IS IT WORTH THE SAVINGS 💰💰 TO BUY AN LS TRACTOR?

should you buy a blue tractor well i did i'm not sure if i should have or not but i guess i'll tell you all about it today the pros and the cons you can make your own decision but i'll tell you something i found kind of funny i posted a little bit just on social media on the youtube community and the facebook and i got a whole lot of feedback on there's some pretty strong opinions on both side of the fence there so i don't know i i think right now i'm kind of in the middle but let's see how this plays out either way this should be fun so if you do enjoy this video i'd love to get a thumbs up from you hit subscribe to see more tractor videos and if you want something for your machine make sure you check out goodworkstractors.com don't forget we can ship all right so this is a used tractor it's obviously a nice condition tractor i don't tend to buy junk around here but we are looking at an xg 3140 h okay so naturally that makes a lot of sense those numbers don't mean anything to me at all and that's not just ls but pretty much all these tractor manufacturers it's like they had a five-year-old figure out how to do their nomenclature for all their tractor models but this is a 40 horsepower tractor it's going to be equivalent we're going to kind of compare it against a john deere 3039r and whether that's good or bad or not that's a pretty popular model it's relatively the same frame size so we're going to give you a lot of specs to compare and you can kind of baseline it off of that and compare to a kubota a massey a coyote whatever you want to do so we're going to go from kind of a high level some very broad overview of this tractor and kind of comparing it to other brands that are out there because this is a big decision for a lot of you guys that are in the market and then we're going to drill down into some more nitty gritty you know some more spec comparison type of thing where i'll tell you right now a lot of the the specs that we're going to talk about are going to be relatively similar there's a couple huge differences though in some of these numbers so we'll go through that as well and at the end of the day you know this is a decision you got to make i just want to inform you and let you know so you can make the most complete well-rounded decision before you make that big purchase all right so to get this out of the way yeah you see a whole lot of john deere and kubota on this channel i do have a preference for that everybody's got preferences right but that doesn't mean i can't give you an objective opinion on another tractor brand right and i can tell you this right now john deere and kubota they don't want anything to do with me i they don't see any value in what i do so the opinions that i give there are not because i'm trying to push you into buying one of their tractors it is just about providing information good and bad about these different models that are out there and at this point i've covered not everything but most all the models that are in the compact and sub compact line up there and it's just time to naturally start branching out a little bit all right so let's get into it so the first thing i want to talk about is going to be dealer support and that is really determined on the size of the dealer network available to support you now i pulled some numbers off the internet right so take these with a grain of salt and the years vary i mean they're all in the last 10 years where these numbers popped up so numbers of dealers could go up and could go down but these are just some general data points to give you kind of a a scale and a comparison so we're talking about just the united states just the usa so some numbers i pulled up for ls from a few years ago listed about 300 dealers for the entire us with a goal to get up to 500 dealers within a couple of years so let's just say they have 500 dealers now now if we talk about kubota following that up again this data is a few years old but it gives you a point of reference there's about 1100 dealers in the us so about double or a little over double what ls has and now if we talk about john deere usa only all right there's roughly three thousand dealers in the u.s so about three times the size of kubota or about six times as many as ls so when i say dealer support that means you have six times the opportunity to have a john deere dealer near you versus an ls dealer or double the opportunity to have a kubota dealer near you as you do an ls dealer and a lot of these dealers will kind of congregate around the larger communities right so there's a higher likelihood that you're going to have a kubota a john deere and an ls dealer all in the same area but a lot of you guys do service your own equipment right and it's not like you can't just have parts shipped into you but if you don't want to it's nice to have a dealer that's within a half hour maybe of you just 20 miles so you can get it there and get it dropped off and get it serviced and tied along with that is going to be parts availability right so if you have a dealer that's nearby it's more likely that you could go in there and get the part you need and get back the same day and have the repair down or the oil change done or whatever it is on your tractor but that's assuming that your dealer is going to have parts in stock and whether that's ls or kubota or deer you know that's getting harder and harder to find a lot of these parts are back ordered you know this is the times that we're living in right now and a lot of parts whether it's any of those brands are going to come from overseas it doesn't have to be china but a lot of them are going to have to bring in things overseas get them into their us distribution centers and then roll them out to their dealers or drop ship them right to you it's just not as clean cut as it used to be as convenient as it used to be and so for those of you with ls tractors i think this would be a good opportunity for you to share your experience just leave a comment down below tell us if it was easy to get parts how long it took to get parts if you do have a dealer nearby how the service is how the reliability's been all those kinds of things and if you don't have a ls dealer near you do you have a new holland dealer that can get you the same parts and so on that note i mentioned