, there's not a lot to do there.

If I take a critical eye around the cab here there's two things I do think could be improved upon. The plastics in here while functional are a little cheap feeling for a tractor of this class and there's also not enough room in here to accommodate a buddy seat, which we do sometimes see on this class of tractor. One thing I always try to put eyes on when walking around a tractor is looking at a machine and asking what am I going to break? It's inevitable with this kind of stuff that a lot of people will push this equipment to the limits. We always walk around and look for soft spots on a tractor. I did notice one place down below where one of the hydraulic hoses for the loader valve was hanging down a little bit. It did look to me that that could probably be rotated and zip-tied up out of the way so if you own one of these tractors are considering one it might be something that you want to look at.

Beyond that, there's a tool box hanging right over here on the side, a little plastic guy. If you give that a good whack you might be able to knock it off and lose your tools. Other than that the underside of this tractor is fairly clean, all the steering linkages and stuff are up above the axle went out of the way, and I didn't really see a whole lot of soft spots down there as far as drive shafts or drive lines go. Sometimes in this class of tractors you'll notice propeller shafts and stuff hanging down really low. When there are two wheel drive variants of these machines offered usually those pieces are exposed and very low and that is not the case on this tractor. As machines in this class go it's definitely above average for what I'm used to seeing, but there is one hydraulic hose down there that I probably would put eyes on that could be moved out of the way.

Standing here another thing that I noticed too, sometimes in big tractors like this the fuel tanks will be put up here in the rear and you'll have a fuel fill up here that's really high and hard to get to. Kubota does put the fuel fill right down here in front of the cab which is really nice and convenient, easy to get to so you're not hoisting fuel up to the back of the tractor.

We'll do a short driving demo here. Like I said this is a 12 speed version of this transmission so you can see over here on my right hand side I have a six-speed stick with a high and low. There's also a hydraulic shuttle so to change directions I simply move this between forward and reverse to change direction so I'm not on and off the clutch all the time. Right here from standstill I'm in first gear, I can simply push this up and forward in order to start the tractor crawling front. I'm here moving forward, I've got a foot throttle down here on the floor if I want a little bit more speed or a hand throttle that I can use to set at a constant rpm. When I want to change directions here I simply reach up here, reach the stick lift forward and then slide back from neutral and into reverse and I can do that without touching the clutch. One nice thing about these hydraulic transmissions is they really extend the life of your clutch, because you're not on and off it and slipping it all the time when you're changing directions.

When I'm shifting gears here this is a fully synchronized transmission so when I'm going to go from first to second I can stay rolling, I push down the clutch and just shift into second gear. One thing I forgot to point out when we were talking about this before is that the 12-speed transmission is also faster than what the 8-speed version is, so the 8-speed tops out around 18 per miles an hour and this one will get up close to 25 when you're in sixth gear. A sixth gear also has an overdrive function so that if you're running downhill or something like that it doesn't over rev the engine if you have a load pushing you. That's an easy tractor to drive. If you're a larger operator there's plenty of room in here for you, this is a tilt steering wheel that you can move up or down. I tend to push the seat back fairly far and then tilt the wheel down to bring it a little bit closer to me.

You can see here too, we mentioned that when you step on the brake pedal it automatically engages the four-wheel drive. If I go to a coast here and tap on the brake you'll see that the light turns on for my four-wheel drive being engaged. It's grabbing those front wheels to break all four of them, as opposed to just the rear in the 4-speed transmission.

That's Kubota M7060. If we can help you with a utility tractor like this, give us a call at Messick's. We're available at 800-222-3373 or online at messicks.com.