I would happily go with either brand and honestly most others are very good also (New Holland, MF, Kioti) I guess for some Mahindra is a good value.
But my rational when buying mine new over 15 years ago was:
- Start with local dealers within about 25 miles. At the time that limited to NH, JD, and Kubota. So all in the running and I felt the small diesels they had were all very good. (back than they were all little Japanese ones for everyone anyway). My JD has a Yanmar, been working great for years....
- Next in priority was loader capability. I really bought a tractor to lift and load stuff, only later did I get into food plots etc. Loader capability means lift capacity, roll and curl breakout force, and how high it can lift and dump stuff. Turns out back than the JD loaders had about a 8" advantage on height over NH and better lift capacity. I have no idea if this it true today but saving $2000 on overall NH package was not worth it to me to give up the loader advantages for the same tractor frame size. I got the spec sheets on everything, now its the internet....compare and maybe things are more even these days.
- Next was price and that meant doing some shopping around. I got over a $1500 price diff between a couple of JD options. The big local ag dealership, no price breaks. A local power center big into high end garden tractors and just getting into the Compact Utility Tractor CUT biz was more competitive.
The local Kubota dealer here is just high on EVERYTHING. More on that in a minute....
- Ordered R4 industrial tires. Some really like the R1s if doing only field work but I knew I would be doing gravel driveway work and running down roads to get to land at times. The tires have more plys than R1s and since I was getting 4WD anyway, good enough
- Loaded tires. The beet juice is branded Rim Guard around here. Only some shops are distributors but more are carrying it these days in WI. My choices were a semi-local mom and pop tire service center that does a lot of business with farmers in a small town and the Kubota dealer closer by. Mom and Pop were just over half the price, big difference of a few hundred dollars. Did not buy tractor with tires loaded, bought a weight box instead. Now years later the weight box just sits around, loaded tires are good enough for me and if really concerned add my 900 lb brushhog which really sticks out the back and gives huge leverage for the weight. They were willing to bring service truck out to land to load tires for like $75 extra but I was trailering tractor back to my house to plow snow for the winter anyway so just dropped off at their shop.
If price was better, would buy a Kubota or Kioti no problem....
