Should I buy a 1025r

If you have a need for a loader and/or backhoe then the 1025R is about as small of a machine as there is. Once upon a time Deere (and others!) made loaders for smaller machines. That's a bygone era. I wouldn't say that you have to go with a 1025R but you'd be looking at the same size/class machine from anyone else to get those particular implements. And, if you've got them, you WILL use them.

JimR said:

If you have a need for a loader and/or backhoe then the 1025R is about as small of a machine as there is. Once upon a time Deere (and others!) made loaders for smaller machines. That's a bygone era. I wouldn't say that you have to go with a 1025R but you'd be looking at the same size/class machine from anyone else to get those particular implements. And, if you've got them, you WILL use them.

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I love my 1026r I thought it was to big at first but I WAS WRONG ! I seem to take off the mower at least once a week to use either the bucket or forks. I will say I bought all my machines used and saved a ton of money but always low hour quality items like John Deere and I'm also handy with tools.
I'm also in the northeast this forum is very helpful

1st1026r said:

I love my 1026r I thought it was to big at first but I WAS WRONG ! I seem to take off the mower at least once a week to use either the bucket or forks. I will say I bought all my machines used and saved a ton of money but always low hour quality items like John Deere and I'm also handy with tools.
I'm also in the northeast this forum is very helpful

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yeah same thing herei just traded to a 2025 because I found the 1025r was a little small for the 5 acres I was maintaining with it

I have a 445 and 430 (L&G), both are great with 60" decks and great for snow removal; but neither has a loader (backhoes are not options) and removing decks for maintenance is hard on my back.

I looked at both the 1025R and 2025R and purchased a new 2025R this summer (no backhoe). I absolutely LOVE the Load-n-go ramps. Drive off the deck, attach the FEL, pick up the deck for maintenance or to move it.

I added Bora 2" wheel spacers for stability (my steepest slope is 35 degrees) and have 1,000 lbs. of cast weights in my ballast box.

For snow and mowing, an X7XX will do what you need (like the 4X5 or 420/430 of the past), but if you need a loader/backhoe, 1025R, 2025R, or larger. 2025R works well for me for mowing. I still use the 445 or 430 under a few trees...most of my trees are pruned so the lowest branches are more than 8' off the ground so not a problem with the ROPS up.

2025R is a little more machine than the 1025R with only a $3K or so price difference. Price is negotiable...less so now than a year ago, but if you have multiple dealership (owners) in your area, you have some opportunity.

A plus for the 1025R is how it can fit between trees when needed. Our home place is about 4.5 mostly wooded acres & we had a 3038e when we moved in. It was handy to have when it was available, but it needed to spend most of it's time out at the acreage (~20) for bush hogging. After about 3 years we picked up a 1025R FLB as a "house" tractor so I wouldn't be trailering the 3038e so much. It get used all the time, whether for moving trailers, mowing the development road edge with a 3pt finish mower, or using the loader or backhoe. The thumb added to the backhoe make it great for moving logs for cutting, picking/placing large rocks, etc. It also gets used with a number of the attachments from the 3038e, like the forks, rake, landscape blade & 3pt FEL adapter plate with trailer mover. There is a lot that wouldn't get done if the 1025R wasn't here.

I love my 1025R, don't know how I ever maintained a property without a FEL. There's not much a 1R can't do - It'll just do it slower than a larger tractor and the smaller tires compared to a larger tractor don't make for a smooth ride... but a butt burrito does a great job helping with that. Would I buy one again, absolutely! Do I want a larger one, kinda, but it would just cut down on my seat time realistically - well that and have more FEL capacity, but... to get the capacity I want I'd need a 4 series or larger....

Cedarhillfarm said:

Hi all Deere enthusiasts,

TL/DR- what is the general consensus on subcompact 1025r tractors? Do I need one as a home owner?

I recently moved into my brand new construction home in the northeast. I’m on 6 acres (4 of which upland) set about 1000’ from the road. It’s now just setting in that I have a lot in front of me to set up and maintain the property. I’m considering the 1025r with loader and backhoe at a minimum to clear some more woods, install a lawn, grading, snow removal etc. With packages being quoted at around $30k I’m hesitant to pull the trigger if it’s more machine than I need. Any advice or help in making the call would be greatly appreciated!

