I have alot of hours with a Cat 299c mulching and it seems to perform pretty well. There are a few things that I do not like; the AC is horrible in even mild warm days, the door is a pita to get in and out of especially with mulcher, tends to run hot in the summer when mulching, and of course the track coming off on stumps or ravines. I am considering a kubota, mainly because of price compared to a new cat 299d, but to me it seems like a much smaller machine does anyone how it performs running mulching head. And how is the AC in the cab.... very important in texas summer. Thanks Dustin
The Kubota only has A/C vents on one side of the cab. The Kubota dealer owner I Muskie fish with says the A/C is marginal in Wisconsin's summers. One complaint he hears a lot is that the right side of the cab stays hot and the operators right arms slide off the arm rest from sweat when they're running on side slopes because there is no A/C vent on that side of the cab. there are also lots of openings into the engine compartment through the loader towers where debris gets sucked in and you have to regularly clean out the towers or the brush debris will get between the cylinders and tower and bend or snap the lift arms. I have not seen this, but this is from the dealer owner. he also recommends a roof mounted cooler.
I rent an SVL90 specifically for mulching and can agree with what Digdeep says and will add the following comments. Removing the slider over the a/c intake vent behind the seat helps the air flow in the cab quite a bit. The engine compartment openings would definitely have to be closed off. That's pretty standard with any machine not built specifically for the task. On 90 degree days here in Texas the hydro cooler can't keep up with the mulcher and does slow things down. I would also suggest a roof cooler. My dealer had a rectangular steel swing-out guard fabbed to protect the rear of the machine. It's a great place to store a protected fire extinguisher in a steel pipe mount. They also had a bolt on plate fabbed to cover the cab cleanout between your feet. Apparently one operator had a heavy branch come up through there and caused him a bit of body damage.