Combine and tractor replacement policy

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
I find myself wondering how, why and whose fault it is that machinery costs have become so ridiculously high:

Us Farmers:
What is our actual excuse/reason for wanting it?
Do we really need it?
Is the spec what we need or way beyond what we need rather than what we want?
How have/did subsidies influence our buying strategy?
Keeping up with the Jones's/wanting to impress our peers?

The Dealer:
Clever Salesmanship?
0% finance deal availability? (There is no such things 0% in reality - the Capital cost still has to be paid/accounted for).
Finance and Warranty sales by dealers earn them a lot of extra money. Often more than the actual product does?

The Manufacturer:
Trying to outcompete the competition with better R&D, more gadgetry that is nice but mostly unnecessary?
Influence upon the dealer?
Forcing Dealers to re-tool every time a new product comes on stream?
Bigger and bigger Flagship machines?
The removal of/less pushing of basic machine ranges form certain Countries like the UK


The answer is that it is just a huge and manipulative Rat-Race!
Eventually something has to give!
Or we become old and wise enough to stop wanting to buy/have it!


What actual raising of the spec has actually been truly worth it and/or financially justifiable?
 

Chalky

Member
Dealers must be getting worried about lack of money to allow customers to purchase new machines.where will it all stop
nick...


i have asked the same question of 3 suppliers(interested in the answer);

'in 6 years time, when you look out the ivory tower of (insert co. here)-what do you see....??

Merchant suppliers had been seminared-lectured- had a view.

Big machinery dealer-'what you on about?'.

I truly believe they are living in a self perpetuating bubble of paint, flashy launches and rhetoric-and do not have a clue.

Friend up north waved a cheque at one a few months ago-'look at this' he said. Dealer-'hell thats some brass!!'

Mate told him it was BPS dole cheque-guy said he had heard all about it. Mate said will have nothing written on it in 6 years-dealer asked what he was going to do for money? Mate said he wouldnt be buying kit- again, no idea of direction uk ag going in.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
we need to do something about our harvesting soon but can’t bring myself to even consider new big lexion prices

not sure whats best ! we need a big combine but do not want the big cost !

current machine is hired and cheap/ acre but wont last forever/ maybe sold
What's wrong with a 5 year old combine? If it is well maintained I don't believe there is any more downtime than a younger model. Probably half new price, keep it 5 years or more if it is a good one. What's the average annual maintenance bill on a Lex 770? £10k?

This is a copy and paste of the harvesting part of my machinery costing spreadsheet for 2000 acres of work.
770TT
Purchase Price
180000​
Selling Price
60000​
Years Kept
5​
Depn. Per Year
24000​
Interest Rate %
4​
Interest on half capital
4800​
Insurance
1800​
Tax
Repairs per year
300​
hire
Total Fixed Costs
30900​
Labour cost per hour
20​
Fuel cost per litre
0.45​
Fuel consumption per hour
70​
Fuel cost per hour
31.5​
Repairs per hour
45​
Total Reps p.a.
7500​
Total running costs per hr.
96.5​
Hours
160​
Total costs per hour
289.63​
13​
ac/hr
22.28​
£ acre
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
What's wrong with a 5 year old combine? If it is well maintained I don't believe there is any more downtime than a younger model. Probably half new price, keep it 5 years or more if it is a good one. What's the average annual maintenance bill on a Lex 770? £10k?

This is a copy and paste of the harvesting part of my machinery costing spreadsheet for 2000 acres of work.
770TT
Purchase Price
180000​
Selling Price
60000​
Years Kept
5​
Depn. Per Year
24000​
Interest Rate %
4​
Interest on half capital
4800​
Insurance
1800​
Tax
Repairs per year
300​
hire
Total Fixed Costs
30900​
Labour cost per hour
20​
Fuel cost per litre
0.45​
Fuel consumption per hour
70​
Fuel cost per hour
31.5​
Repairs per hour
45​
Total Reps p.a.
7500​
Total running costs per hr.
96.5​
Hours
160​
Total costs per hour
289.63​
13​
ac/hr
22.28​
£ acre
Is that total hours, or threshing hours?
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
If farmers don’t replace some machines reguLarry there will come a time when you end up with a yard full of worn out knackered machinery.i know of a contractor already experiencing this scenario and I expect there are plenty of others.
nick...
I know of a few that have signed that many finance agreements with manufactures, that unless they can increase their customer workload year on year, they will be completely fooked!
Especially those that aren't a Ltd liability Company.
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
So was it bought because it just happened to be a straw walker that was a cancelled order and the rep 'sold' it to you or you actually went out and looked for one and by luck there was a cancelled order floating around?🤔😂😂
Going against the grain a little bit, that's all!
Rep knew I was thinking of changing, he found one in Zedelgem that had been destined for Sweden, same model as I was looking at, bought before the new season price increases and with the previous years more attractive finance deal, what do you mean by going against the grain ??
 

