I have a Case 1550 dozer that has three hydraulic pumps. One for each track and one for the blade. A year and a half ago, they started to loose power when it was warmed up. It got so bad that the tracks would stop moving when I lifted the blade.
I went to Case and talked to the mechanincs about it. They said it could be just about anything and they needed to have it in the shop to look at it.
After a week of testing and running it, they concluded that all three hydraulic pumps were bad and needed replacing. Cost for this would be $60,000. Since that's twice what the dozer is worth, I declined. I also know from that I can pull a pump and drive moter and have it rebuilt for $3,000. I've done it once already.
They agreed that it wasn't worth the expense to fix it and suggested I sell it at an auction. It ran great when cold and took about an hour for the problem to start. Anybody who tested it out would never know of the problem. What they said really made it a good idea for me is that I'm not liable for it after it's sold. Auctions are for those willing to gamble on what they get. It's almost expected that they will buy something with a hidden problem and they know this going in.
I thought about it, but also just figured I'd keep running it like it is and either destroy it or come up with a better way to fix it. In the end, it turned out to be an adjustment that was out and when it started to get better on it's own, I was able to figure out the problem. It's running perfect now.
My point is that I feel allot of items are put up for sale at auction because it's too expensive to fix them. If somebody had bought mine at auction, he might have really bought a problem dozer. It was a simple fix in the end, but I also had to rebuild the engine last year. So that would have been an issue to the buyer that I didn't even know about at that time.
I think that if he'd bought the Kubota with the hydrostatic transmission that he wanted, the odds are good that it might have had something wrong with it. I'm still wondering why it was for sale at the auction in the first palce. It sold for less than it's worth, and the seller had to pay a comission to the auction house to sell it. If there is nothing wrong with the tractor, you will always get more money for it if you sell it yourself. Maybe it was just one of those things that the seller figured he could get more money for it listing the more expensive transmission? It just seems odd to me.
I'm happy you didn't get a tractor that doesn't run or has major mechanical issues. I think that's very much more likely when buying equipment from an auction. People sell there to get rid of stuff that they don't want to be held liable for down the road.
Good luck,
Eddie
