Buying Advice How Many Hours?

[JimHam]

I'm new here but I've been lurking and doing research on purchasing my first tractor. I have 55 acres of reclaimed mine land on a lake where I plan to build my retirement home. I am looking for a tractor for mowing, some dirt work, maintaining food plots, clearing rock from the soil and maybe cutting some hay in the future. Looking at a budget of about 25K max for my tractor, less if I can do better. Want something with a cab, FEL and in the 80hp range. My research kind of leads me to Zetor, Mahindra, or Kioti. I have a friend who farms and has owned Zetors for years and recommends them highly. Right now I am looking at a '03 Zetor 7341 with 4600 hours on it. Seems to be well-maintained and has a new clutch. Tires are great, cab is fair and it is clean. It is priced at 18900 which would leave me some money to buy implements with. My hang up is the hours. I've been reading up on Zetor on the forums and some folks say a Zetor will go about 5000 hours before rebuild, others say much longer. If I could get 7000 hrs out of that motor I would probably be dead before it is. Would appreciate opinions on the hours, or other brands I might consider given my budget and use.

 

[prs]

Huge variation in how hard a machine has been used or abused or kept-up or neglected.

prs

 

[joeu235]

10K hours is a general rule for the lifetime of a tractor before it needs serious overhaul work.

 

[Utopia Texas]

Unfortunately a hour meter cannot tell you how a tractor was used. 1000 hours mowing in third gear at mid range rpm's is not the same as 1000 hours plowing in first gear at maximum rpm's. My neighbor bought a used round baler a few years back that was washed down every day after use and stored inside. It looked like it was right off the show room floor. Come to find out it had been used to make over 30,000 round bales and every bearing on the unit was worn out and needed replacing. His great deal turned out to be a lot more costly shortly after the next bailing season. See if the seller of the tractor has maintenance records to show it was kept in good working order over its life.