new holland for a couple of reasons so first of all years ago maybe four or five years ago i had a trade-in that was a an ls model i think it was a 4047 and it came in with a new holland manual in it and so i was just browsing through the manual kind of looking at you know the identification keys the part numbers all that kind of stuff and pretty much every single part matched up with what was on that ls tractor and so if you go online and take a look there's a there's a few different locations there's a lot of places you can find this information out but ls and new holland are tied in closely together and i don't know all of the ins and outs but what i do know is that ls manufactured a lot of the different tractor models for new holland for quite a few years i think it was maybe 30 35 years before they started to branch out and then produce their own lines since i don't know the early or mid-2000s and so this is actually pretty common in the tractor world and a lot of other industries as well you know there's a few parent companies that roll out into a lot more actual tractor brands that are out there and so these tractors come out of south korea which is where a lot of tractors are produced and so that's going to be one of the main driving factors that are determining the cost or the price point and how it can be a lot cheaper than say a john deere right you guys all saw the strikes recently with the union wanting to have an increase in pay well if you think about what those wages are versus what the wages are in south korea even factoring in transportation and import tariffs and everything else i mean that has to be such a huge dramatic price difference there in the labor savings that there's no way you could ever expect a foreign tractor like this to be comparable in price to a domestically produced tractor if you're like me one of the main reasons i would consider an ls tractor or a new holland or a coyote or something else is cost right is the price comparison to one of the big hitters like john deere kubota and so while the market is crazy right now it's it's out of control it's it's tough to get a real pinpointed number on how much more a comparable uh john deere 3039 would be but if we just make our best guess here i sell use tractors for a living and so it's kind of what i do it there's no blue book for tractor pricing but i can kind of use my historical sales points and i can see what others are selling for right now and and go from there but this is a 2018 about 100 hours on it 40 horsepower which again is close to the 39 horsepower john deere you know has a front end loader quick attached bucket and then a backhoe on the back you're going to pay about somewhere in the 12 to 15 000 ballpark more for the john deere compared to what you're going to pay for this ls and so really you need to determine if there's enough value there in paying that additional cost to get the more expensive tractor and so that value is going to come in a few different areas and number one is going to be reliability right so if you have constant problems with your cheaper machine well that's costing you a lot of downtime a lot of travel back and forth if it's under warranty at least you have that covered but if it's not under warranty then a lot of extra out-of-pocket costs that are potentially narrowing that price gap to go along with that you know i think quality or craftsmanship is something that's worthy of being considered as well and i'm going to use a smaller tractor as an example of this just for the sake of comparison but i've i've compared the john deere 1025r to the kubota bx in general and this will apply to the the 1025 r versus the ls version or the coyote or anybody else that's out there on the market but their quick attach systems are just vastly superior in my opinion everything from their quick attached bucket to their quick attached loader their drive over auto connect mower deck and their quick attached backhoes everything about them that extra engineering which costs extra money right there's this real cost that's built up and rolled up into that it makes it a superior system in my mind which adds to the operator experience it makes it a lot easier to switch between different attachments and setups so there's value in that that can be easily justified by convenience and then a couple little maybe lesser considerations would be or fringe benefits i guess would be things like forum support you know john deere there's an amazing there's several amazing tractor forums out there but green tractor talk is just a huge collection of folks that own john deere tractors all different sizes and you can post pretty much any question you want on there and you're gonna get a whole bunch of responses from folks that are very helpful and it's very likely that your question has probably already been asked on there and you can search through everything and and see all the responses to that previously asked question but you're also going to see different modifications that folks made on there uh different ways to use tractors just a lot of creativity going on where i'm not saying that some of that's not applicable to other tractor manufacturers and that there's not ls forums out there and just other beneficial tractor forums but you have a huge community of specific john deere owners where there's just not nearly as many ls owners out there to have that same kind of envelope and another minor consideration would be like little accessories that you can get you know we work with a lot of vendors that well you know they make like a custom grille guard deluxe grille guard that fits in there or bucket brackets or steps and handles and other little brackets that can go and mount on your tractor and and all these tractors are different and so a lot of these little nice cool things that you can get to add onto your machine aren't going to work with an ls or a coyote or a massey or something else now that doesn't mean you can't make your own or that there's not other companies out there that are starting to really fill out the market but it's just a point of consideration okay so first impressions for me uh first time actually sitting on this tractor right now is uh well we do have we have metal good old steel all around okay and again this tractor is a few years old and one of the things i like