Buying Advice Doing more with less: JD 2040S

[MrChuck]

Hi there,
I've just joined from Australia and because anything decent is so stupidly expensive down here, we're looking at a JD 2040S for our farm. We have a little Kubota at the moment but it's just not big enough for our requirements. Since the JD (described as a 'decent old chook' by the dealer) is around 30 years old, any gotchas I should look out for with this particular model or indeed second hand tractors in general?

I simply cannot afford a brand new tractor in the power range (and I don't trust the new entrants to the market from the subcontinent and east asia, based on how crap everything else from those places is) so it's going to be something used whatever happens.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

mrchuck

[JD 4520]

It most always depends on the prior ownership and maintenance. How many hours? Check for physical damage to get some insight on how it was cared for. My father in law has the sister 2240 and has 9,000 hours. He's always maintained it well, it runs beautifully, never have had the engine apart, doesn't burn oil, doesn't smoke, its a good machine but anything with that much wear will need some on going care, repair and maintenance that you shouldn't expect out of a 2,000 hour tractor. Just don't be in a rush and if you think its worth it, have a diesel mechanic spend an our or so and give you a good evaluation of the engine and running gear.

I don't think you need to be afraid of buying it, rather do your homework to avoid a bad decision.

[D7E]

When you say 2040S this is what i automatically assume it looks like this . We have had 3 over the years both green and yellow roofs that were all good little tractors just lacked the hyd's of blue and red competitors of the same era