One of the things that I feel is missing a little bit from the tractor buying resources that are out there is a real way to go through and distinguish between these premium and basic models. There can be some very significant differences between tractors. And I feel like when you go through and you watch the YouTube video of somebody who's bought a piece of equipment, or you go through manufacturer literature, that's always positive about a machine, you start to lose some of the finer points of ergonomically what a machine is like to operate or what the experience is like in the driver's seat. It's one of those things that you can really only pick up on when you have opportunities like I do to be around this stuff all the time. There are things on this machine that are frankly not the best. It's not the best that New Holland has to offer, that many companies do.
Loader
But in a lot of ways, it's really going to have a compelling value at the same time. I think that's most exemplified on this tractor by looking at the loader itself. So when you look at the loader, you're going to find this valve assembly here, kind of hanging out back towards the operator. You're going to see this is an inexpensive way in order to build a loader valve, the body itself is hanging right out here in the side of the machine. The stick is attached directly to it. You don't have cables and stuff running up to the operator into a comfortable position. It's just kind of added right here on the side of the machine.
Now they've done what they can do in order to put this into a comfortable position with some dials, some screws here that you can move these things around, but fundamentally, the force that it takes to move this stick around, your ability to multifunction the loader well, isn't the best. It's not the best that a lot of these companies have to offer. At the same time though, the loader has a lot of good standard features on it. You're going to notice back here on the backside of the bucket, you have a skid-steer quick coupler. That's a more deluxe feature for a tractor like this. You also have this standard equipment, a leveling rod right here, so you can gauge where level is on your front loader bucket, something that's often an option.
Around the Back
Our dichotomy continues around the backside of the tractor here, where we have this some of these things that are really basic and some that are oddly deluxe. If you look at the linkage here on the three point hitch, the heft here is on the lighter side for this size tractor. There's just not that much steel here. You'll notice that the arms here in the back are not extendable. They're just simply fixed in place. Pretty common on economy tractors, but you have a standard rear remote back here on the machine, something that is going to be available to you to operate hydraulic cylinders and that kind of thing. These are often not standard equipment on a vast majority of tractors. A lot of people don't use them, but if you have the need for rear remote, could save you a couple of hundred dollars on adding it onto another one. I would look at these three point link arms and say that not being extendable is not a deal breaker for me anymore. Most people anymore are buying these tractors with this three point quick hitch on the back of them, allowing you to quick hitch your implements. So non-extendable arms aren't that big of a deal as they may have been years ago.
On the backside of the tire here at attaching to the three point arm is what's called a sway bar. Now there's two versions of how these bars are typically done, either threaded rods, what's called a turn buckle or this style right here, this tubular steel with holes in it called a sway bar. This is the nicer version of them. They're good to adjust. The one thing here I did notice that there's, even when they're adjusted, there's a fair amount of play in this linkage with the way that it's designed. You would take some of it out by having an implement here on the other side, but you're not going to get this as tight as you would, that turnbuckle style. I would still choose this every time, simply for the convenience of being able to adjust it because term buckles are annoying. Once they get dirt and rust on them, you often have to use a screwdriver to break them loose and crank them over. So this is definitely the nicer style, even if it does have a little bit of extra slop in it.
Fuel Tank
Comparing the location of the fuel tank on your tractor is worth looking at if you're comparing different machines, especially if you're going to be refilling your tractor using a five gallon can. Sometimes these fuel tanks can be put in annoyingly frustrating locations, right? I don't mind them on the back of the machine here. You do got to get the can up here on top of it in order to let the weight rest while you fill it up. It certainly is doable. One problem of having them back here, though, it may limit your options for backhoes. A lot of our more modern backhoes now are done with swivel seats, where you can rotate the operator seat around to keep the backhoe as tight to the back of the tractor as possible, keeping its footprint a little bit shorter. It makes it more maneuverable and it's easy to get on and off of a trailer with a shallow departure angle.
One thing I do like would be that you still do have an electronic sensor up here for your levels. So there are some manufacturers, even on some fairly deluxe tractors that are going to put a mechanical gauge back here on the tank. So you want to keep that in mind. It's still a nice setup where you can see right what your fuel level is up on the dash.
Under the Hood
So we flip the hood up here, we've got a stout grill guard on the front here that needs to swing out of the way first. So you've got two spring loaded pins there that allow this guy to fall forward, then a latch down here on the bottom that's going to let this come up with a gas strut, which is cool, not a prop bar, even though we've got an economy tractor. Lot of the easy to get two things in here. So you're going to have the battery up here in the front. That's my favorite location for a battery in a tractor like this. Not just because it's easy to change or jump, but it's really convenient to use your tractor to jump other things. And this is a really easy place to get up to the battery, so I like that. Your other major checks are all fairly easy to get to if you go around the machine. You've got an air cleaner right up on top of the engine, your filters over around on the side. The one cool thing that I did notice about this machine and maybe this kind of hearkens back to it's a little bit more basic design is that a lot of its major components are on the outside of the machine over here. So you can actually see the starter, the alternator, and both of the hydraulic pumps, a machine like this has two hydraulic pumps bolted right on the side of the engine. So the major mechanicals of this tractor are really easy to see and really easy to get to if you're having to work on one of those.
