I currently have a Kubota SVL95-2S OROPS machine that I really like, except for the OROPS. I run a mulcher with it sometimes and have to wait until it's damp or the dust will kill me. Also, although I've made a metal door for the front to protect me from flying debris, I'd really feel better if I was in a cabbed machine with a forestry door so I'm going to trade it in for one with a cab. I'm thinking either another SVL95 or a Cat 299. I don't have any experience with the Cat so for those that have run both machines, how do they compare and which one do you prefer?
In my opinion, the Kubota SVL95, is useless here in Texas for mulching. The A/C system is poorly designed and high maintenance. The door does not seal well either, due to a poor design. I tried 3 different SLV95 machines fitted with forestry mulchers. Not one of them provided a dust free cab, or a cab cool enough I could stay in it on a hot day. I would not consider any Kubota CTL for forestry mulching here in Texas. Jeff
Thanks for that feedback, I've not run a cabbed version of the SVL so I don't have any experience with the AC. This is my own use so I can pick my days but, I do want to keep the dust out as much as possible, that's the main reason for getting a cab.
We have 2 279D's which are the same cab as the 299's and they do a good job of keeping the dust out and the A/C will freeze you out in our Alabama summers. FWIW.
It is not on your list, but I would suggest demoing a CASE 450B. They can be had with 4k psi and 37 gpm high flow and a demo door. My B has the regular high flow not the 4K system, but I have had A machines with that system and they are great on a mulcher. The B series cabs are excellent. My hats off to any man who has mulched without a cab, don't know how you did that.
If the choice is between the orange guy and a Cat I'd go with the Cat.
I am not in a mulching business but the updates that Cat has made to the newer D3 series, such as the hydro lines going out to the drives are great. I have also heard that the Kubota cabs are dust horrible with dust intrusion. KSSS, do you own stock in CASE / FIAT or do you just simply really like them??? (not trying offend!)
As far as the kubota hvac, the pot side filter needs a sealing foam strip installed. As long as your sucking outside air there is no dust issue because of positive pressure. Clogged outside filter plus leaky seal and use cab recirculate all cabs will suffer. Mine is new and as the summer progresses I’ll be exploring the hvac, but after being in really dusty conditions and taking filter off to blow out I was shocked by the dust that got past the filter. Foam fixed that issue. So after 500hr without proper filter sealing I could only imagine hvac is plugged.
Thanks, that's really good feedback. I like my Kubota so if the dust in the cab issue is solvable, I'll probably get another. It's tough to find the Cat with the hydraulic quick attach for some reason and I've become VERY spoiled by that in the Kubota. It's a huge time saver.
If possible, you might want to rent a Kubota with a mulcher. Get it out there for a few days when it is really hot and dusty. Try running it all day, or even a half day, before you make up your mind. I have quite a bit of experience with these, and I think you need to try before you buy. That includes the Cat, as well as the Kubota. Another issue is how fast the head can recover after you stall it, or almost stall it. There are a lot of goods and bads to both makes. Just be sure you know what you are getting into before you spend all that money. Good luck. Jeff
I wish I would have took a pic of the air box the first time i pulled filter. Just dumb of kubota. But that pic is about 8 hr of dusty gravel work with no infiltration. Kubota does need to address the hvac system on these but I am going to make the absolute most out of it. The hottest I’ve ran in so far is mid 70’s so we will see, like mowingman said. The heater will burn you up down into the 20’s. Big mistake on my part not getting the quick attach, but inventory was low everywhere. I just wanted wide track and cab..I thought.
I love the quick attach. Got it on our Bobcat and it sure makes life easier for this old man. Jeff
Mulcher heads are very hard on equipment. The svl 95-2 has ac and intercooler on top of engine bay which is bad when mulching. They clog very quickly. We had one that melted the condenser fan and smoked the turbo because the condenser and intercooler were never cleaned over a 2 week period. The plus side is it's easy to clean these two areas. I would clean twice a day.
