Tractor purchasing
- Thread starter Jamin
- Start date
- Location
- south norfolk
I expect most hire or lease them and very very few buy them.thats for new tractors.i own mine but they are 14 and 20 and probably worth more than i paid fir them
Nick...
Nick...
farmerbill
Member
Always buy on 2 years finance. Mine at the end of it.
I bought mine !!!
In 1977.
In 1977.
Maybe a survey on this would be good? We've considered different options over the years, but always bought our tractors. Often short term hire an extra or two for potato harvest, though they've come with their owner/operators in recent years.
Prime movers bought new (those clocking over 1000hrs/year) Others usually 4-7yo with sensible hours.
The type and amount of workload tends to dictate change interval as much as anything else - the taty harvester tractor, for example is a more specific spec than say a runabout cart tractor, and harder to source a replacement for should it get majorly poorly at a peak time, so would take priority at replacement time.
Occasionally a frontline tractor will stay longer term in a more back up role, but not often. Two examples here have been a 1979 Ford5600 that once did heavy cultivations, then sprayer tractor, then got a loader for a few years, now just scruffles beet, a bit of flail topping and mans the sawbench);
The other is my venerable MF7480, new in 2006, did 6000hrs in 4.5yrs drilling, spraying, ferting, baling, destoning and harvesting spuds - it then gained a bigger mate to take over the heavier work, and now sprays, ferts and plants spuds. 12300+ hrs on it now. It was £45500 new, whats it worth now? £15500? £30k/12300hrs = £1.21/hr - fair lump cheaper than hire! Its been very very reliable, its repairs wont add 50% to that figure.
My longer term plan is to keep the two prime movers for 6yrs each, paying for them over 3 years, so theres only one at a time to pay for. Circumstances have dictated that they're currently only 17months apart in age, so one will need to go early or the other stay longer to get in that groove. Anyone else follow a set structure? In practise if a machine is still doing its job well and is reliable, it tends to stay longer here!
Prime movers bought new (those clocking over 1000hrs/year) Others usually 4-7yo with sensible hours.
The type and amount of workload tends to dictate change interval as much as anything else - the taty harvester tractor, for example is a more specific spec than say a runabout cart tractor, and harder to source a replacement for should it get majorly poorly at a peak time, so would take priority at replacement time.
Occasionally a frontline tractor will stay longer term in a more back up role, but not often. Two examples here have been a 1979 Ford5600 that once did heavy cultivations, then sprayer tractor, then got a loader for a few years, now just scruffles beet, a bit of flail topping and mans the sawbench);
The other is my venerable MF7480, new in 2006, did 6000hrs in 4.5yrs drilling, spraying, ferting, baling, destoning and harvesting spuds - it then gained a bigger mate to take over the heavier work, and now sprays, ferts and plants spuds. 12300+ hrs on it now. It was £45500 new, whats it worth now? £15500? £30k/12300hrs = £1.21/hr - fair lump cheaper than hire! Its been very very reliable, its repairs wont add 50% to that figure.
My longer term plan is to keep the two prime movers for 6yrs each, paying for them over 3 years, so theres only one at a time to pay for. Circumstances have dictated that they're currently only 17months apart in age, so one will need to go early or the other stay longer to get in that groove. Anyone else follow a set structure? In practise if a machine is still doing its job well and is reliable, it tends to stay longer here!
snipe
Member
- Location
- west yorkshire
Buy
icanshootwell
Member
- Location
- Ross-on-wye
Last year i looked into lease hire over buy, i was better off buying and you own it at the end, i used to buy over 3 years but its got stretched to 5 with new price being a bit on the steep side, even when p/x in you still have to find 50 plus k 
What you end up with is a fantastic tractor you cant repair anymore, so replacement will be 5000hrs and not 8 or 10 where i used to take them.
What you end up with is a fantastic tractor you cant repair anymore, so replacement will be 5000hrs and not 8 or 10 where i used to take them.
