How much more would it cost you to buy your tractor(s) today?

[Cahaba Valley Farm]

The reason seems to be too few mechanics and most working replacing parts work. Not enough mechanics doing troubleshoot&rebuild work.

Yeah I'm familiar with this story. The Kubota dealer in my neck of the woods actually hires out an independent mechanic to do all the heavy lifting and surgical work while retaining parts changers for the regular day to day stuff. This same story is also true in other industries. I am in the commercial real estate industry and I have experienced the same baloney. Realtors are our version of parts changers in this business.

 

[scaredychicken]

My 2018 Kubota BX23S with several implements cost me about $37,000 Cdn total after taxes. Basically $24K unit and $13K implements
The 2022 version is $30,000 TLB only (not including fed / prov taxes, totalling 12 %). I think I could probably get $42,000 Cdn if I sold everything today.

 

[rScotty]

So what you're saying is it's a mechanics find not a consumers find.

I guess you could put it that way although it's never really occured to me to separate the two.
I don't see that preferring one should preclude the other.
Build or buy. It's all part of living.
Like watching sports or playing sports. Both seem equally enjoyable while doing them.

What I'm saying is that building or rebuilding is the only way I know of to actually save money.
And rebuilding is lots easier than building from scratch.

Our main tractor costs 40% more to buy today than it did new in 2008, and that's almost exactly how much the purchasing power of the dollar has declined in 14 years. So it would cost us the same today as it did back then.

rScotty

 

[5030]

Scotty, with the current economy, I prefer not to even think about that scenario.

 

[Hay Dude]

Newer versions also come with improvements, but just on my 4 larger farm tractors, I’d be looking at about $750,000 if I bought them NEW today. Used versions of what I have? Probably ~$$250,000, but thats kind of a WAG.
Just happy and blessed I own most of them and my remaining “payment book” says I dont owe much on the one thats financed LOL

The small mowing tractors are both owned, so no worries there.

 

[DonaldP]

I just did a quick spreadsheet on the purchase of my L3560 in June 2020 to the price found on Kubota's website today.

The difference is $8800 greater than it was for the exact same tractor with no differences in the way its configured or the feature set of the L3560 LE as it was then or now. There have been no updates to the basic feature lineup.

It looks like a 17% increase for the 2 year time period, or 8.5% per year.

The base price increased $4219.00 (14% increase on the base model)
Additions and Options added $3977.00 (20% increase on the options)
This makes the average increase of everything 17%.

The BH92 Backhoe itself went up 17%
The sub frame Kits required for the Backhoe went up 16.8%
The LA805 Front End Loader itself went up 17%
The L2296 HD Round Back Bucket went up 17%
The Land Pride SGC 1072 Grapple went up 34.25%
Mics Hardware kits went up 16% to 18%

The way these numbers are looking, it seems like Kubota isn't making changes in cost due to specific "hard to find" and therefore more expensive items.

It doesn't look like they are just passing on the cost in those difficult to source items to specific areas or assemblies, but rather implementing a "blanket" cost increase to cover as much as possible across the board. In this case it looks like a pretty solid 17% increase over a 2 year period.

I don't see Loaders or the Backhoes, as examples, carrying a larger share of the cost increase even though the cylinders in those assemblies are (or were) very very hot commodities due to Kubota's inability to source replacements from factories that were having issues providing these materials across the globe.

The increase of 34% in the Grapple may be from some kind of discounting from the dealer I used at purchase ($2745.00), I cant verify if that was the retail price at the time in 2020, or some discounted magic they did to make the numbers work out)

Generally, that is what the automotive industry had been following (roughly a 10% annual increase) before 2021, when they kicked into high gear from COVID related supply/demand issues. I believe its gone up from there for automobiles....

Don & Carol
"Its a Mad Mad Homestead" on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbrT01hGT_qhy0Mqa62LIYQ

 

[DonaldP]

I guess you could put it that way although it's never really occured to me to separate the two.
I don't see that preferring one should preclude the other.
Build or buy. It's all part of living.
Like watching sports or playing sports. Both seem equally enjoyable while doing them.

What I'm saying is that building or rebuilding is the only way I know of to actually save money.
And rebuilding is lots easier than building from scratch.

Our main tractor costs 40% more to buy today than it did new in 2008, and that's almost exactly how much the purchasing power of the dollar has declined in 14 years. So it would cost us the same today as it did back then.

rScotty

Interesting,

Calculating a roughly 2% built in inflation rate since 2008 gives us 28%. (but inflation was under 2% some of that time).

Its possible the additional 13% increase is from the last 1 to 2 years as inflation has been under 2% for most of the time previous to that.

 

[Bentrim]

About 5 years ago with limited fund bought a 79 MF 245 in pieces for 850. Know the engine needed repaired an slowly as I acquired the parts reassembled it. After completing the mechanical work and starting the engine found the hydraulic pump needed refreshed. After all the work was complete noted that MF 245's were selling for 4 -5 thousand. After adding up the parts that is about what I had in the tractor.
As a former farm equipment mechanic I was always taught to find the problem and THEN fix it. Even back in the 70's and 80's parts cost too much to be a parts changer and hope it fixed the problem.