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| I've explored the limits of this quite extensively. A cheap tractor is only cheap if you don't need to rely on it much and you don't work it hard enough for the faults to appear. I started with a 1466, but it wasn't much of a horse for what I needed/wanted (30' cultivator). However, it was in good shape and cost very little to run. I took the cab off and sold it for $4000 more than I paid for it. at the same time bought a white 2-150 with the engine torn down. I got it running good, but the rest of the tractor had sat too long and was always giving me problems - ended up costing me much more - it did have more guts than the 1466 though. I looked at getting an older case or A/C, but it some strange moment of weakness, sold the 2-150 and traded the 1466 on a 6 year old ($40K) 7110 magnum. Payments were a little exciting, but almost fit for 700 acres. I paid it off and besides oil, filters, one alternator and a serpentine belt, I've done nothing to it. (it does need a headliner now though - another $115 - yikes!) It plants, mows roads, pumps manure, runs a 500bu auger cart, runs an auger, slice dices makes julianne fries... you get the idea.
The bottom line to me is it turns out that buying something just a little nicer than I needed was cheaper in the long run. I base cheaper on cost of the machine, cost of downtime, cost of repairs, cost of your time to work on it, cost of an incredibly uncomfortable/noisy cab, cost of missing family time, etc. Even though we made $8000 payments for 4 years, we had the cash to pay it - I don't think I had been doing a good job of accounting for all the repairs and down time with the other tractors - I couldn't imagine it added up to anywhere near $8K, but it must of been close. We recently upgraded our old versatile 150 (the ugliest one still running) for a newer 256 that had been taken care of. It will be a few years of payments (maybe less if we have some good years), but it will pay for itself. On the other hand, buying anything newer would have never worked for us.
For your acres a higher houred 5x88 caseih, 40 series JD, 8000 series AC (but I don't have much experience), TW fords - they would tend to be in the $15K to $20K range, but you might be happier in the long run. Another point of view is that you don't want farming wearing you out to the point where your in town job suffers (until you can make the switch), so less major repairs, more comfort can make your 250 acres farm much easier and likely more profitable. A $5000 tractor would certainly work, but it would be full of unknowns and wornouts.
Hope this helps,
Pat | |
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Tractors old to almost new?