Jamin
Member
Last year i looked into lease hire over buy, i was better off buying and you own it at the end, i used to buy over 3 years but its got stretched to 5 with new price being a bit on the steep side, even when p/x in you still have to find 50 plus k
So u change at 5000 hours but still find buying cheaper? I have had a quick look and find if u change below 5000 hours and include a full service contract it is cheaper to hire. I always find u only start to reduce tractor cost beyond 5000 hours and sometimes nearer 7000 but u have the risk of higher repairs
We tend to find theres a case of 'once a pig, always a pig' as far as reliability goes - ie if a tractor is troublesome over say its first 2-3000hrs, it will remain so, you never seem to get on top of its troubles (we had one a few years back top £4/clock hour in repairs!) Equally, if good from the start, they tend to stay that way. For sure, the risk of something wearing out (as opposed to component failure) increases as hours rise, but a new one will also wear out, and the old one isnt depreciating as fast! My old 7480 is now needing odd bits replacing that were last changed at 6-7000hrs...we are learning the lifespan of different parts is at least constant!
multi power
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
Show off, I'd nearly go as far as snob
When I looked at changing my 300hp tractor, the cheapest option was to buy a deck chair and drink gin while a contractor pulled my kit up and down the field.
The downside was getting when I wanted them, I am fussy!!
So sold a 12yr old 6000hr challenger and I bought a 7yr old wheeled tractor with 1800hrs on it for 50% of what a new one would have cost. It took me 2 yrs to find the tractor I wanted.
I only do 300hrs a year in splits of 2 weeks on 2 weeks off due to the system/cropping which is why hiring didn't suit.
The tractor should be good enough to see me out, I am 37!!
The downside was getting when I wanted them, I am fussy!!
So sold a 12yr old 6000hr challenger and I bought a 7yr old wheeled tractor with 1800hrs on it for 50% of what a new one would have cost. It took me 2 yrs to find the tractor I wanted.
I only do 300hrs a year in splits of 2 weeks on 2 weeks off due to the system/cropping which is why hiring didn't suit.
The tractor should be good enough to see me out, I am 37!!
icanshootwell
Member
- Location
- Ross-on-wye
Well there lies the decision, i dont buy into the expensive warranty, to me its a con, for others its a must, there the ones that hire.
- Location
- Northumberlandia
Brilliant Reply...
Id say where all heading this way.
200+ HP is as near as dam it £100k plus now full specced machine.
Farming Cannot justify this hugely depreciating asset anymore.
But at half that money its do-able.
- Location
- Northumberlandia
£3,000 5yr/3200hrs warranty gave me £10k plus back over 5yrs in claims.
even if you add in the dealers servicing Labour only i'll still be on the winning side by quite some margin
Our two frontline machines have 5yr/6000hr warranties, that cost a bit under £5k apiece to top up from the standard ( at the time) 2400hr/3yr warranty. Yes its nearly ten grand, but it covers 12000hr frontline tractoring. Under a quid an hour. Yes there is a bit more dealer servicing than maybe we'd do otherwise, but its only the interim services we'd do on those anyway, so not much, the oils and filters we'd need anyway.
The cheapest we've run in recent years has repair costs approaching 60p/hr. The dearest, a bit over £4/clock hour. The average of those two (given the hours of them both) is £1.85/hr. Not often we reach either of those extremes, usually iro £2/hr ottomh. If they'll do 6000hrs with little bother, generally they'll do a few more fairly safely.
A warranty for half the cost of my average repair bills? What is there to think about?
The cheapest we've run in recent years has repair costs approaching 60p/hr. The dearest, a bit over £4/clock hour. The average of those two (given the hours of them both) is £1.85/hr. Not often we reach either of those extremes, usually iro £2/hr ottomh. If they'll do 6000hrs with little bother, generally they'll do a few more fairly safely.
A warranty for half the cost of my average repair bills? What is there to think about?
Trouble is if everybody is heading this way then where are these low houred machines going to come from, somebody has to buy them and take the hit on them to enable the rest of us poorer farmers to buy at semi affordable prices and even then they are still vastly overpriced..
- Location
- South West
Exhire maybes?