If I gave one criticism down here, the one maintenance check that I like to see done frequently that's harder than most will be going through and removing the screen right here, the chaff screen on the front of the radiator. On some tractors, these are easy to slide right out the side. This one's held on with wing nuts. So you do have to remove these and then wiggle that screen out of there to get it out. Now, hopefully most of that chaff is going to get caught on the screen on the outside of the hood here. So it shouldn't be something you're doing on a regular basis, but when you want to go through and clean out the chaff on the inside of the engine compartment here, that screen could be easier to get off than what it is.
From the Seat
Going for a drive in the WORKMASTER 25. You notice my seatbelt right here. Be another thing that you find on some of these, again, economy oriented tractors. This does not retract. There's a little metal bracket to hold it back here on the fender, but if you just let this thing drop, when you take it off, it's going to fall down through the thing down here and get all mudded up in the tires. We give this guy some revs and we're going to pop it out a four wheel drive since I'm driving on the asphalt. I'd say the engine noise is better than most. Wide up the throttle. It's not screaming. There is more vibration. I feel a little bit of vibration in the steering wheel while I'm driving. This is a hydrostatic. And you notice you don't hear is hydro whine. You get it a little bit there in high range, but overall, this is a pretty quiet transmission.
Just from an operator comfort perspective, what I'm sitting here, the floor plan on here is not a flat deck. So when I get on and off the tractor, I have to lift my legs up to get over hump that's in the middle of the machine. That doesn't usually bother me all that much, except that my seat's the whole way back and my steering wheel's not adjustable. I'm five foot 10. And when I go to get out of here, I bump my legs against the steering wheel. So it's not the easiest machine to pop on and off of. You'll deal. But again, when we talk about the really deluxe machines, you're going to get suspension seats in which this has nothing but foam in the seat. You could get tilt steering wheels that are going to allow you to get the steering wheel up out of the way as you're getting on and off. Compact tractors sometimes will have this hump. But when you get into this size machine, you'll start to see more flat deck options. Again, just makes that comfort to getting on and off the machine a little bit easier.
Financial Comparisons
So nothing necessarily wrong with this, right? When we talked about the progression of how tractors have changed and improved this, one's stuck in the past a little bit and that's not all bad. You're paying a price for some of those conveniences, right? And yeah, you don't got every fancy spec sheet item to run through in this machine, but you got a really compelling price tag. Every time I throw out price, everybody always wants me to give numbers, which I can't do on YouTube. These videos are... I've been making videos for six years, right? These videos are out here for a long time. Say 10 to 15% cheaper than what the deluxe options are. And when you're talking to a multiple tens of thousand dollars tractor that really starts to add up. So there's a place for products like this, right? It's my little bit of annoyance here sometimes comes when I see other people presenting tractors like this as being the cat's meow as if they've got everything to offer and that's simply not the case. You're going to get a lot of the same task done, no doubt about that. It just may not be the same level of comfort and convenience that you would in a Boomer class tractor or a more deluxe machine.
Overall
There is nothing here that scares me, right? Despite some of these lacks of creature comforts and little things like the seatbelt that I think you might find annoying over time. In terms of getting out of getting a work done and doing what a tractor's supposed to do, there's nothing here that's going to stop you per se, right? You still have 25 horse under the hood. You still got a three point hitch. You got a capable loader. You're going to go out and do your work, right? And if that's what it's about, if buying a machine for you is more about the chores than it is about the comfort and the relaxation, right? There's a lot, a huge amount of relaxation tractor buyers that are looking for those features and that comfort and that kind of stuff. And that this may not be exactly the model for you then, right? You ought to be up in a Boomer series, but if you just need to get some bales moved, or you want to go mow some grass off and you'll want to do it at a really aggressive price point, this is a great option. I do like how it drives. The power steering is buttery smooth. That's nice. My range selector here, when I jump between ranges, they're straight cut gears. You don't shift on the fly. This is that... You never do on a range selector like this, but I've never pulled this at ground level. So even though they're straight cut with the teeth like that, they're unsynchronized, they shift nice.
So that's a little bit on the WORKMASTER 25S. I think it's important to understand the place that models like this have in a manufacturer's product line. You hear frustration from potential equipment buyers every once in a while about the amount of electronics or how hard things are to work on or how complicated machines have become, and they don't necessarily always have to be that way. Most companies, New Holland included, are going to have several products that are going to fall into that more basic category of things that haven't been re-engineered 15 different times, or had a whole lot of additional features added to them. Those things certainly bring value, and there is a buyer out there for that kind of thing. And you should appreciate the stuff that you're paying for and understand what you're getting for your dollar. But at the same time, if you're just looking to accomplish some very simple tasks, there's families of tractors here, the WORKMASTER series included, they're going to help you get those chores done on a comfortable machine at a much better price point.