to see and maybe this has been shedded but it's not all faded up it's not dented up it's not beat up this isn't about bashing kubota but i tell you kubota paint sucks and whether you shed your tractor or not i feel like all their paint on their on their cylinders on their hood on their fenders on their cowling on their loader arms on their wheels it all fades at a different rate it looks very uneven soon but i feel like you have to give extra care to protecting the paint on kubota which i just feel is unnecessary i know some of you guys don't care at all what your tractor looks like but a lot of you folks that do spend 20 30 40 50 grand on a tractor do like your tractor to look good so just a point of consideration and so really sitting on here you you want to kind of think about those finer details at some point right so the fit and the finish now i don't have a lot of experience with ls tractors but things that i've been told from a lot of folks that have wanted to upgrade to a kubota or a john deere have complained about these little details you know whether there's a lot of rattles things inside the engine compartment body panels maybe different hydraulic leaks electrical issues you know there's some little details that are that go a long way right those little connections that maybe fall apart or are not secured as tightly and rattle loose over time and so again that's where a little bit of that up charge comes on these other manufacturers is they're going to take the extra engineering time to find ways to you know secure this bold or secure this connection or this panel or just the little things that maybe don't seem like much on the surface but they add up in the end when you're thinking of a more fine-tuned machine and now i feel like i'm being a little negative right now and so i want to make sure i paint this picture correctly because you know i've had john deere tractors i've had some that i've bought with five hours on them i bought five different 3032es five or six years ago and sold one to a gentleman over on the east side of the state and just a couple hours after that the whole transaxle busted on the machine so that was a warranty issue i've had kubota tractors that have had major hydraulic and engine leaks on them with just a few hours had corrosion issues actually nearly new kubotas a lot of other john deere issues and even my my 2021 ford f350 just for a point of comparison i mean it's had i think there's like eight recalls out for it uh the steering wheel is just like peeling off just falling apart there's electrical glitches on the display on there so it's easy i can i can pick apart any machine on the market today but these are fairly complicated machines i mean they're they're simple relative to a truck but there's a lot of parts that have to be put together have to work in unison and so at some point you have to expect there to be failures or or shortcomings in any product's design all right so i had to break out both phones for this we're going to compare some specifications at least what i think is important or worth considering you may think something else is more important go ahead and look it up it's right online so first let's compare the weight of these two machines pretend there's no front end loader no backhoe just the tractor itself 2900 pounds on the 3039r 2884 on the ls so pretty much a rounding error alright so our first big discrepancy which i find kind of interesting but on the three-point hitch okay our lifting capacity on the three-point hitch 30 39r rear lift at the ends okay at the very end of the three-point arm itself pounds on the ls at the ends 1808 pounds so that is over 700 pounds difference the 3039r can lift 700 pounds more based on director data okay if you go to tractordata.com pull up those specs that's what it's telling us okay now though to flip the script a little bit let's talk about the front end loader lift capacity so the 3039r the john deere 3r series in general is going to have two different loaders i'm going to give you the specs on the better of the two loaders so that better loader the 320r is going to lift the lift height to the pin is 102 inches so as high as it will lift at the base of the loader arm and it's going to lift 1 600 pounds at that point now if we compare that to the ls it is only going to lift 94 inches high so 8 inches lower height on the ls tractor but it is going to lift almost 2 200 pounds 2 189 pounds so that's going to be a 700 pound weight difference on lifting capacity in the back with john deere getting the win but a 600 pound weight difference on lifting capacity on the front end loaders giving ls the victory okay a couple of dimensions for you the wheelbase is going to be really close 68 inches on the 3039r and 69 inches on the ls so only an inch difference there not a big deal now the width is listed a little bit funky on here because i know both of these tractors are a lot wider but it lists the width of the john deere at 52.4 and the width of the ls at 54 inches now both of these tractors this tractor is at least five foot wide right now i know the john deere 3039r is about 60 inches in the stock set up from the outside to outside of the rear tires so i'm not sure what these dimensions represent but i know that they are both a lot wider than that as far as tire size goes you can get the same tire size on both tractors i know that the john deere's you can get a slightly smaller size but this is a 43 by 16 by 20 tire that's on the rear of the ls which again is an available option on the 3r you're gonna have two different tire sizes on that one i believe they just offer one tire size at least that's what it shows online for the ls so the last thing i want to consider is going to be the hydraulic system itself the 3039r is going to have a total flow of 13.9 uh gpm okay the ls is going to have a total flow of 13.7 gpm so it's very similar in total hydraulic flow part of that hydraulic flow does go to the steering system as well so you have to make a deduction there but i don't know what that tells us i don't know what that means because there's a huge discrepancy in the lift capacity on the three point and the front end loader on these machines with one winning on on either end of this scenario and the hydraulic system is a huge component that comes into play so what are the other