Renting vs. buying a tractor

   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #1  

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Can anyone help me determine which is better - renting or owning a compact tractor? If my tractor usage is likely to be less than 150 hours per year would it make more sense to just rent when needed?

If anyone of you have rented can you let me know the daily rental of the tractor and attachments.
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #2  
2 questions I can think of to ask yourself:

1) how many years will I be renting? (e.g. how economical will it be)

2) what am I willing to pay for convenience? (e.g. what if the rental yard doesn't have the tractor you need when you want it, what if the weather changes during your rental period & you can't get your work done, etc.)
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #3  
My personal experience:

I spent thousands of dollars over the years moving stuff back and forth.

Could have used that on a downpayment.

Think long term! More than 2 or 3 years!
IMHO of course. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
-Mike Z.
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #4  
It depends on how you spread that 150 hours over the year. Rental yards typically rent by the day, week, or month. It's lower priced (on a daily basis) if you rent for longer time periods. If you're bunching up that 150 hours all in one month then you might be better off with renting. If you need to spread that 150 hours out over the year by renting on a daily basis or weekly basis, then it may not be worth it. In this case and as the previous poster mentioned, think long term and BUY. Your purchased CUT will be with you a good 20-30 years or more with proper maintenance. If you had to rent all throughout this time period, you might be dishing out enough to buy two CUTs and they would likely be paid for in full. If you rent over this same similar time period, you'll have expended what you would be spending to purchase two CUTs and still have nothing in terms of ownership.

PS. -- check your local tractor rental yards and get price quotes on daily, weekly, and monthly rentals and then run the numbers and see where you come out ahead financially.

......Bob
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor
  • Thread Starter
#5  
You don't say what part of the country your from but in my area a compact tractor/fel/bb has cost me approx $400 per 24hr when we bought our house rented that 4 times. Have to redo my mothers place and the cottage bought a bx and stopped the lawn service for the cottage $40per week. Looked at the down the road costs so bought the tractor. Buying it allows me to take my time doing projects and not throughing money away and if I don't want the kubota anymore i'll sell it (as if) and recoup the cost I would have spent plus. You have to do your own math and if no one is looking factor in the grins. I've already put approx 150hrs (divided by a 24 hr day that you can't work all of it) last year if I times it by $400 the tractor just got real cheap!

cheers
Tony
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #6  
Better? Owning!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Wiser? Well that's the question.

If you don't turn around and sell it within a couple of years of buying and hold onto it for a while, I've heard it estimated that a CUT ends up costing you in the neighborhood of $15 to 20/hr to own it.
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor
  • Thread Starter
#7  
Taz, I would say are right on that one. It is more convenient to have a CUT in the barn, but you pay for that convenience. The CUT's cost too much now a days for them to be very cost effective for most buyers. However with that said, there are commercial and heavy users of the little beasts, that for them buying does make money sense.

I think for most of us it comes down to WANT and convenience.
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #8  
I put on about that many hours in a year but that's at 30 minutes here, a few hours there etc. No way I could accomplish what I do by renting and it's not practical to "lump" projects together. 150 hours may not sound like a lot but that's pretty regular use and the upside is you get to do things when you want to. Renting makes sense for some things but it's a major pain for others. I think the cost estimate for owning is pretty high. I paid 14K brand new, and assuming a 3000 hour lifespan, which is a LOW estimate, that comes out to $4.60 per hour, not including oil, fuel etc which is a minor cost in comparison. Now a long term lease may be a viable option if they have them on cuts............
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #9  
tractor guy,

Your asking the wrong crowd if you expect someone to tell you not to buy a tractor this is a pretty biased group. We all love our machines....that's why we are here.

I rented several times before purchasing my first tractor and the biggest problem is trying to get the equipment when the weather is right. I was doing a lot of rototilling for a new lawn and if it ever rained I had to pack it in because rototilling mud doesn't work very well. The same goes for raking and many other tasks.

The biggest benefit to owning is that I use the tractor for lots of projects that would never justify renting for a day. If it takes me 1/2 hour with my tractor it may have taken 1/2 a day of hard labor without it. My tractor has saved me lots of hours and prevented many sore muscles.

Pick a color and have fun!
 
   / Renting vs. buying a tractor #10  
Well, an old man, will give you his opinion now. I feel about renting tractors or what ever, about like my wife and I feel about renting a house. In so many years you look back and if you rented, you have a bunch of paper, good for maybe starting a fire, and that is all. If you buy, then you still have it and could sell it for some amount of money anyway. So we own our house, cars, and yes my used tractor, a Yanmar, it will probably out last me even if I live another 20 or 30 years. And I don't have that much in it, and it will still be worth something at the end of that time. Only paid $3800 for the tractor, bush hog, and scraper blade.
 
 
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