Nickname: Anonymous

Scoring: 9 out of 10
Ease of Use: 9
Performance: 9
Financing: 10
Parts Support: 10
Reliability:10

Review Date: 05/02/2007
Price Paid: $15500*
Years of Use: New Owner (0-1 Year)
Model Year: 2006/2007
Implements:I-match; Frontier 5ft rear blade; Frontier 4 ft box blade; 200 CX front loader
Purchased From: Local Deere dealer

Strengths:
Easy to operate. Hydrostatic transmission makes it easy to creep around on steep hills without loosing control. Pretty stable on sidehills, although I try to minimize the amount of sidehilling I do. Good loader lifting capacity. Extra ballast is suggested for a loader work or a bucket full of soil when operating on level ground. Small and very manuverable. I live on a wooded hillside and this thing fits between the trees quite nicely.

Weaknesses:
Loader contol level is located to close to right thigh area. High range is too high to use for anything except flat highway travel. In low range the engine lugs trying to climb my very steep hillside, but it does make it to the top. Its suggested adding some ballast to the tires for doing loader work on a hillside. If the rear tires are uphill the tractor is little tippy when using the loader to pull fence posts. Extra ballast should solve this problem

Overall:
The $15500 price included all of the implements above. This tractor is good comprimise for me. A larger tractor with more power would be great, but then it would be less manuverable and harder for me to store (Oh yeah -- more expensive too). Soooo... overall I am quite satisfied. The loader control lever is a minor quibble.