factors oh and i'm asking you guys that because i don't have any idea okay so i do want to walk around and give you a few impressions things that are standing out as i'm physically standing here looking at the machines so the first thing that i noticed just starting up front is going to be this bucket and i'm going to tell you right now it looks better built than the john deere buckets do i like this reinforcement along the side this bit of a bump out that's molded in there you have this reinforced top rail which is very nice tube steel underneath there reinforcing that it would be nice to see a pre-drilled bucket edge on there but overall it's a pretty impressive looking bucket now this machine is equipped with a skid steer quick attach which is a great feature to have there was a comment that came in yesterday about a skid steer quick attach being standard equipment that you can't get a pin down bucket maybe that's the case now but i know that i've had a lot of folks send me requests to get conversion kits to take their pinned bucket on an ls tractor and turn that into a skidzer quick attach so at one point in time that was not true and i've also had a customer that had to special order for a snow pusher an hla snow pusher a custom mount there is some other version of ls quick attach that's really similar in style and design to a skid steer quick attach but dimensionally different and so that's going to require a custom mount which we had to order and took many months to get and cost more money too so pay attention try to stick with the skid steer quick attach if you can oh that just goes right there like that okay i got you there where's the hood release ah little push button that's nice it's pretty solid access so i do like that it's actually a pretty easy little push button here that's on the side the guard drops down nice and easy good battery access up front air filter and everything else stacked behind i love these one piece designs that just everything pops up and it's out of the way imagine if you had the front end loader off of here but just a very easy compartment to work around give them a thumbs up for that a couple other notes on the loader you are going to see this is a bucket level indicator which is nice some of the john deere models for example don't have this feature or option at all i know some of the kubota models have a sticker that goes on the top of the bucket that says like level indicator so it's nice to see this feature uh you do have some guard protection down here for the the hydraulic lines and hoses which is nice but they will be exposed but at least they are out of the way and on the inside of the loader arm so not a very uncommon scenario right here and you are going to see quick couplers because this is a quick park loader you'll have some parking stands that are down on both sides so a very common setup you are going to pull just one handle on the back of each loader arm and there's going to be these vertical mass that the loader will pop up out of and so it looks like a pretty easy concept there and and nothing that's breaking the mold okay taking a look at the operator station you know a pretty similar layout to what most tractors are going to have it's nice to have a floor mat in here dresses it up gives a little bit more grip and comfort too you do have a step over there you're going to have a split brake down below so these hydrostatic pedals will be set up very similar to what a john deere will be with the forward and the backwards pedal not a treadle pedal like what a kubota would have i am pleased to see that this does have a three range hydrostatic transmission you're going to have some nice features like tilt steering on here i believe you have cruise control your engine throttle your pto engagement looks like we have some lights cruise control settings dpf settings there as well and then your loader joystick is mounted over here in a pretty natural location let me hop up on here real quick and so it's a pretty natural location right here um i'm noticing there's a lack of armrests which i will say the 3r series also has no armrests on the open station you can get a cab version of this tractor and the john deere 3r and i know in the john deere 3r i think you get armrests on the cab version if memory serves me correctly so i don't know if you get armrest with a different seat normally you go to a cloth seat when you are in a cab tractor versus these vinyl seats that are here for the all-weather but really everything else is pretty much just identical to what you would see on other tractors you're going to have levers and knobs all within all within reach nothing goofy you have your four-wheel drive lever right there uh your rock shaft or your three point control over here i don't believe that mid pto is an option on this on this model it is an option on the john deere 30 39r if you want to run a belly mower or perhaps a front mount snowblower so somebody correct me if i'm wrong but i don't know if that mid pto is available on the ls this feel this is like solid like there's no flex or play at all one thing i want to point out though is that maybe there's seat upgrades but this is a very no frill seat all around okay so that's something that maybe there are upgrades some of you guys watching can let me know or maybe put on an aftermarket seat but you know that's going to be more similar to the design of like a john deere 3e series or a john deere 4m series something with very limited suspension obviously not air ride but who knows maybe those options or upgrades are available something else that i like is the location of the fuel tank so right behind the driver's seat which is really nice as far as i know all the three r's and the previous generation to that series all have it in the hood which is really inconvenient i know that on the john deere 3e series for example they they moved it from the hood to back behind the seat so maybe john deere will do that at some point on the 3r but this is a lot more convenient location easier to fill easier to access and kind of out of the way as far as the three-point hitch and just the back side of the tractor in general you know it's a pretty clean pretty simple design back there visually it doesn't look quite as robust as maybe you would like to see just the three-point arms look a little on