DRC

Member
Job to know what to do, but I’ve just changed my main tractor at 3000 hrs 2013 model while it still had a good second hand value. Could've kept it another 10 yrs, but where would I be looking then, as I don’t like buying stuff that hasn’t been looked after like I like to look after mine .
Bought a 600 hour 2020 model that still has 3 yrs warranty, that I can afford now, whilst there’s still some BPS.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
What's wrong with a 5 year old combine? If it is well maintained I don't believe there is any more downtime than a younger model. Probably half new price, keep it 5 years or more if it is a good one. What's the average annual maintenance bill on a Lex 770? £10k?

This is a copy and paste of the harvesting part of my machinery costing spreadsheet for 2000 acres of work.
770TT
Purchase Price
180000​
Selling Price
60000​
Years Kept
5​
Depn. Per Year
24000​
Interest Rate %
4​
Interest on half capital
4800​
Insurance
1800​
Tax
Repairs per year
300​
hire
Total Fixed Costs
30900​
Labour cost per hour
20​
Fuel cost per litre
0.45​
Fuel consumption per hour
70​
Fuel cost per hour
31.5​
Repairs per hour
45​
Total Reps p.a.
7500​
Total running costs per hr.
96.5​
Hours
160​
Total costs per hour
289.63​
13​
ac/hr
22.28​
£ acre
The problem is that these are the sort of figures I or Claas would like to show my Bank Manager or to try to convince myself to be able to justify it.
The reality is that we could all easily drive a sledge hammer through so many of those figures, for so many reasons!

A more interesting figure would perhaps be the actual average cost/tonne of grain harvested each year.
Budgets and Actual reality are so often miles apart, usually in the wrong direction, just adding to our debts.
 
Job to know what to do, but I’ve just changed my main tractor at 3000 hrs 2013 model while it still had a good second hand value. Could've kept it another 10 yrs, but where would I be looking then, as I don’t like buying stuff that hasn’t been looked after like I like to look after mine .
Bought a 600 hour 2020 model that still has 3 yrs warranty, that I can afford now, whilst there’s still some BPS.
A full light green fleet now? Or half green / half orange??
 

redsloe

Member
Location
Cornwall
Rep knew I was thinking of changing, he found one in Zedelgem that had been destined for Sweden, same model as I was looking at, bought before the new season price increases and with the previous years more attractive finance deal, what do you mean by going against the grain ??
Looking at second hand combines there seems to be a whole lot more rotary combines about, especially large ones.
 
Job to know what to do, but I’ve just changed my main tractor at 3000 hrs 2013 model while it still had a good second hand value. Could've kept it another 10 yrs, but where would I be looking then, as I don’t like buying stuff that hasn’t been looked after like I like to look after mine .
Bought a 600 hour 2020 model that still has 3 yrs warranty, that I can afford now, whilst there’s still some BPS.

It probably would be worth not far off similar money
 

redsloe

Member
Location
Cornwall
Job to know what to do, but I’ve just changed my main tractor at 3000 hrs 2013 model while it still had a good second hand value. Could've kept it another 10 yrs, but where would I be looking then, as I don’t like buying stuff that hasn’t been looked after like I like to look after mine .
Bought a 600 hour 2020 model that still has 3 yrs warranty, that I can afford now, whilst there’s still some BPS.
I like this. I'm doing the same. Updating now while the money is there to do it and save tax at the same time.
Might update the combine now, because I can, possibly main tractor next year and if need be I can close the checkbook for 5 years easily. With no one interested in carrying on it does make decisions like that easier!
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Not having a pop, sorry.

Impressive output, I'd be interested to see how your field efficiency compares to mine. (Cutting 600ac with a 16yo CX760)
It is the first year with a combine that size, after an increase in acreage, so it will be interesting to see if it will do 13 acres/hr. My old combine did 10. What will also be interesting will be the maintenance costs, but it has a one season warranty and we will do as much as we can ourselves. I guess some years will be more and some less.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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