Looking at Buying a YM2420D from TractorCo, Thoughts

[kenmac]

At the time I bought my yanmar, Fredricks also sold Jinma (chinese trctors)
I was walking around fredricks look looking at tractors. No one knew I was going to purchase at tractor.
One of the mechanics that worked there happened to walk outside where I was looking at a Jinma. I asked this person if he were going to buy a tractor, which would he buy, a new Jinma, or a 30 yr old yanmar. He said he would buy 1 yanmar over 2 Jinmas. He said they were going to stop selling them due to so many many problems. That Tom had actually bought several of the tractors back just to make the customers happy. It wasn't long after I bought my yanmar that they stopped selling chinese tractors

 

[California]

At the time I bought my yanmar, Fredricks also sold Jinma (chinese tractors)
... were going to stop selling them due to so many many problems. That Tom had actually bought several of the tractors back just to make the customers happy. It wasn't long after I bought my yanmar that they stopped selling chinese tractors

Similar in the northwest US. A dealer who used to post here said he put so many hours into setting up Jinmas before sale, remedying flaws, that selling them wasn't cost effective. And then after sale some of them needed extensive warranty work in spite of his pre-sale efforts.

In extreme contrast to his used Yanmars from Japan that just got tires, battery, seat, fluids changed, appearance detailing to make ready for sale.

Once on TBN a representative of Jinma, in China, posted that they are specifically designed inexpensive for the weekender hobby market, not for commercial use. That sounded like he meant Jinma is the Harbor Freight of the small tractor market. Like HF, Some Assembly Required before put in service (ie troubleshooting) then random unpredictable quality.

I assume Jinma quality improved over the last decade. But TBN member 3RRL bought one (or similar) then a larger Chinese tractor, and had to repair/replace lots of stuff on both that shouldn't have been needed for either in the first 500 hours. He was a retired machine shop owner and fabricated some of his own replacement parts to get the reliability he thought he had bought. Seemed to me any used 30 year old name-brand tractor would have been more cost effective than his experience. Also most of us wouldn't have his ability to redesign and fabricate parts to replace stuff that shouldn't have failed. Here's one of 3RRL's threads.

 

[kenmac]

I remember reading about a lot of his repairs on both of his chinese tractors ..
This repair was on his wife's Jinma.
He bought a much larger Kama tractor.

He posted about having to replace the stripped out gears on the front wheel drive, and rebuild the engine, after only a very few hours of use
here's the front drive repair. http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...3-kama-554-front-drive-repair.html?highlight=

Or this guy that says the pump has to be rebuilt every 250 hrs
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/chinese-tractors/350041-jinma-284-steering-pump-issue.html

 

[richriddle]

Here's the website several years ago with photos of their source in VN.

Wayback machine April 2004

Then click on:

About our tractors
-- Take a tour of the factory
-----(and click on any thumbnail photo)

A three-year-old post that saved me thousands of dollars......thanks for the education.

 

[California]

A three-year-old post that saved me thousands of dollars......thanks for the education.

You're welcome.

More recently - last year. I found a like-new small backhoe on Craigslist and researched its origin.

See my second post in this thread .....
https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/yanmar/415550-del-morino-res10-baby-backhoe.html

 

[kenmac]

so, they lied about the digging depth of the backhoe. I'm sure they would have no problem about lying about other things as well