the light side take that for what you will but one thing that i do like to see is it does have those telescoping draft links you know we can just pull the pin out sway that arm in and out and make it a lot easier for hook up that's a nice touch well let's actually sit up nice and high as far as the backhoe goes has his own seat obviously so that's really nice good visibility i feel like i'm perched up pretty high here with with a good view of everything that's going on you got some nice features i'm i'm going to assume that these rubber pads are just an add-on accessory but you do have your stops you know so you can put it in here for transport or for storage so that you know as hydraulics start to leak down um you can prevent that from happening and whack in your your garage wall or whatever you have there behind you we're gonna go ahead and give this a little a little test turn it on fire it up see how that loader responds see how the backhoe responds and operates and just play around with it a little bit i didn't mention it earlier but i want to make sure i mention it now and so that's going to be the connection for the front and the back and so as long as you do have that skid steer quick attach system that's going to be the same system that's on a kubota the same that's on a skid steer the same that's on a coyote the same that's not a massive ferguson skid steer quick attach is skid steer quick attach so you're going to have a whole world of attachments out there that are all standardized to fit your tractor and your loader and the same thing can be said about the three-point hitch okay this is a compact tractor they are category one three-point hitches on their 540 rpm rear pto so the same stuff that fits all these other brands is going to fit the ls or the new holland whichever one you're looking at so you still want to size it accordingly to the width of the machine and the horsepower rating but this is all standardized stuff so so all right so a couple things i'm noticing here after i have it fired up uh first thing upon firing it up comparing it to my 3046 that i used to have just for a point of reference it's a lot quieter machine it operates a lot quieter even after uh throttling up all the way to me it sounds quieter so the other thing i feel a little bit more cramped here i have the seat back as far as it'll go and i you know i wish i had a few more inches of space here not the end of the world but it's something that i noticed low response is is very quick and tight feels like it's going to do what you want to do right away there's not a lot of slop a little bit of play in here but that's not too bad the overall travel isn't very far so everything is controlled pretty narrowly and tightly and squarely i've been able to do two functions at once not super smoothly but it can be done a little bit easier to do on finding at the lower the lower rpms a little lower throttle but um let's dig into some dirt see how it does so so so oh fast [Music] hey hang on hang on are they all on now pretty cool uh [Music] [Music] what [Music] then all right so final impressions um well i'm not a backhoe operator i have probably the least amount of time on a backhoe but um i don't know the controls were okay i wouldn't say they were great uh compared to the john deere and kubota backhoes that i've used took a little bit more effort the effort was inconsistent i guess on the forward and back and side to side motions which took a little getting used to and and i didn't quite have it down yet loader operation was really smooth in fact i would say the dump cycle was almost too fast it was very it was lightning quick but but performed very well i'd say it helped to have even more ballast weight i don't these rear tires must not be loaded i could feel even with the backhoe on there the back end wanting to pick up a little bit but overall it handles very well very smooth operation between two and four wheel drive between the the low medium and high range extremely smooth which i can't say for some other tractors out there overall for the first time using this this model and this tractor i'm trying to find bad things to say about it i'm not having a lot of luck so should you consider a blue tractor a new holland or an ls maybe so you know there's a there's a pretty strong case for this tractor especially being 20 30 percent cheaper than the competition like a john deere or kubota you could look at this like a coyote or a mahindra something else kind of in that lower tier of price point again these companies you know that are based in south korea have been around for a long time for decades these aren't these aren't brand new companies okay so they've been building edges for a long time they've been private labeling tractors for other companies for a long time and you're not going to have all the same bells and whistles probably the same level of quality in every regard but there's a trade-off for that and that's a big cost savings so we're going to put this tractor up for sale on the website get it sold off but i wanted to get something in here and i'm hoping to do more of this is get other brands of tractors other models of tractors you know we bought this property out here to play around with equipment and try it out test it out share it with you guys on that note if you have something to share because a lot of you guys own this equipment on an ls or a coyote or a john deere or why should you or why shouldn't you why don't you share that with everybody else help us make a more well-informed decision get a little bit more education and have a little fun so that's going to wrap it up for us today if you did enjoy the video i'd love to get that thumbs up from you hit subscribe to see more tractor videos and if you want something for your tractor john deere kubota ls make sure you check out goodworkstractors.com i want to thank you for taking time out of your day to stop by and until next time stay safe we'll see you soon [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Good Works Tractors

Views: 436,318

Keywords: john deere, kubota, good works tractors, goodworkstractors, ttwt, tractor time with tim, gwt, michigan, kalamazoo, john deere dealer, kubota dealer, ls tractor, XG3140H

Id: 23CRnYnalQg

Length: 32min 55sec (1975 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 04 2021