John Deere Gator Review FROM A REAL PERSON!!! WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN??

hey folks its Josh Stoney Ridge former welcome to the farm vlog today I want to talk to you a little bit about the John Deere Gator that John Deere Gator 825 I to be specific so if you're new to the farm vlog welcome thank you for coming doing reviews like this oftentimes brings new subscribers to my channel I wanted to talk to you about this Gator I've owned it for three years now we just made our final payment it was that 0% interest deal for three years let's just say it was a fairly expensive payment and it's good to have that behind me now I'll walk you around the Gator I'll talk to you a little bit about the things that I'm disappointed in and the things that I like so come on along today and we'll talk a little bit about this John Deere Gator 825 I after three years of ownership here I'm pretty happy with it come on along I'll talk a bit all right [Music] so if you watch my first review of this John Deere Gator it was after about a year of ownership maybe a year and a half and basically I think we had somewhere in a neighborhood of a hundred hours on the machine now we're wracked up to about 500 hours I've been using it around the farm a whole lot in case you don't know about our farm here this is a 200 acre farm in North Central North Carolina set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains I have a lot of hills hollers mud rocks hay goats chickens we had some pigs animals to take care of and the Gator was a very essential tool to have here on the farm I don't know how I would have done without it that being said how does it compare to other side by sides or UTV's well I had the opportunity to drive the Polaris 1000 I think it's called the XP 1000 also had the opportunity to drive the Kubota RTV I believe is what it's called and I looked at the Bobcat which is basically a Polaris and some of your gear guys might not agree but you go ride a Polaris and then you go look at the Bobcat machine and you'll see two almost identical machines I don't know if the engines are the same but they're just about identical I also looked at the Honda I think it's called the Pioneer it's the 1,000 UTV which is absolutely not what I needed on the farm I also had the opportunity to look at the Kawasaki Mule and we went and looked at the Mahindra brand UTV we're not talking about a UTV for riding around on trails we're talking about a UTV for working on your farm and something you could use to ride around on trails we're talking about something that's going to be for fun about 2% of its life and about 98% of its life is gonna be for this for taking care of the farm for hauling hay bales for haul and fertilizer inline feed stuff like that personnel things that you need I'll give you a few thoughts here on what I think needs to be improved on the Gator after having driven the other machines these things are minor nuances as compared to the major things that I didn't find very attractive about the other machines so let's take you around the gator I'll show you a few things that I like a few things that I don't like a few upgrades that I made to make the Gator more user-friendly things that you might want to do if you buy Gator and a little bit of food for thought let's talk about options and features we got the optional brush guard on the front here and their brush guards on the side of the front fenders but we didn't get them on the back on the tailgate area or on the bed area and we really didn't need them this is an upgrade the lights on this vehicle are okay I'm gonna say okay if you want to see 30 feet in front of you but if you're working on a large piece of land you need more light i upgrade it and put a light bar on the front of this thing I'll post a link down below to the light bar you can pick it up on Amazon so the lighting system on this machine from the factory was substandard in my opinion now is that a deal breaker no I don't think so I upgraded the lights I spent probably a hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars with some switches new lights I put work lights on the front work lights on the back so that I can work out the tailgate in the dark which you oftentimes find yourself doing in a farm situation you got to get the job done sometimes it's after dark and sometimes you need a lot of light right now this thing Byam lights it up like Christmas morning for a little bit of an upgrade cost this lighting upgrade was much much cheaper than I would have paid from the John Deere dealership let's start wheels tires and maneuverability guys this thing will get stuck okay I just want to let you know it will get stuck it has an adjustable suspension on it the tires are aggressive I was worried about these tires how aggressive they are I'll bring the camera in closer here in a second but I was worried about how aggressive they would be whether they would tear my yard up or my fields from our pastures nope they don't tear it up they do a very good job here's a close-up shot of the tire tread and this is after 500 hours that's the front and that's the rear right there okay we chose to get the optional high back seats and they're in good shape they held up really good so far show you one feature of the Gator that I don't like this this this thing right here this rod constantly slips out I will say that Polaris has done a better job with compartment and storage in their vehicle another part for storage their storage underneath this hood right here and this opens kind of they have to pull this pin and that pin fold this apparatus forward and then you can access the hood not ideal for a real-world situation if you've got the brush guard on let's talk about fuel okay opener up here down in there is plenty of fuel my fuel gauge is absolutely empty it's totally empty let's talk about the clock for lack of better terms the clock sucks the clock will not keep good time it says it's 156 this clock over months period of time will lose or gain 15 minutes John Deere I think you can do a little bit better job with the electronics I'm pretty sure you can okay let's talk about payload 1,500 pounds towing 1,500 pound weight capacity in the machine now there's a reason why I have this thing loaded down with 600 pounds of fertilizer and lime right now let me show you 600 pounds stresses this machine okay guys now would you expect the suspension to be sagging a bit with 600 pounds of weight in the back of this machine absolutely if I had this amount of weight in the back of that Polaris machine it would really be sagging