One problem is that answers are way too subjective, and there are
probably a lot of other variables at play... a lot of "it depends".
You can have tractors with thousands of hours that look like they were
well cared for, don't have leaky hydraulics, etc....
Then you see machines with less than a few thousand hours that look like
some guy drove them off a cliff and banged the snot out of it, etc.
Tractors driven by people without a vested interest in their continued
operation tend to show abuse. Granted some abuse can be fixed,
but whenever you see things like bent steering parts, etc, that the
original owner didn't bother to fix, that's a big turn off. (if they weren't
going to fix something that glaringly broken, what else did they not
bother to fix, and what other maintenance did they decide to
skip? )
Then in the case of value then there is the buyer. Let's put up a
hypothetical... say you have two equivalent tractors, tractor A is owned
by a close friend you trust (or someone similar in your community) tractor
B is being sold by the local dealer, who doesn't know much more about the
thing than who they got it from and how many hours are on it, etc.
I'd rather buy tractor A because I know that a friend would tell me about
little quirks in its operation or any repairs he/she has done. Even if it
costs more for the same thing. Things which are a known quantity
can be more valuable than something that isn't.
I'm kind of a curmudgeon when it comes to the whole resale
value thing. I feel that people buying a (tractor, car, whatever) should
put more effort into buying something that they feel will work for them
and that -they- can extract the most -intrinsic- personal value
from it. Course some of this depends on finances, circumstances,
etc. If money is tight it is tempting to buy tractor X now and then get
tractor Y later. IMO you can save more money in the long run by trying
to buy tractor Y right out of the gate. The only reason not to go overkill
would be that it's going to break some other metric. (eg, weight limits for
hauling, the size of your barn/gate/whatever, or just a maximum $$$ limit
you set for buying a tractor. )
Just my .02... I'll stop now.
-Mike