I'm mulching with the open ROPS SVL95 now, it turns my 5' head well in the brush and recovers quickly if I big it down. I can't really run it into a live oak tree but, that's a really hard wood and I wouldn't expect anything other than a 200HP+ purpose built machine to handle that. To some extent, if the AC coils at all, it's a bonus over running the mulch head in an open cab with a fan and the truth is, I'm not going to run it when it's 100° outside even if the AC has it 60° in the cab because the mulcher heat soaks the hydraulic system as it is. 4 hours in the morning or late evening is as long as I want to be running it anyway, my terrain is very hilly and rocky so the rude us as tough on me as anything else. I always stop every 3-4 hours to grease the head and clean everything out with my big 185CFM engine driven air compressor when I'm mulching. The machine gets filthy, in the cab especially. Right now, I keep the head low, almost never more than 2' off the ground, to minimize what comes at me, even though I've made an expanded metal "safety" door, it sucks when little bits come through and pepper me. Keeping it low has kept most of the debris off the back end, most of what ends up there is actually limbs and stuff the machine broke off, not mulcher debris. I'm not buying new, current machine is a 2017, I'll probably be in the same vintage. If I get a Cat, I'll have to go older to stay in my price range, I'd really like to not go over $50k. I paid $34k for the SVL95 I have at auction last year, it had about 2200 hours on it when I bought it. I can get a 2019 cabbed SVL95 for less than $50k, the Cats are almost all over that.
You are a lot tougher than I am. Even 13 years ago, when I started, I would not have considered mulching with an open cab, and certainly not today. Jeff
I decided on a 2019 SVL95 with 1300 hours, they're giving me a good price for my trade (only $500 less than I paid for it a year and 350 hours ago) and a fair price on the replacement. I'm going to put the foam strip in around the cabin air filter and not recirculate the air as other threads have suggested, and we'll see how it goes. The dealer is replacing the blower motor and one of the idler pulleys on the new (to me) machine and I'm picking it up Wed. Even if it's not perfect, it'll be better than what I've been doing. If it completely sucks, I'll save up some more pennies and trade it again for a Cat. For now, I'm excited to have a cab at all, it's going to make the machine a lot more useful not having to wait for enough rain to knock the dust down before doing anything significant. AC in the summer will be nice as well but, that's really secondary to dust control for me.
Well, let us know how it works out for you. Dust is already starting to get thick here in north Texas. Jeff
Make sure you have good insurance on it because if you run a mulcher on the Kubota very much it’s going to end up hot and toasty meaning burning to the ground and I’m being dead serious. Been thr and done that lol
Thats awesome! How could you go wrong, It only cost you $500 for a year and 350 hours
I only run it 2-3 hours at a go, it's all my body will handle. Then I blow off all the debris and dust with the big air compressor and grease the head. I don't run stuff in the heat of the day in general either, that's my nap time. I do have insurance on it though.
i just ran a cat 299 D3 for 8 days straight about 10 to 12 hours a day and outside of hills/slopes bogging it down some it would freeze you out in the cab - very little dust in cab i was surprised
ok so I have two full says of running a 2018 SVL95-2s with 7ft Jenkins https://jenkinsironandsteel.com/products/super-duty-mower - 55degree temps yest 65 today, only ran it about an hour last fall when it was about 80 and it was all I could do to keep cool in it with AC on high and I was sweating so I didnt run it any more. so past two days - my review is this, like someone already said - runs hotter and you have to watch your work speed to keep it cool even in these mild temps - I even cleaned out everything today before starting in case there was some extra debris or cooling obstruction. I did not like the noisy cab/hydro noise compared to the cat. The seat is not comfortable for riding all day. The A/C was marginal today just not good airflow, it felt cool but not much air moving even on high. Not sure who thought about how to put in fuel but its not good trying to fill it with cans - have to lift loader arms to get good access. Makes some loud klunks/bangs in front end when turning mowing - i think maybe it was binding the tracks due to the load on the front end but didnt experience that with the cat. all in all i would not buy an orange one, havent been in one of the new LARGE bobcat units or the BIG deere either, i know they both have smaller cabs but it would be interesting to see how they are for quiet/comfort/cooling of machine and operator.