when I did a quick review on the Polaris machine I had a whole lot of people that liked Polaris that told me well just crank up your suspension just adjust your suspension well this is the factory setting on the suspension here and it's handling the weight just fine the Polaris machine was kind of saggy now when I use a Kubota machine I know it would handle this weight it doesn't droop it doesn't sag it is more of a construction type machine I use the little diesel Kubota if I have to buy a new one of these I'll buy a diesel I didn't venture into loading up the Mahindra machine I didn't even drive it around so I can't tell you a whole lot about that machine but I can tell you the Honda machine has a roll bar that goes all the way back here and it has gadgets it has flip up seats so you can convert the Honda machine from a two-seater into I believe a 5 or 4 seater by flipping up different portions of the bed that's not what I want I don't want a roll bar that extends all the way out here and drops off I can't put a hay bale in the back of it I can't put a round bale in the back of it to go feed my goats or my cows which immediately strikes the Honda from the list the Kawasaki Mule looked like a very tough machine it's set up higher it looked tough it looked very robust and when we go to buy a new machine we'll look at the Kawasaki Mule we'll also look at the Kubota we won't look at Polaris and we won't look at Honda now if there are any other brands that you guys might recommend please leave a comment down below if there's something you're happy with there's something you're not happy with about your Gator please let me know I've experienced several things with my Gator that have given me trouble axles so I'm on my third axle I broke a sway bar in the rear I've been through one belt and one clutch and the belt and the clutch issue was partly my fault and partly my dealers fault my dealer told me this machine and use it use it you cannot hurt it you won't hurt anything with it I immediately bought the machine and started using it on the farm I had some logs cut down out here there were less than 1500 pounds so I told him right up this dirt road with it I brought the belt and the clutch up in it doing stupid stuff so when I did my first review of the John Deere Gator 825 I I didn't have very much nice to say about it I called it an overpowered golf cart now that I've driven the competition this is not an overpowered golf cart this is a good piece of farm machinery so I'll tell you my top three complaints on the gaiter complaint number one I keep breaking axles I'm not sure if I'm working it too hard or what I'm doing but I keep breaking axles and basically the axle joint itself is what's breaking I don't know if it's a substandard product or a substandard part but I keep breaking axles number two the exhaust was extremely loud we had to put a gator silencer on there to silence the Gator and basically it's an extension of your muffler to make your Gator a little bit more quiet we go hunting we ride around the farm and I just didn't want to hear that bad all the time and that's loud it's annoying I don't want to hear it I want to be able to put around here on the farm I'm not going wide open I'm not ripping it up through the trails in West Virginia I'm going through my farm and I don't want to have to wear earplugs to ride a gator so there was a simple solution and all these little lighting solutions and muffler solutions are things that I had to figure out on my own if you decide to buy this piece of equipment you'll know what you can do the third and final issue that I have with the Gator is I didn't buy the right Gator I should have bought the four-seater Gator okay when we first bought the farm we cut trails all over the place and this thing was fun we're riding around now that we've cleared out some land and we've got wide open spaces and we use this mainly for farming and not for fun I wish I could haul more people on it I also wish that I would have got the four seater and I would have got the diesel model the diesel model doesn't go quite as fast it doesn't have quite as much horsepower it has plenty of torque same towing capacity which is based upon the frame in same weight capacity but I think the diesel model would have suited my needs here on the farm a little bit better where this one would suit your needs on the farm and on the trail I'm not really using it on the trail I'm using on the farm so most of the video reviews that you see of a UTV are not farming most of the video reviews you see are riding through rough terrain or going over rocks or splashing through creeks well we'll be riding over rough terrain going over rocks splashing through creeks with a thousand-pound hay bale in the back of it and that's what matters will it take it yes will I buy another Gator yes will I buy a diesel for Cedar next time yes when it comes down to it you want to be able to take friends and family and kids and ride them around and show them the farm without tearing the grass up this thing does a great job so after three years of use and 500 hours on this machine this is the most frequently used piece of machinery on my farm and I'm happy with it is it without its quirks and nuances did it need better lighting yes it needed a few things and needed a few touch-ups a few customizations but am i happy with my Gator absolutely after three years of ownership would I buy another Gator I sure would folks thanks a lot for watching my review today I wanted to give you a no BS review of this Gator what it does the machine that it is and whether it's a good addition to your farm absolutely hands-down I could not do what I do from day to day without this piece of machinery it's used every single day driven every single day started at least 10 times a day and it hasn't let me down thanks a lot guys for watching the Stoney Ridge farm today if you're not already subscribed click that subscribe button click that like button and click that little bell down there and I'll notify you when I post a new video we're basically taking this 200 acre farm that was old and abandoned and we're clearing land and we're planting pasture and we're gonna have cows and we're gonna have goats and we're gonna have a good working farm if you want to come and learn what real farming is all about subscribe to Stoney Ridge farm and click that little bell I'll notify you when I get a new video thanks a lot leave me some comments if you have anything else to add I appreciate it come on back and see me during break [Music] Pierce we had some ways opposed to me stone Tyrion Oh