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Do you need it??? Well that depends... Do you want to do some yard work around the house? Home repairs? Clear or fix your own driveway (assuming its dirt/stone) The 1-4 series tractors are incredibly diverse and once you start using them you'll find more uses for them that you never thought of before. Rototilling, lawn leveling, driveway repair, trench or drainage digging, stump removal, snow removal, or just moving materials around. I use mine to unload heavy stuff from the back of my truck all the time. I use the loader to carry tools around the yard, or the forks to make a quick tabletop surface outback to work off of. Mow the lawn, rake the yard in the spring. Grapples to pick up stones and trees we cut down. The light footprint they have and extensive abilities make them like a big swiss army knife. As others have said, once you own one you will wonder how you ever got along without it.

Then again, if you have the money to pay someone else to do all the work around your home and property then I wouldn't buy one. Above all the rest, do your homework and research the options and consider the uses you forsee yourself using it for. But the implements upfront if possible with your purchase. Its a lot cheaper in the end. If you can do it. This forum is very helpful for information. Good luck!

The 1025R I had between the two 2 series JDs had some lemon issues and was really too small and had too little clearance for our hilly, rough property. The 2025R is great but with some electrical issues. Both have the driveshaft Ujoint issue of almost impossible to grease by yourself. The 1025R also has a dastardly fuel filter underneath; whereas, my 2025R only has the one in the fuel bowl. It's gen. 1. Not sure what gen. 2 has.

My 2025R has turning brakes. Don't think the gen. 2 does. If these are important (is to me), you'll have to apparently go to a bigger hp 3 series. The lesser hp 3 series still has no turning brakes. I'll be going to a Kubota B2301 next tractor because it still retains steering brakes that are usable (the ones on the L2501 are not).

1025R will likely do 90% of what you want to do. But it will be slow going if you have a lot of land clearing and grading. Bite the bullet, spend more money, and buy a bigger tractor.

The way tractor availability is these days, you'll be waiting a long time (many months) for delivery of most anything you order, and finding one on a dealer lot is very unlikely. When you finally acquire a 1025R it will be easy to find a buyer if you decide to move up, but the long wait starts over again for the 2 or 3 series upgrade. You might as well buy big from the get-go. Once you start using a tractor, even a little one, you won't want to give it up. That is why so many of us do our own maintenance and repairs rather than having the dealer keep it for weeks while it moves up the service line. Tractor service is not like car service - where you take it in and get it back fixed the same day.

The cost of the tractor is just the buy-in price. Be prepared to dump a bunch more $$ on attachments!
I live on a rural 2 ac lot with trees on 3 sides. The loader is good for moving stuff including distributing stone around the driveway. The backhoe (with thumb) helps with drainage, running ducts and (paired with Artillian forks) moving trees for firewood, and the best attachment of all is a Woodmax chipper than totally gets rid of downed limbs. I also have a rear blade, but that hasn't seen much service yet since we didn't get any snow last year.

Cedarhillfarm said:

Hi all Deere enthusiasts,

TL/DR- what is the general consensus on subcompact 1025r tractors? Do I need one as a home owner?

I recently moved into my brand new construction home in the northeast. I’m on 6 acres (4 of which upland) set about 1000’ from the road. It’s now just setting in that I have a lot in front of me to set up and maintain the property. I’m considering the 1025r with loader and backhoe at a minimum to clear some more woods, install a lawn, grading, snow removal etc. With packages being quoted at around $30k I’m hesitant to pull the trigger if it’s more machine than I need. Any advice or help in making the call would be greatly appreciated!

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You're where I was about 5 years ago when I first got sticker shock after the JD dealer I dropped by talked up the 1025R. I honestly walked away from him thinking "great salesman but I'm sure he was just pushing me into something more expensive" because I had come in planning to look at a zero turn. After living on our property, and having two children, I honestly regret not signing the purchase agreement that day though I did end up ordering a 2025R that should arrive at the dealer on the 24th.

First, do you need a tractor? The answer is usually "yes" but you can get by without one as long as you're willing to spend most of your time doing household chores. Yes, you can rent but if you don't have a truck and trailer to tow with then the cost of rental quickly reaches the cost of purchase. I also haven't found a reliable way to predict when I'd need to rent something due to bad weather. So you'll likely own something for snow removal anyways and I guarantee that the tractor will look very appealing after spending days doing something the tractor could finish in hours.