Whats the difference in price between the two units?
roughly 20K for a cat vs kubota near as i can tell, not sure what the deere or bobcats run - if I am going to spend 8 to 10 hours/day in one, deal with fueling, rough ride, noisy and possible issues with klunking/turning with tracks, running warm now so have to cut down on job pace on a 65 degree day, and not be comfortably cool in the cab on hot day, price wouldnt even come into play especially if you are trying to make a living with the machine, i dont care what color it is if it cant do the job w/out issues then I wouldnt want it - i would like to see a bobcat and deere and use them and get prices for them, I was told for forestry/land clearing/etc....dont go with a takeuchi, they are better for just dirt work. I have ran a couple taks for dirt work and demolition and got along ok with those units i rented but I was not doing mulching/clearing/mowing.
I agree. When its your bread and butter machine you need to be comfortable. Have you considered the Case machines? I found the pilot controls to be the best of the bunch. That was over 10 years ago so things may have changed.
no i have not, i was advised to stay away from their last body style big machine but I heard they were coming out with a new big unit so will have to check on that - some of these new attachments use some serious high flow also I will have to do some spec checking on them.
The CASE 450B makes 39.5 gpm at 3450 psi with the Extreme high flow it makes 35 gpm at 4K psi The 620B (the newest big machine) makes 41.6 gpm at 3450 psi and the Extreme version of that makes 41.6 gpm at 4100 psi. They have just started building the 620B recently, probably wouldn't find one to demo until Spring. I have a 450B and run a Diamond cutter and a mulcher. I don't have the Extreme high flow, but it runs my attachments well at the standard high flow rate.
I would be interesting in seeing how quiet, cool it runs, comfort etc......sounds nice thanks for sharing I will have to check them out!!
Cat has an auto reversing fan that works quite well if its available on other brands I dont know the hvac system is impressive on our 279d
yes the 299 had the reversing fan, the kubota did not have one it was belt driven off the waterpump - i believe some others do
The reversing fan is fantastic at keeping the rad cool. Both our 279D's have the option. Usually it kicks in right after throttling up and heading across a job site, fan revs up and pushes the dust out - looks like a mini steam locomotive for a minute. The A/C is pretty damn nice as well and that's coming from the semi-tropical Southeastern US.
My Bobcat T595 has one too. Very useful, especially when using my brush cutter/mower. The A/C on mine is impressive too….it will freeze you out on the hottest days.
Man, my svl75 only has 98 hours but i ran it on very hot days and the ac was pretty good, the placement sucks with the vents at your knee, it made my knee numb. BUT there is a cab filter sealing issue that needs to be addressed with foam or your machine will be sucking in major dust and fail. The recirculate filters are a joke and i barely open them.
I meant to add this through edit but there doesn’t seem to be an edit button…but the svl’s hvac is probably a worse design than most but what exacerbates it is the outside filter leaks significantly around it seal. The hard rubber gasket just doesn’t provide a seal. As I posted in another thread there is actually a part number on the kubota part diagram that shows a foam seal on the housing. It does not come with it installed. I used regular foam tape after I noticed dust in the filter housing my first couple of hours of running. After foam tape there was none. I ordered the foam tape from kubota and sure enough its just the right amount to go around filter housing. With an already weak hvac system constantly sucking dust from right above the track is no good. As far as the box leaking inside, as long as you keep your filter clean and dont run with the door open there is still not a dust issue. You can monitor that from looking in the recirculate filter opening(which those filters are a joke). There is good positive pressure because i did a smoke test and it really blows out of a cracked window. So all this extra time to keep a par hvac system healthy is probably not worth it to people who put 1000 hours a year on but if you buy one I’d think about doing it. I’ve sent this stuff on to kubota through reps so we will see if they address it. I did redo the filter on my kx040 to incorporate the same filter as the svl uses. Those thin filters they use for in cabs are a joke.
The evaporator coil probably needs to be cleaned on your AC. The only way to do it correctly is to take the seat out and open up the unit behind the seat, it takes me about 4 hours not to recover the system, remove the seat, remove the AC unit, clean the evaporator with a hose and air compressor, reassemble and recharge. The system isn't designed well as far as keeping dirt out and it will just cake onto the damp evap coil. After cleaning it, I can keep the cab comfortable when it's 100 degrees out.