"The engine is top notch. The transmission is junk. It is too weak, the casing cracked at 1,000 hours with light duty use. On ten degrees of hill (side to side). the tractor will tip over. Even with liquid-filled tires, proper pressure, and 200 pound sub-frame connectors. It is the most dangerous tractor I have ever used. Parts are unavailable - new or used."

"My main concern in the purchase of my Massey 1235 was for it to withstand rather bumpy terrain and not shake apart. The drive train is very rugged and I have not experienced any problems. The Iseki 3 cylinder diesel is a superb motor and runs flawlessly. I am very pleased with this rig and have the usual loader, rear mount blower and mid- mower deck and heated cab. I use it for dirt and wood hauling and lots of snowblowing (Minnesota). Overall I am very pleased with this rig and would purchase another."

"Not a very good tractor, I traded it on a subcompact Massey GC2400 and love the new one. The 1235 is a very powerful tractor the dealer put it on the dyno and it was pulling 35 to 40 HP at the PTO. The specs lie as they only say it has 25hp at the PTO. At 900 hours it started flexing badly in the middle, I took it into the dealer and they found the bell housing was broke. The new part was reinforced so I suspect they had lots of problems with this. The newer 1235's had the newer bell housing. I had a tune-up done and one of the glow plugs broke in the head and that had to be fixed, also since it was 10 years old I had the hoses and belts replaced. $9000.00 later I got it back (a lot for a manufactures defect). Mine had a steel Loren cab and it was to top heavy, I used it for snow blowing (front blower), bush hogging, scraper blade, loader, MM Mower. It worked okay, but it seemed to no be very reliable. It started good in the winter. I moved to a smaller place and traded it for a Massey GC2400 subcompact. I wish I would of bought it in the first place as it is a far better tractor. See my review of it."

"I have had the tractor since 2005 and is a great piece of equipment, only issues so far have been minor rust issues with paint and peeling, safety switches(starting), shifting housing cracked, needed welding, and recently needs a new water pump. Only complaints are ability to find manuals, parts, tires, high price on parts (water pump). "

"Sadly in the UK, compact tractors aren't half as common or prevalent as those in the US, so finding a dealer with any stock, and modern stock at that is fairly tricky - they tend to be either low-spec compact at a lawnmower dealer, or very high-spec compacts destined for Golf Courses or landed estates at an Agri-tractor dealer.Either way, decent advise and support is hard to come by. I spent what I thought was a long time researching things, having bought an 18 acre property, which is in itself fairly unique - having been part of a large 17th century estate until it was broken up, the land is parkland--not garden, not fields / paddocks, but bona fide parkland so a mix of large lawn (4ac), meadow, orchard and ornamental grasses (4+ac) and then assorted tracks, pathways and so on around woods and lake. Either way the mix of land, gradients and sheer volume was going to be more than a bog standard Countax lawn tractor was going to be able to cope with. So dealers talked me up from Countax A-series to Kubota G-series, and finally to the BXs or an out-front machine. However, I began to realize their entire stock revolved around Kubota, and that I wasn't going to get to see the competition unless I went elsewhere. Plus I was horrified at the idea of £12k for a G-series or BX with decks and collectors, or £15k+ for the ST30 they had (which had piqued my interest). I retreated to the JD dealer who didn't want to know I existed, the Massey dealer who wouldn't return my phone calls, and finally the NH dealer who showed me some cracking kit which promptly made the Kubota stuff seem cheap. Sitting at home in misery, I came across another dealer who specialized in tidying up ex-govt and ex-council work stock and selling it on. They had my MF1235, fresh from 3 years duty clearing roads and so on, with an FEL, standard bucket, and a mid-mount 60" deck. I went over to see it and was at first appalled that there were dents and bashes out of the panels - until I looked underneath. It was immaculate. Okay so the operators never cared as it wasn't their machine, but the mechanics clearly did. To add to the fun, the mid-mount deck (3.5ks worth of Ransomes-Jacobsen deck, not the cheaper Iseki/MF one) was brand new - it was bought with the tractor and never mounted. The loader was also piped for a 3rd service (not to mention the spools on the back as well), and I spotted a 4-in-1 bucket in their yard and asked if it'd fit? To sweeten the deal, they got the right quick-hitch brackets for the bucket and swapped it over, and threw in a linkbox for lugging bits around with me... for £9k. 3 years old and 1400 hours. Laughable. What's it like? Blooming marvelous. Very powerful for its size, the Lewis loader is easy to use and likewise pretty powerful (and takes all of 3 minutes to mount/dismount from the tractor which is incredible) and the 4-in-1 bucket has been even more useful than I'd anticipated. Cuts the grass like a dream, drags trailers around without batting an eyelid and has served us exceptionally well for the last 14 months. The biggest downside for me is the reaction of M-F and their dealers. Several I have contacted have insisted the tractor doesn't exist, others that I'm "confusing myself" with the 135 (yeah, right...) and either way don't want to help whatsoever. Thank goodness I spotted the sticker on the ROPS which said "ISEKI" on it... a bit of googling around and oh look, I have an Iseki TF330 which just happens to have red bodywork... hey presto, cheap and easy parts and servicing, job done. Oh, and perception is an evil thing - having been thinking of a Countax, a BX looked big, then an ST looked bigger, then an L or this 1235 looked enormous. Now it looks all a bit small and weedy. Maybe I should have bought a bigger one. "