Personally, I'd set the 1025R as the starting point of your tractor research journey. It's hard, in my opinion, to compare between brands but my research kind of indicated that tractors smaller than that aren't really meant to be the only tractor on the property. Like, the Kubota BX1880 is sold as a great "first timer" tractor but at 16HP in the engine and a <14HP at the PTO you're going to quickly be limited in what you can do. The 1023E feels like it's in the same category though it does have more engine and PTO power. You can get by with them but you'll likely upgrade quickly or need to rent a larger tractor for the projects beyond their capability. Hence why I say that they're not supposed to be the only tractor on the property as I expect most buyers have a larger tractor that does the majority of the work and the smaller one for the work the bigger one cannot do.

Just FYI a lot of people will say this about the 1025R as well which is why I say to use it as the starting point.

Finally, I'd say that you should live on your property for a few months to see what you need vs what you think you need. Like, I debated the backhoe attachment for quite a while because while it sounded great I thought "when will I need it?" when the salesman first brought it up. After about six months I had identified at least three different projects that required a backhoe and today I could probably list a dozen or more projects I need it for. Heck, I added a brush hog I wasn't even thinking about five years ago because I realized just how hard some of my property is to mow even with a zero-turn. Who knows what you'll discover you need or don't need after you've lived there for a while.

Cedarhillfarm said:

Hi all Deere enthusiasts,

TL/DR- what is the general consensus on subcompact 1025r tractors? Do I need one as a home owner?

I recently moved into my brand new construction home in the northeast. I’m on 6 acres (4 of which upland) set about 1000’ from the road. It’s now just setting in that I have a lot in front of me to set up and maintain the property. I’m considering the 1025r with loader and backhoe at a minimum to clear some more woods, install a lawn, grading, snow removal etc. With packages being quoted at around $30k I’m hesitant to pull the trigger if it’s more machine than I need. Any advice or help in making the call would be greatly appreciated!

Click to expand...

I ordered my 1025r tractor/loader/backhoe in January and suffered until April going into the dealer's showroom and seeing a 2025r TLB there. The backhoe was the necessity. Renting mini exes was out.

Not sure of the "topography" of your land but for me, other than where the original septic bed is there isn't too much level ground.

Bigger is better until it is too big and for me I needed the lower CG of the 1025r. The downside is that the smaller the tractor the less the ground clearance AND the angle of departure of the backhoe and bracket can make it difficult in steeper areas.

Oh and I don't have a truck/trailer big enough for a larger tractor so the 1025r was the machine.

AND are you planning on one machine for grass and snow removal (plow or blade)? (Generally speaking), smaller machines handle undulating grass better and bigger (heavier) machines handle snow better.

The price differences between tractors (x738/758 garden tractor, 1025r subcompact, then 2025r subcompact) are incremental of a couple of grand but each machine has positives and negatives and deserves a good look... as does a decent used tractor of each of those breeds as well as larger 2 and 3 series.

What's best for your land and your wallet?

Kbar said:

For 6 acres I’d be looking at a 2025R or bigger

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Yeah. I'm on 2-3 acres and mostly use mine to mow the lawn. I've pulled a couple of stumps and use the loader to cart dirt/mulch around. For me, the 1025R is fine. If I had more property and wanted to do more heavy duty work, I'd probably spend a wee bit more and get a 2 or 3 series instead.

Best,

I am on 2½ acres and the 1025r TLB has done nearly everything I have asked of it. There have only been a couple of times when I lost traction before bogging down with this 'lightweight' tractor.
My 10125r and I
backfilled the foundation of the new addition,
spread gravel, sand, and other 'stuff',
plow the driveway and parking area,
grade, til and prepare for new lawn,
fork loads off delivery truck or my trailer,
move logs for firewood,
chip tree limbs,
drill post holes, etc.
Backhoe specifically has been used to
dig trenches,
remove stumps (even large ones)
bury family pets
dig dry well at end of drainage,
plant trees in orchard

Other than the day and a half I used a mini ex for several hundred feed of irrigation line the 1025r TLB has been exactly what I have needed for nearly 6 years.